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A cousin marriage is a marriage where the spouses are cousins (i.e. people with common grandparents or people who share other fairly recent ancestors). The practice was common in earlier times and continues to be common in some societies today.[1] In some jurisdictions such marriages are prohibited due to concerns about inbreeding.[1] Worldwide, more than 10% of marriages are between first or second cousins.[2] Cousin marriage is an important topic in anthropology and alliance theory.[3]
In some cultures and communities, cousin marriages are considered ideal and are actively encouraged and expected; in others, they are seen as incestuous and are subject to social stigma and taboo. Other societies may take a neutral view of the practice, neither encouraging nor condemning it, though it is usually not considered the norm. Cousin marriage was historically practiced by indigenous cultures in Australia, North America, South America, and Polynesia.[4][5][6][7]
In some jurisdictions, cousin marriage is legally prohibited: for example, first-cousin marriage in China, North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines, for Hindus in some jurisdictions of India, some countries in the Balkans, Belgium, Lithuania and 30 out of the 50 U.S. states.[8][9] It is criminalized in 8 states in the US, the only jurisdictions in the world to do so. The laws of many jurisdictions set out the degree of consanguinity prohibited among sexual relations and marriage parties. Supporters of cousin marriage where it is banned may view the prohibition as discrimination,[10][11] while opponents may appeal to moral or other arguments.[12]
Opinions vary widely as to the merits of the practice. Children of first-cousin marriages he a 4–6% risk of autosomal recessive genetic disorders compared to the 3% of the children of totally unrelated parents.[13] A study indicated that between 1800 and 1965 in Iceland, more children and grandchildren were produced from marriages between third or fourth cousins (people with common great-great- or great-great-great-grandparents) than from other degrees of separation.[14]
History[edit]The prevalence of first-cousin marriage in Western countries has declined since the late 19th century and early 20th century.[15][16] In the Middle East and South Asia, cousin marriage is still strongly fored.[17][18][19]
Cousin marriage has often been practiced to keep cultural values intact, preserve family wealth, maintain geographic proximity, keep tradition, strengthen family ties, and maintain family structure or a closer relationship between the wife and her in-laws. Many such marriages are arranged (see also articles on arranged marriage in the Indian subcontinent, arranged marriages in Pakistan, and arranged marriages in Japan).[2][20][21][22][23][24][25]
China[edit] Further information: Chinese marriageConfucius described marriage as "the union of two surnames".[26][27] In ancient China some evidence indicates that in some cases two clans had a longstanding arrangement whereby they would marry only members of the other clan. Some men also practiced sororate marriage, that is a marriage to a former wife's sister or a polygynous marriage to both sisters. This would he the effect of eliminating parallel-cousin marriage as an option because they would he the same surname but would lee cross-cousin marriage acceptable.[28] In the ancient system of the Erya dating from around the third century BC, the words for the two types of cross cousins were identical (甥 shēng), with father's brother's children (甥 shēng) and mother's sister's children (從母晜弟 cóngmǔ kūndì for boys and 從母姊妹 cóngmǔ zǐmèi for girls) both being distinct.[29] However, whereas it may not he been permissible at that time, marriage with the mother's sister's children also became possible by the third century AD.[30] Eventually, the mother's sister's children and cross cousins shared one set of terms, with only the father's brother's children retaining a separate set.[31] This usage remains today, with biǎo (表) cousins considered "outside" and paternal táng (堂) cousins being of the same house.[32]
Anthropologist Francis L. K. Hsu described a mother's brother's daughter (MBD) as being the most preferred type of Chinese cousin marriage.[33] Another research describes marrying a mother's sister's daughter (MSD) as being tolerated, but a father's brother's daughter (FBD, or táng relatives in Chinese) is strongly disfored.[34] The last form is seen as nearly incestuous and therefore prohibited, for the man and the woman in such marriage share the same surname, much resembling sibling marriage.[34] In Chinese culture, patrilineal ties are most important in determining the closeness of a relation.[35] In the case of the MSD marriage, no such ties exist, so consequently, this may not even be viewed as cousin marriage. Finally, one reason that MBD marriage is often most common may be the typically greater emotional warmth between a man and his mother's side of the family.[36] Later analyses he found regional variation in these patterns; in some rural areas where cousin marriage is still common, MBD is not preferred but merely acceptable, similar to MSD.[34]
The following is a Chinese poem by Bai Juyi (A.D. 772–846), in which he described an inbreeding village.[37][38]
In Ku-feng hsien, in the district of Ch'u chou [Kiangsu]
Is a village called Chu Ch'en [the names of the two clans].
