Cousin Marriage Bans?

[Mr Skeptic]

So, what IS the primary role of government in marriage? Is it to regulate implied contracts and privileges, or is it to define who gets to couple with one another at all?

 

I suspect that the role of government is to enforce the will of the people. This includes long term (ie, Constitution) and short term (ie, current popularity), and some common sense. The definition of "marriage" may require the government to include who can marry (if that is part of the definition), but even if that were the case, they could still grant same-sex couples equivalent protections and privileges under a different name -- if that is the will of the people.

 

Edit: Misread some of iNow's post. Marriage between male and female has always (to my knowledge) been recognized as a marriage, no matter the blood relation, nor how disgusting or abhorrent it may have been considered. Eg the play Oedipus. So in the case of cousins marrying, the definition of marriage would not be a hindrance. Sorry for the mistake

Edited January 7, 2009 by Mr Skeptic
misreading

[iNow]

I suspect that the role of government is to enforce the will of the people. This includes long term (ie, Constitution) and short term (ie, current popularity), and some common sense. The definition of "marriage" may require the government to include who can marry (if that is part of the definition), but even if that were the case, they could still grant same-sex couples equivalent protections and privileges under a different name -- if that is the will of the people.

 

I am somewhat confused by your response, as it didn't really address my inquiry (or, if it did, I am missing something).

 

You seem to be arguing that the role of government is primarily to uphold the tyranny of the majority, and that as long as the majority wants to allow first cousins to marry, it's okay... We'd just have to call it something other than marriage, like a "kinsperson union?" That's really strange to me, but okay. I don't think it's on point anyway.

 

My question was more specific. Is the primary role of the government to set a framework for the implied contracts and privileges of the relationship itself, or to determine who is allowed to be in that relationship? I recognize they are not mutually exclusive, but I am asking about priorities and primary intent.

[SkepticLance]

iNow

The answer is both.

This is not the way it should be. Marriage at its root is simply an agreement between two people to be together and to adhere to certain standards, such as love, fidelity, or whatever the agreement may be. It is based on human instinct, and has been a part of human culture since before we were toughing it out with the neanderthals to see who would be top dog.

 

Government should stay out of it. Such agreements are intensely personal, and are set up to meet individual and cultural needs. Even property rights between married couples - whatever their nature - should be a result of the agreement set up between them, and not be something foisted upon them by the totalitarianism of busybody government. It is not difficult to write up a contract.

 

However, governments are set up by power hungry people - otherwise known as politicians - who like to control people's lives. Hence the legal framework of marriage.

 

If first cousins want to marry, that should be their personal choice. If a same sex couple wants to marry, ditto. Placing legal limitations is simply power mad politicians exercising their ability to be tyrants.

[Mr Skeptic]

I am somewhat confused by your response, as it didn't really address my inquiry (or, if it did, I am missing something).

 

My apologies; I misread your post.

 

You seem to be arguing that the role of government is primarily to uphold the tyranny of the majority, [...]

 

To enforce the will of the people... hopefully, the people won't be tyrants. In any case, it was the will of the people to ensure protection from a tyranny of the majority, via the Constitution. Of course, if the people wanted to remove those protections, they could. The people we choose to govern us are responsible both for doing what is good for us (whether we want it or not), and for either doing what the people want or giving a satisfactory explanation as to why they did not (the latter only if they want to get re-elected). If the government is not answerable to its people we would have an authoritarian government, which IMO would be a bad thing. There is a continuum from tyranny of the majority to absolute ruler. Since we are well educated, I'd say we're better off toward the majority side of that continuum. Maybe it is more a triangle than a continuum, with anarchy/individualism at another corner. Maybe I'm rambling...

 

My question was more specific. Is the primary role of the government to set a framework for the implied contracts and privileges of the relationship itself, or to determine who is allowed to be in that relationship? I recognize they are not mutually exclusive, but I am asking about priorities and primary intent.

 

Yes. The government is responsible for both those aspects. I think that the government needs to focus on who can get married, since everyone seems to be pretty much in agreement about the other aspects of marriage.

[iNow]

Such agreements are intensely personal, and are set up to meet individual and cultural needs. Even property rights between married couples - whatever their nature - should be a result of the agreement set up between them, and not be something foisted upon them by the totalitarianism of busybody government. It is not difficult to write up a contract.

