Question!

[conuly]

When did Ireland become "everywhere"?

In other news, my uncle very nearly married his first cousin. Nobody had a problem with it. It was a non-event. Well, it would've been, if it'd been an event at all.

Comments

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

The first-cousin marriage taboo is a largely Western European thing, and there's a reason for it. In a country like England, which has limited land and limited gene pool, the ban on marrying cousins made sense. Not enough genetic variation within a family meant the chance of mutation was much higher. From a economic point of view, marrying your cousin was convenient in some respects, but the ban would allow you to break it off if a better match came along, or if the match proved less advantageous than you thought.

Nowadays, studies show that marrying first cousins, except in very remote and secluded areas, is no longer a hazard for genetic mutation, as most families have a diverse enough family tree to survive the pairing. Nonetheless, it's not something that contributes to genetic health, so should not be done on a regular, generation-to-generation basis.

[deceptica]

Our biology teacher used to tell us that marrying first cousins isn't favourable not because of mutation, but because of recessive genetic defects. If you're closely related, chances are larger that both of you might carry the same bad recessive gene, and when you have children together, those children run a high risk of getting the bad gene from both parents.

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

I commented there, and then saw that others had said the same thing. Woops. The problems of only looking at the one thread in your link.. ^_^

But you said the most important thing, which is that cousins can have children without having, y'know, flipper babies or something. But cousins marrying is such a huge joke in the U.S., good for mocking people from Kentucky and whatnot.

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

The first-cousin marriage taboo is a largely Western European thing, and there's a reason for it. In a country like England, which has limited land and limited gene pool, the ban on marrying cousins made sense. Not enough genetic variation within a family meant the chance of mutation was much higher. From a economic point of view, marrying your cousin was convenient in some respects, but the ban would allow you to break it off if a better match came along, or if the match proved less advantageous than you thought.

Nowadays, studies show that marrying first cousins, except in very remote and secluded areas, is no longer a hazard for genetic mutation, as most families have a diverse enough family tree to survive the pairing. Nonetheless, it's not something that contributes to genetic health, so should not be done on a regular, generation-to-generation basis.

[deceptica]

Our biology teacher used to tell us that marrying first cousins isn't favourable not because of mutation, but because of recessive genetic defects. If you're closely related, chances are larger that both of you might carry the same bad recessive gene, and when you have children together, those children run a high risk of getting the bad gene from both parents.

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

I commented there, and then saw that others had said the same thing. Woops. The problems of only looking at the one thread in your link.. ^_^

But you said the most important thing, which is that cousins can have children without having, y'know, flipper babies or something. But cousins marrying is such a huge joke in the U.S., good for mocking people from Kentucky and whatnot.