...
There are only two clans there
Which he intermarried for many generations.
...
In some periods in Chinese history, all cousin marriage was legally prohibited, as law codes dating from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) attest. However, enforcement proved difficult and by the subsequent Qing dynasty, the former laws had been restored.[39] During the Qing dynasty era (1644–1912), first cousin marriage was common and prevailed after the era particularly in rural regions. By the early to mid-20th century, anthropologists described cross-cousin marriage in China as "still permissible ... but ... generally obsolete" or as "permitted but not encouraged".[39][38] Eventually, in 1981, a legal ban on first-cousin marriage was enacted by the government of the People's Republic of China due to potential health concerns.[40]
Middle East[edit] Main article: Cousin marriage in the Middle EastCousin marriage has been allowed throughout the Middle East for all recorded history.[41] Anthropologists he debated the significance of the practice; some view it as the defining feature of the Middle Eastern kinship system[42] while others note that overall rates of cousin marriage he varied sharply between different Middle Eastern communities.[43] Very little numerical evidence exists of rates of cousin marriage in the past.[44]
Raphael Patai reported in 1962 that, in central Arabia, a man's right to his father's brother's daughter seemed not to he been relaxed in the past hundred years. Here the girl is not forced to marry her male cousin, but she cannot marry another unless he gives consent.[45] The force of the custom is seen in one case from Jordan when the father arranged for the marriage of his daughter to an outsider without obtaining the consent of her male cousin. When the marriage procession progressed with the bride toward the house of the bridegroom, the male cousin rushed forward, snatched away the girl, and forced her into his own house. This was regarded by all as a lawful marriage.[46] In Iraq, the right of the cousin also traditionally was followed.[47] The Syrian city of Aleppo during the 19th century featured a rate of cousin marriage among the elite of 24% according to one estimate, a figure that masked widespread variation: some leading families had none or only one cousin marriage, while others had rates approaching 70%. Cousin marriage rates were highest among women,[clarification needed] merchant families, and older well-established families.[48]
In-marriage was more frequent in the late pre-Islamic Hijaz than in ancient Egypt. It existed in Medina during Muhammad's time, but at less than today's rates.[49] In Egypt, estimates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries state variously that either 80% of fellahin married first cousins or two-thirds married them if they existed. One source from the 1830s states that cousin marriage was less common in Cairo than in other areas. In traditional Syria–Palestina, if a girl had no paternal male cousin (father's brother's son) or he renounced his right to her, the next in line was traditionally the maternal male cousin (mother's brother's son) and then other relatives. Raphael Patai, however, reported that this custom loosened in the years preceding his 1947 study.[46] In ancient Persia, the Achaemenid kings habitually married their cousins and nieces,[50] while between the 1940s and 1970s, the percentage of Iranian cousin marriages increased from 34 to 44%.[51] Cousin marriage among native Middle Eastern Jews is generally far higher than among the European Ashkenazim, who assimilated European marital practices after the diaspora.[52]
According to anthropologist Ladisl Holý, cousin marriage is not an independent phenomenon, but rather one expression of a wider Middle Eastern preference for agnatic solidarity, or solidarity with one's father's lineage. According to Holý, the oft-quoted reason for cousin marriage of keeping property in the family is, in the Middle Eastern case, just one specific manifestation of keeping intact a family's whole "symbolic capital".[53] Close agnatic marriage has also been seen as a result of the conceptualization of men as responsible for the control of the conduct of women.[54] Honor is another reason for cousin marriage: while the natal family may lose influence over the daughter through marriage to an outsider, marrying her in their kin group allows them to help prevent dishonorable outcomes such as attacks on her or her own unchaste behior.[55] Pragmatic reasons for the husband, such as warmer relations with his father-in-law, and those for parents of both spouses, like reduced bride price and access to the labor of the daughter's children, also contribute.[56][57] Throughout Middle Eastern history, cousin marriage has been both praised and discouraged by various writers and authorities.[58]
A 2009 study found that many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and that first cousin marriages may reach 25–30% of all marriages.[59] In Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, rates of consanguineous marriages are increasing in the current generation.[60]