Oh, I quite agree that it's rather easy, and I also find myself aligned with the overall tenor of your post, but I think you'll concede that most couples do NOT write contracts regarding their relationship, even when children are involved. For this reason, there needs to be a consistent framework for rulings and privileges, as there are implied contracts with every relationship, despite the overwhelming probability of those relationships and marriages to be lacking an official written one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My question was more specific. Is the primary role of the government to set a framework for the implied contracts and privileges of the relationship itself, or to determine who is allowed to be in that relationship?[/quote']Yes. The government is responsible for both those aspects.

You'll notice that I intentionally posed the question as a forced choice (this is a classic approach in psychological questionnaires). There is no "option C" available to you. It's intentionally phrased to force a choice between one of the two options presented.

 

Would it be an accurate representation of your position to say that the primary role of marriage regulation by the government is to define who can enter into the marriage? Or, would it be an accurate representation of your position to say that the primary role of marriage regulation by the government is to set a consistent framework for the implied contracts and privileges of the relationship itself?

[ParanoiA]

Or, would it be an accurate representation of your position to say that the primary role of marriage regulation by the government is to set a consistent framework for the implied contracts and privileges of the relationship itself?

 

I know you didn't ask me, but this is exactly how I see it. Further, is largely why I don't see an issue with cousins marrying - or any familial union. Marriage is one thing, procreation is another. While I appreciate the presumption of procreation, there's nothing inherent in the title of marriage to dictate that. So I see no justification for any of us to restrict this union because of our normative value systems.

 

On the other hand, if we really do believe that genetic issues are sufficient to give ourselves the authority to regulate sexual partners and/or parents, then it should be consistent and that treatment extended to other health complications, like Downs Syndrome and etc. We have to acknowledge that many times this procreation will not result in any health problems at all - so, we're obviously eliminating potentially sound offspring based on a statistical probability. It disgusts me to think we would follow through with that.

 

So, marriage should not be restricted for these folks, in my opinion, regardless. Familial sexual reproduction is the only remotely legitimate point of contention and that invites bias not currently reconciled with other examples of sexual reproduction that produce similar, predictable health problems. When folks are ready to start preventing the birth of all children with defects, then they can talk.

 

I, of course, will then leave the planet. It would only be a matter of time and twisted intellect before negative eugenics becomes the norm - purely slippery slope panic there I realize, but plausible nonetheless.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

The people we choose to govern us are responsible both for doing what is good for us (whether we want it or not), and for either doing what the people want or giving a satisfactory explanation as to why they did not (the latter only if they want to get re-elected). If the government is not answerable to its people we would have an authoritarian government, which IMO would be a bad thing.

 

Well, wait a second though. Are you saying their job is to do what they believe is good for us based on unknowables? Or to do what they believe is good for us regardless of what we know? One implies a national security scenario, limited access to intelligence, but the other implies a parental condescension.

 

I think I can appreciate the line you're straddling, but my libertarian threat-o-meter is going off here. It may be a statesman's role to do what they believe is right, ergo going against the plurality of the public, but I would never define the government's role to include dismissing its citizens' will.

[SkepticLance]

Marriage is not an invention of government, whether for the good of the people or not. Marriage is a human instinct, demonstrated by the fact that it is a norm for all human societies. Whether government acted or not, we would have marriage.

 

The question is whether government contributes anything positive to what is happening already. I doubt it. Governments tend to reflect the prejudices of the voters, and act to repress minorities, when the majority of the voters dislike said minorities. This is less apparent in the so-called free world, but still exists.

 

I am not a liberalist, since I distrust extreme views. There is a balance between extreme liberalism and repression that should be socially optimal. However, the optimal balance point varies according to the issue. In marriage, I think moving the balance towards more freedom of choice is the way to go.

[tvp45]

Social scientist might beg to differ. According to sociologist John J. Macionis, "Because family ties define people's rights and obligations toward one another, reproduction between close relatives would hopelessly confuse kinship." Which makes sense that if my aunt became my mother in law and my uncle my father in law the relationship and the expected interactions between our families would be confused. If I then had a kid would my uncle be their grandfather or their second uncle. The roles played by a grandparent are incredible different than those played by a second uncle/aunt. The confusion caused by the role conflict would possible destabilize our social structure.

 

Although that was probably part of the reason for the ban on close affinity marriages, the experience of the early Nantucket settlers shows this to not necessarily be a problem. For perhaps a hundred years there were only about ten families and there was a feud. Add the de facto requirement that Quakers must marry within their monthly meeting and you start to see the problem. Though my line left the island in the 1770s, I can trace relationships to many others by more than a half dozen ways. I would judge that most people in those early families had multiple relationships to their spouse. It caused no particular problem, though I should note that these Quakers seldom died intestate. It's also worth noting that most people in my extended family have similar large crooked noses, so there may have been a downside.