Middle Eastern parallel-cousin marriage[edit]Andrey Korotayev claimed that Islamization was a strong and significant predictor of parallel cousin (father's brother's daughter – FBD) marriage, bint 'amm marriage. He has shown that while a clear functional connection exists between Islam and FBD marriage, the prescription to marry a FBD does not appear to be sufficient to persuade people to actually marry thus, even if the marriage brings with it economic advantages. According to Korotayev, a systematic acceptance of parallel-cousin marriage took place when Islamization occurred together with Arabization.[61]
Africa[edit]Cousin marriage rates from most African nations outside the Middle East are unknown. An estimated 35–50% of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefer or accept cousin marriages.[62] In Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa, the three largest ethnic groups in order of size are the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.[63] The Hausa are overwhelmingly Muslim, though followers of traditional religions do exist. Muslim Hausas practice cousin marriage preferentially, and polygyny is allowed if the husband can support multiple wives.[64] The book Baba of Karo presents one prominent portrayal of Hausa life: according to its English coauthor, it is unknown for Hausa women to be unmarried for any great length of time after around the age of 14.[65] Divorce can be accomplished easily by either the male or the female, but females must then remarry.[66] Even for a man, lacking a spouse is looked down upon.[67] Baba of Karo's first of four marriages was to her second cousin. She recounts in the book that her good friend married the friend's first cross cousin.[68]
50% of the Yoruba people are Muslim, 40% Christian and 10% adherent of their own indigenous religious traditions.[69] A 1974 study analyzed Yoruba marriages in the town Oka Akoko, finding that among a sample of highly polygynous marriages hing an erage of about three wives, 51% of all pairings were consanguineous. These included not only cousin marriages but also uncle-niece unions. Reportedly, it is a custom that in such marriages at least one spouse must be a relative, and generally such spouses were the preferred or forite wives in the marriage and ge birth to more children. However this was not a general study of Yoruba, but only of highly polygynous Yoruba residing in Oka Akoko.[70]
The Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria, who are predominantly Christian, strictly practice non-consanguineal marriages, where kinfolks and cousins are not allowed to marry or he intimacy. Consequently men and women are forbidden to marry within their recent patrilineage and matrilineage. Before the advent of Christianity through colonization, the Igbos had always frowned upon and specifically prohibited consanguineal marriages, both the parallel and cross-cousin types, which are considered incestuous and cursed. Arranged marriages, albeit in great decline, were also to consciously prevent accidental consanguineal and bad marriages, such that the impending in-laws were aware of each other's family histories. Currently, as in the old days, before courtship commences thorough enquiries are made by both families not only to ascertain character traits but to also ensure their children are not related by blood. Traditionally parents closely monitor those with whom their children are intimate to oid them committing incest. It is customary for parents to bring their children up to know their immediate cousins and, when opportune, their distant cousins. They encourage their adult children to disclose their love interests for consanguineal screening.[71]
In Ethiopia most of the population was historically rigidly opposed to cousin marriage and could consider up to third cousins the equivalent of brother and sister, with marriage at least ostensibly prohibited out to sixth cousins.[72] They also took affinal prohibitions very seriously. The prospect of a man marrying a former wife's 'sister' was seen as incest, and conversely for a woman and her former husband's 'brother'.[73] Though Muslims make up more than a third of the Ethiopian population and Islam has been present in the country since the time of Muhammad, cross-cousin marriage is very rare among most Ethiopian Muslims.[74] In contrast to the Nigerian situation, in Ethiopia Islam cannot be identified with a particular ethnicity and is found across most of them, and conversions between religions are comparatively common.[75] The Afar practice a form of cousin marriage called absuma, which is arranged at birth and can be forced.[76]