[DrDNA]

I've seen 'Deliverance' at least ten times. so I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on this issue.

My expert opinion is, I'm completely again' it.

Also, cats and dogs should not be allowed to congregate.

It just ain't natural.

 

PS: Takin your cousin to the senior prom should not be illegal, but pokin fun at, and harassment of, the parties involved in such activity should be permitted and even actively encouraged.

[iNow]

And what faults did you find with the study cited in the OP? Does Deliverance have anything useful to say on that? I saw an X-Files episode where the people were so imbred that the sons had a legless and armless mother living on rolling board under a bed. What does that have to do with the data in the study, and it's relevance to laws based on misinformation?

[DrDNA]

And what faults did you find with the study cited in the OP? Does Deliverance have anything useful to say on that? I saw an X-Files episode where the people were so imbred that the sons had a legless and armless mother living on rolling board under a bed. What does that have to do with the data in the study, and it's relevance to laws based on misinformation?

 

I have no idea what the X-files have to do with anything other than its severely entertainment value as science fiction.

[iNow]

I have no idea what the X-files have to do with anything other than its severely entertainment value as science fiction.

 

Exactly, much like your comments about Deliverance had nothing to do with anything. Thank you for making my point for me, as it was in reference to your post.

[Mr Skeptic]

Hey, I saw that X-files episode too. What the hell is Deliverance, and why does it have anything to do with the topic?

 

Though inbreeding is often considered an always bad thing by the poorly educated, professional breeders will often use inbreeding. Inbreeding can be used to enhance rare traits or get rid of common traits (this is also why inbreeding has a bad rap -- most rare traits are rare for a reason). However, sustained inbreeding results in a continuous loss of genetic diversity in small populations (eg animals in a family farm). However, these are generally a result of inbreeding between very close relatives (siblings, or parent-child) -- with cousins it would take much longer to have an effect.

[john5746]

Though inbreeding is often considered an always bad thing by the poorly educated, professional breeders will often use inbreeding.

 

Maybe because the poorly educated masses are the ones who get screwed by the inbred elite retard.

[DrDNA]

Exactly, much like your comments about Deliverance had nothing to do with anything. Thank you for making my point for me, as it was in reference to your post.

 

Hey, I saw that X-files episode too. What the hell is Deliverance, and why does it have anything to do with the topic?

 

Man, what a bunch of young whipper snappers that need to go rent a classic movie...the best movie ever made about the effects of inbreeding.

It was about 4 buddies that took a trip down a river way out in the middle of now where (maybe Arkansas) in canoes. It Burt Reynolds-in his prime, Ned Betty, Jon Voight- whose is Angelina Jolie's daddy, and Ronny Cox- who is best known for playing the evil Vice Pres on Stargate SG1)

Anyway, on the trip they ran into some inbred hillbillies that killed one of them, severely injured Burt and completely ruined Ned Betty's acting career by making him squeal like a pig.

The famous dueling banjos scene is a classic. It was between Ronny Cox (actually he was on guitar) and an obviously inbred boy (on banjo) who, although he was severely physically afflicted by the inbreeding, seemed to be an awesome musical talent. Perhaps this a reflection on the positive effects of inbreeding.....I'm not sure.

I really don't see how one can even comment on inbreeding without watching this movie.

 

 

I just happened across this article on PLoS Biology, and figured it could spark some good discussion.

 

 

1) Does the government have the right to forbid pre-natal activities that will result in injury or risk of injury to a child?

Not in the case of marriage.

We should care less what you do if you are of legal age.

However, society should not be held financially responsible one's (or two's in this case) stupidity and/or inability to get a date outside of one's own family

 

2) Does the governmental responsibility depend on the level of risk? What is more appropriate, the relative increase in risk, or the absolute increase in risk?

see 1 above

 

3) What if one person taking the risk increases the chances of damage for everyone else (including those who don't)? This is actually the case in cousin marriages, as the article spells out.

see 1 above

 

I have first hand experience observing the effects on inbreeding with dogs; although it was limited to mother-son, father-daughter, and brother-sister

The negative effects are quite dramatic and sad, even in the first generation.

[SkepticLance]

Guys

This is the science forum. Quoting fictional movies is not exactly a credible means of arguing.