Catholic Church and Europe[edit] The number next to each box in the Table of Consanguinity indicates the degree of relationship relative to the given person according to Roman law.Roman civil law prohibited marriages within four degrees of consanguinity.[77] This was calculated by counting up from one prospective partner to the common ancestor, then down to the other prospective partner.[78] Early Medieval Europe continued the late Roman ban on cousin marriage. Under the law of the Catholic Church, couples were also forbidden to marry if they were within four degrees of consanguinity.[79] According to anthropologist Joseph Henrich, centuries of this relentless religious pressure eventually caused kinship networks in Western Europe to decline and be replaced by a large variety of voluntary associations based on shared interests and abstract rules (e.g. charter towns, professional guilds, and universities).[80]
In the 9th century, the church raised the number of prohibited degrees to seven and changed the method by which they were calculated. Instead of the former practice of counting up to the common ancestor and then down to the proposed spouse, the new law computed consanguinity by counting only back to the common ancestor.[81] In the Catholic Church, unknowingly marrying a closely consanguineous blood relative was grounds for a declaration of nullity. But during the 11th and 12th centuries, dispensations were granted with increasing frequency due to the thousands of persons encompassed in the prohibition at seven degrees and the hardships this posed for finding potential spouses.[82] Eventually, the nobility became too interrelated to marry easily as the local pool of unrelated prospective spouses became smaller; increasingly, large payments to the church were required for exemptions ("dispensations"), or retrospective legitimizations of children.[83]
14th-century miniature of a tree illustrating the kinds of blood relatives and common ancestry which made marriage impossible and contracted marriages null.In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council reduced the number of prohibited degrees of consanguinity from seven back to four.[84][85] After 1215, the general rule was that while fourth cousins could marry without dispensation, the need for dispensations was reduced.[82]
For example, the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain was a first-cousin marriage on both sides.[86] It began to fall out of for in the 19th century as women became socially mobile. Only Austria, Hungary, and Spain banned cousin marriage throughout the 19th century, with dispensations being ailable from the government in the last two countries.[87] First-cousin marriage in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin to be 3.5% for the middle classes and 4.5% for the nobility, though this had declined to under 1% during the 20th century.[88] Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were a preeminent example.[89][90]
The 19th-century academic debate on cousin marriage developed differently in Europe and America. The writings of Scottish deputy commissioner for lunacy Arthur Mitchell claiming that cousin marriage had injurious effects on offspring were largely contradicted by researchers such as Alan Huth and George Darwin.[91][92] In fact, Mitchell's own data did not support his hypotheses and he later speculated that the dangers of consanguineous marriage might be partly overcome by proper living.[citation needed] Later studies by George Darwin found results that resemble those estimated today. His father, Charles Darwin – who married his first cousin – had initially speculated that cousin marriage might pose serious risks, but perhaps in response to his son's work, these thoughts were omitted from a later version of the book they published. When a question about cousin marriage was eventually considered in 1871 for the census, according to George Darwin, it was rejected on the grounds that the idle curiosity of philosophers was not to be satisfied.[93] In Southern Italy, cousin marriage was a usual tradition in regions such as Calabria and Sicily, where first-cousin marriage in the 1900s was near to 50 percent of all marriages.[94] Cousin marriage to third cousins is allowed and considered forably in Greece.[95]
Ancient Europe[edit]Cousin marriage was legal in ancient Rome from the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), until it was banned by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in 381 in the West, and until after the death of Justinian (565) in the East,[96][97] but the proportion of such marriages is not clear. Anthropologist Jack Goody said that cousin marriage was a typical pattern in Rome, based on the marriage of four children of Emperor Constantine to their first cousins and on writings by Plutarch and Livy indicating the proscription of cousin marriage in the early Republic.[98] Professors Brent Shaw and Richard Saller, however, counter in their more comprehensive treatment that cousin marriages were never habitual or preferred in the western empire: for example, in one set of six stemmata (genealogies) of Roman aristocrats in the two centuries after Octian, out of 33 marriages, none was between first or second cousins. Such marriages carried no social stigma in the late Republic and early Empire. They cite the example of Cicero attacking Mark Antony not on the grounds of cousin marriage, but instead on grounds of Antony's divorce.