 

Let me repeat my earlier point. Cousin marriage results in defects in children at a rate no higher than older women (40 plus) having children. If the government is going to ban cousin marriage, then it should also arrange for older married women to get sterilised. Whoops - aint that called eugenics?

[Sisyphus]

Guys

Let me repeat my earlier point. Cousin marriage results in defects in children at a rate no higher than older women (40 plus) having children.

 

I'm not taking sides here, but it seems like that should be amended to "first generation cousin marriage." The added defects from inbreeding would compound with each generation, while the added defects from older parents would not.

[tvp45]

Man, what a bunch of young whipper snappers that need to go rent a classic movie...the best movie ever made about the effects of inbreeding.

.

 

Actually, the movie was shot in north Georgia and Georgia was the only southern state that prohibited cousin marriages (Yes, the book was set in the Ozarks, but, heck, hillbillies are the same all over, right?). The notion that hillbillies are inbred, and that this accounts for all sorts of defects and deformities, is pretty much a stereotypical prejudice. Appalachia tends to be poor and that has lead to some dietary deficiencies that manifested themselves either physically or cognitively.

 

The point is, if this is a science forum, we probably ought to keep somewhere near the facts. Is there any evidence that highlanders (the preferred term) have more first-cousin marriages than the rest of the US?

[DrDNA]

Is there any evidence that highlanders (the preferred term) have more first-cousin marriages than the rest of the US?

 

"1. Does Appalachia have more mental retardation, etc? In a 1974 paper tactfully entitled "The Geography of Stupidity in the U.S.A.," researcher Nathaniel Weyl notes that the three states having the highest white failure rate on the Armed Forces Qualification Test in 1968 were Kentucky (14.8 percent), Tennessee (14.2 percent), and West Virginia (13.4 percent). Weyl attributes the "abnormally large proportion of white mental defectives in the Appalachian region" to, among other things, "the notoriously high rates of inbreeding among the Appalachian population." Lest you think Weyl has it in for Scotch-Irish hillbillies, he blames Maine's high failure rate (8.8 percent, 11th worst) on "the fact that a large proportion of her population descend from French Canadian immigrants"--and surely, Josh, you know what trash they are. Weyl's article, incidentally, appeared in Mankind Quarterly, which publishes a lot of research by the biology-is-destiny crowd.

 

2. Does inbreeding lead to genetic abnormalities? Time to waffle. Last year I wrote a column saying cousin marriage wasn't guaranteed to produce genetic defects. It's not, strictly speaking. However, defects may be more common than I let on. The problem is "inbreeding depression," the emergence of undesirable traits when closely related parents each contribute a normally dormant gene. According to one paper (Jaber et al, Community Genetics, 1998), congenital malformations are 2.5 times more common among offspring of inbred couples than of unrelated parents. A famous example is the "blue Fugates," members of an inbred Kentucky hill clan who suffered from a rare genetic blood disorder that made their skin look blue. (Please see: The Straight Dope: Is there really a race of blue people?)

 

3. Is inbreeding unusually common in Appalachia? Here's where things get murky. Although the public and many social scientists have long assumed that isolated hill folk often marry their cousins, and some certainly do (ask the Fugates), research on the subject is pretty thin. The most comprehensive look I've found is a 1980 paper ("Night Comes to the Chromosomes [etc]," Central Issues in Anthropology) by Robert Tincher, who at the time was a grad student at the University of Kentucky. Having dug through 140 years' worth of marriage records in a remote four-county region of eastern Kentucky, Tincher argues that (a) yeah, cousin marriage happens in the hill country, but (b) rates vary widely from place to place and even among families in a given district, and © it isn't conspicuously more prevalent than in a lot of other places. Point © isn't all that persuasive; Tincher's numbers show that as late as 1950 inbreeding was well above what could be accounted for by chance--married couples on average were approximately third cousins. However, the rate had dropped sharply since the peak after the Civil War, when the average couple were somewhere between second cousins and second cousins once removed. What's more, the rate fell quickly after 1950--no doubt due to postwar prosperity, urbanization, and so on--and by 1970 was no higher than you'd likely find in the general population.

 

4. So? So whatever may have been true 50 years ago isn't necessarily true now. In the recent indicators of national intelligence I can find--eighth-grade math scores and what all--southern Appalachian states aren't conspicuously clustered at the bottom. On the contrary, notwithstanding the blue-state-smart-red-state-dumb malarkey you sometimes hear, I'd say stupidity in our society is pretty uniformly spread around.

 

— Cecil Adams"

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2621/are-there-inbred-families-in-the-ozarks-appalachians-like-in-em-deliverance

Edited January 13, 2009 by DrDNA

[Pangloss]

I can't tell if DrDNA was serious or if iNow just got punk'd.

 

I grew up all around that area, btw, and we saw people like that from time to time up in the mountains. I was in the Boy Scouts and we often went camping in North Georgia, and I have an uncle who had some land along the Chattahoochee. He had this one neighbor who was a backwoods recluse, and he used to SHOOT at people tubing down the river past his land (don't think he ever hit anyone, probly just tried to scare 'em). This was WAY above the areas that were depicted in the movie, though.

 

Lake Lanier, the lake they're creating by damming the river in the movie, is really quite close to Atlanta, and the idea that there were people that crazy living that close to the city, even in the 1970s, is kinda laughable. There's even a long history of manufacturing and high-tech businesses in that area. The old Hayes modem company got its start not too far west of there, and long-time Macintosh owners may remember a company called "Daystar" that used to make Photoshop accelerators boards -- they were in that area (I used to work there). It's not even mountainous, just rolling hills really. You have to go quite a bit farther north and/or west for real mountains and inbred yocals.

 

But hey, that's Hollywood for ya. I happen to love that movie, btw -- an early John Boorman masterpiece. He went on to do Excalibur, Hope & Glory, Beyond Rangoon and The Emerald Forest, and is currently working on an interesting-looking film about the Emperor Hadrian.

[iNow]

Yep, I've seen the movie, too, but I repeat my original point in response to drdna... It is completely irrelevant to this thread, this discussion, as well as the data which was shared in the study presented in the OP.

[DrDNA]

I did not intentionally punk anyone.

I apologize if that was the implication.

 

But I do disagree that movies, novels and other forms of popular media are irrelevant.

They are often relevant cultural indicators; even if they are partially or even completely fictional. So, I believe that they have worth beyond their entertainment value; including this topic.

Mark Twain's writings, such as Tom Sawyer, is a good example of this point.

 

Furthermore, Deliverance was not that far off target regardless of where it actually took place.

It was in fact a relevant cultural indicator, even if an exaggerated one, of certain areas of the country. Inbreeding did and I'm certain still does occur and it has been re-enacted in print, film and TV, which is what I meant to convey.

As a matter of fact, the culture and habits of the people where I grew up had more in common with the hillbillies in Deliverance than with the Brady Bunch or the Cleavers.

You really need to go into Appalachian coal country or beyond to believe what it is like there.

That place is a "third world country" and is unlike any place that I have ever been (rural parts of SouthEast Asia, Mexico, Africa and poverty stricken Am Indian reservations included).

If you have not been there and experienced it for yourself, then please do not poo poo it.

 

PS: If you want hard facts and data, then why no comment on the Cecil Adams info that I posted above?

[Pangloss]

No no, the apology would have to be mine -- I get you now. I just assumed that because you were saying that one movie was relevant but that others were not, that you were having a little fun with iNow. But if you're just saying that Deliverance just popularized a certain concept, and then you back it up with studies and statistics as you have, that's different, I agree. Thanks for clarifying.

[iNow]

Man, what a bunch of young whipper snappers that need to go rent a classic movie...the best movie ever made about the effects of inbreeding.

 

The point is, if this is a science forum, we probably ought to keep somewhere near the facts. Is there any evidence that highlanders (the preferred term) have more first-cousin marriages than the rest of the US?

 

3. Is inbreeding unusually common in Appalachia?

 

Here's where things get murky. Although the public and many social scientists have long assumed that isolated hill folk often marry their cousins, and some certainly do (ask the Fugates), research on the subject is pretty thin.

<...>

What's more, the rate fell quickly after 1950--no doubt due to postwar prosperity, urbanization, and so on--and by 1970 was no higher than you'd likely find in the general population.

Did nobody else notice how the data DrDna shared in support of his position did not actually support it? What an unecessary and irrelevant tangent this has become.

 

 

But if you're just saying that Deliverance just popularized a certain concept, and then you back it up with studies and statistics as you have, that's different, I agree. Thanks for clarifying.

I guess perhaps I am the only one.

[Pangloss]

I'm not validating his position, I'm simply saying that I was mistaken to assume that he was saying that one movie was a valid reflection of society and other movies are not.