Shaw and Saller propose in their thesis of low cousin marriage rates that as families from different regions were incorporated into the imperial Roman nobility, exogamy was necessary to accommodate them and to oid destabilizing the Roman social structure. Their data from tombstones further indicate that in most of the western empire, parallel-cousin marriages were not widely practiced among commoners, either. Spain and Noricum were exceptions to this rule, but even there, the rates did not rise above 10%.[99] They further point out that since property belonging to the nobility was typically fragmented,[clarification needed] keeping current assets in the family offered no advantage, compared with acquiring it by intermarriage. Jack Goody claimed that early Christian marriage rules forced a marked change from earlier norms to deny heirs to the wealthy and thus to increase the chance that those with wealth would will their property to the Church. Shaw and Saller, however, believe that the estates of aristocrats without heirs had previously been claimed by the emperor, and that the Church merely replaced the emperor. Their view is that the Christian injunctions against cousin marriage were due more to ideology than to any conscious desire to acquire wealth.[99]
For some prominent examples of cousin marriages in ancient Rome, such as the marriage of Augustus' daughter to his sister's son, see the Julio-Claudian family tree. Marcus Aurelius also married his maternal first cousin Faustina the Younger, and they had 13 children. Cousin marriage was more frequent in ancient Greece, and marriages between uncle and niece were also permitted there.[3] One example is King Leonidas I of Sparta, who married his half-niece Gorgo. A Greek woman who became epikleros, or heiress with no brothers, was obliged to marry her father's nearest male kin if she had not yet married and given birth to a male heir. First in line would be either her father's brothers or their sons, followed by her father's sisters' sons.[100]
Early medieval[edit]According to Goody, cousin marriage was allowed in the newly Christian and presumably also pre-Christian Ireland, where an heiress was also obligated to marry a paternal cousin. From the seventh century, the Irish Church only recognized four degrees of prohibited kinship, and civil law fewer. This persisted until after the Norman conquests in the 11th century and the synod at Cashel in 1101.[101] In contrast, contemporary English law was based on official Catholic policy, and Anglo-Norman clergy often became disgusted with the Irish "law of fornication".[102] Ironically, within less than a hundred years of the Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland the Catholic Church reformed Canon Law on cousin marriage at the Fourth Lateran Council, with the effect bringing the Catholic Church's teaching back into alignment with the Irish Church and the original Christian Church's teachings. The Catholic Churches' teachings had proved unworkable in practice as they required people to know, and not marry, all relations back as far as their common Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents (i.e. as far as their sixth cousins) or else purchase a dispensation from the church.[103] Finally, Edward Westermarck states that marriage among the ancient Teutons was apparently prohibited only in the ascending and descending lines and among siblings.[104]
United States[edit]Anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer argues that marriage prohibitions were introduced to maintain the social order, uphold religious morality, and safeguard the creation of fit offspring.[105] Writers such as Noah Webster (1758–1843) and ministers such as Philip Milledoler (1775–1852) and Joshua McIlvaine helped lay the groundwork for such viewpoints well before 1860. This led to a gradual shift in concern from affinal unions, such as those between a man and his deceased wife's sister, to consanguineous unions. By the 1870s Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) was writing about "the advantages of marriages between unrelated persons" and the necessity of oiding "the evils of consanguine marriage", oidance of which would "increase the vigor of the stock". To many (Morgan included), cousin marriage, and more specifically parallel-cousin marriage, was a remnant of a more primitive stage of human social organization.[106] Morgan himself had married his cousin in 1853.[107]
In 1846 Massachusetts Governor George N. Briggs appointed a commission to study mentally disabled people (termed 'idiots') in the state. This study implicated cousin marriage as responsible for idiocy. Within the next two decades, numerous reports (e.g. one from the Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylum) appeared with similar conclusions: that cousin marriage sometimes resulted in deafness, blindness and idiocy. Perhaps most important was the report of physician Samuel Merrifield Bemiss for the American Medical Association, which concluded cousin inbreeding does lead to the "physical and mental deprivation of the offspring". Despite being contradicted by other studies such as those of George Darwin and Alan Huth in England and Robert Newman in New York, the report's conclusions were widely accepted.[108]
These developments led to 13 states and territories passing cousin marriage prohibitions by the 1880s. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play a signigicant direct role in the bans. George Louis Arner in 1908 considered the ban a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he thought would eventually be replaced by more refined techniques. By the 1920s the number of bans had doubled.[11] Since that time Kentucky (1943) and Texas he banned first-cousin marriage, and since 1985 Maine has mandated genetic counseling for marrying cousins to minimize the risk of any serious health defects for their children. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws unanimously recommended in 1970 that all such laws should be repealed, but no state has dropped its prohibition.[9][20][109]
Legal status[edit] Laws regarding first-cousin marriage around the world. First-cousin marriage legal Allowed with restrictions Legality dependent on religion or culture2 Banned with exceptions Statute bans marriage, but not crime Criminal offense No ailable data 1For information on US states see the map below. 2See sections on India and Hinduism. East Asia[edit]In the Far East, South Korea is especially restrictive with bans on marriage out to third cousins. Also, South Korea prohibited marriages between couples with the same surname and region of origin until 1997.[110]
North Korea also prohibit marriage out to third cousins. Taiwan prohibit marriage out to second cousins.[111]
China has prohibited first cousin marriage since 1981 (but not prohibits marriage of second cousin or first cousin once removed).[112] According to the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 7, "No marriage may be contracted under any of the following circumstances: (1) if the man and the woman are lineal relatives by blood, or collateral relatives by blood up to the third degree of kinship."[113] This was then codified in the Civil Code, which takes effect in 2021, as its Article 1048.
Unlike mainland China, the two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong[114] and Macau,[115] place no restrictions on marriage between cousins.
Japan also allows first cousin marriage.[116]
Controversy over South Korean legal provisions[edit]South Korea is especially restrictive with bans on marriage out to third cousins. This is the broadest legal scope for consanguineous marriage anywhere in the world.[citation needed] These legal provisions are likely to become the source of legal disputes in the future, as the scope of "relatives" that South Korean people actually recognise has become extremely narrow as South Korean society has become more nuclear-based.[117]
For example, a couple might marry without knowing that they are third cousins, making their marriage invalid under the law. A person in such a position filed a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court of Korea over this matter.[118] The court ruled that the ban was constitutional, but overturned the legal provisions invalidating a marriage that had already taken place.[119]
Accordingly, the Ministry of Justice conducted a study to review narrowing the scope of relatives subject to the current marriage ban (from third cousin to first cousin), but according to a public opinion poll conducted by the Ministry of Justice, 75% of those who responded that the appropriate scope of the ban was "within third cousins, as is the current law", followed by within second cousins (15%) and first cousins (5%).[120]
Southeast Asia[edit]Vietnam prohibits marriage out to second cousins.[121][122] First cousin marriage (but not second cousin marriage or first cousin once removed marriage) is also prohibited in the Philippines.[9][123]
However, first cousin marriage is allowed in most countries in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, and Thailand, even unculate marriage (uncle/aunt-niece/nephew marriage) is allowed in Malaysia and Thailand.
United States[edit] Laws regarding first-cousin marriage in the United States First-cousin marriage is legal Allowed with requirements Banned with exceptions1 Statute bans marriage1 Criminal offense1 1Some US states recognize marriages performed elsewhere, especially when the spouses were not residents of the state when married.[clarification needed] Further information: Cousin marriage law in the United StatesSeveral states of the United States prohibit cousin marriage.[124][125][126] As of February 2025[update], 24 U.S. states prohibit marriages between first cousins, 18 U.S. states allow marriages between first cousins, and eight U.S. states (Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin) allow only some marriages between first cousins.[8] North Carolina allows first cousin marriage as long as the applicants for marriage are not rare double first cousins, meaning cousins through both parental lines. First cousin marriage is a criminal offense in eight states (Arizona, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin). Six states (Kentucky, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin) prohibit first-cousin-once-removed marriages.[12] Kentucky[127] and Nevada[128] are the only two states that prohibit marriages between second cousins. New York is the only state that allows unculate marriage (uncle/aunt-niece/nephew marriage).[129] (Rhode Island also allows unculate marriage, but only for a Jewish uncle and niece[130]) Some states prohibiting cousin marriage recognize cousin marriages performed in other states, but despite occasional claims that this holds true in general,[131] laws also exist that explicitly void all foreign cousin marriages or marriages conducted by state residents out of state.[132]
United Kingdom[edit]In December 2024, a Conservative MP, Richard Holden called for first-cousin marriage to be banned in the United Kingdom. Holden cited research which indicates that children born to first cousins are around twice as likely to inherit a serious disorder compared to those born to unrelated parents. In reply, independent MP Iqbal Mohamed acknowledged that there were health risks associated with cousin marriage, but argued that a ban would be ineffective. Mohamed suggested that educational programmes raising awareness of the risks would he more impact.[133]
Prevalence[edit]World map showing prevalence of marriage between cousins, up to and including second cousins, according to data published in 2012 by the United States National Center for Biotechnology Information.[134]
Cousin marriages (second-degree cousins or closer) in the world, in percentage (%).[135][136]