December 13, 2024 - 1:00pm
The most important question surrounding cousin marriage isn’t whether it should be banned. It’s why it’s still legal in Britain, years after the risks to children’s health — and women’s welfare — became known. Last week, the Government responded to a Conservative MP who wants to outlaw the practice with yet more stalling. Ministers don’t deny the impact on children, but Downing Street says it has no plans to change the law.
It’s a morally indefensible position. We now have years of studies showing that first-cousin marriage is a major risk factor for congenital abnormalities, including heart defects, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy and impaired hearing. It also raises questions about whether young women are being put under pressure to marry relatives, denying them free choice and keeping wealth within the family. Sweden has announced it will ban the practice next year, and similar legislation was adopted in Norway this summer.
But the UK, it seems, is wedded to a policy of inaction. It has been left to a former Tory minister, Richard Holden, to bring forward legislation that has little chance of becoming law. An independent MP, Iqbal Mohamed, defended the practice this week in the House of Commons, saying it shouldn’t be “stigmatised” and calling for advanced — and expensive — genetic screening to be made available instead. He said the freedom of women “must be protected”, but that cousin marriage “helps build family bonds […] and put families on a more secure financial foothold”.
It’s since been revealed that an NHS trust in Bradford has published material comparing cousin marriage to white women having children over the age of 34. “This is largely a result of choosing lifestyles embedded in liberal values such as preferring jobs, careers, bodily fitness and individualism over giving birth before the age of 34,” the trust claimed. The first rule of misogyny is that it’s always women’s fault, even though older motherhood may be the result of infertility and a lack of suitable partners, rather than regular trips to the gym. But cousin marriage is “a cultural practice in Asian/British Pakistanis heritage” — and therein lies the problem.
The word “culture” has long been used to close down criticism. It happened in the last century, when some feminists argued that female genital mutilation (FGM) was embedded in culture and shouldn’t be criticised. It was a Labour peer, the author Ruth Rendell, who campaigned to change the law, resulting in the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, but years passed without prosecutions.
A couple of years later, the Labour MP Ann Cryer, whose West Yorkshire constituency included a large British-Pakistani population, called on families to abandon cousin marriage, describing it as a “public health issue”. She was immediately attacked by Mohammed Ajaib from the Keighley Muslim Association. “People have been marrying their relatives like this for centuries and there’s not been any problem,” he claimed.
The reaction to Cryer’s measured remarks speaks volumes about why so many Labour MPs have remained silent. Many inner-city MPs depend on British-Asian votes, while the war in Gaza has made them even more fearful of causing offence. Iqbal Mohamed, who opposed Holden’s bill last week, stood on a pro-Palestine platform in this year’s general election and took the Dewsbury and Batley seat from Labour.
The changing electoral map is the most pressing reason for the Government’s lack of enthusiasm for outlawing cousin marriage. But it’s also rooted in a craven attitude towards “culture”, which is often cover for perpetuating patriarchal practices. Not offending other “cultures”, unfortunately, always comes before the welfare of women and children.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeWith all due respect to Joan Smith, that’s not exactly the hardest question to answer today any of us will see today.
Iqbal Mohamed is proposing an alternative to criminalisation as a solution to an undisputed problem arising out of something that had not been illegal in this country since the sixteenth century and which was endemic here until the First World War. The British Empire never suppressed cousin marriage. For that matter, in 14 years, the Conservatives never banned it. Educate people, and it will mostly or entirely die out. That worked with everyone else. Even the Royal Family.
You are a fool if you believe their culture is exactly the same as British culture 100 years ago. If you submit to a Dark Ages culture people, you become exactly that.
Amen.
I can’t help feel that this a nasty, vindictive piece of legislation aimed at the marital customs of one particular disliked ethnic group.
If you do meth while lactating you will get in trouble. However, you seem fine with this other manner of creating abnormalities and babies with disabilities. Pakistan would suit you better than the UK
It is revealing that you mention ‘Pakistan’ when Cousin Marriage is practiced widely among Gypsys, Travellers, West Africans and Orthodox Jews in Modern Britain. it was very recently the custom among the gentry and aristocracy here as well.
I fear you betray yourself and your motives are not the disinterested concern for Muslim babies.
As for your colourful comparison, there is a category difference between poisoning an unborn child in the womb on the one hand and the creation of new life on the other. That you can’t see the difference is equally revealing.
Pointing out that other ethnic minority groups who also frequently live parallel lives to the majority population engage in first cousin marriage is also rather revealing.
It reveals that they are ethnic minorities with their own cultural and social mores. It cannot be blameable for them simply to be what they are.
If, on the other hand, one simply dislikes mass immigration and favours the ‘integration or repatriation’ direction of travel then one should say so boldly. Play the ball, not the man.
It won’t shock me.
However, to conceal ones real motives behind a feigned concern for the ‘health of unborn children’ is both cynical and unmanly.
Unmanly? It’s pointing out the consequences of an inadvisable course of action. Moreover, it is perpetrated by people who use ‘culture’ as a cover for a range of activities that would be unacceptable if undertaken by the majority. Oh well, at least they’re real men, eh?
It is unmanly to practice to deceive by suggesting ones chief concern is for unborn children when it is really a resentment towards their parents.
Again, this isn’t about a ‘range of activities’ (unless it is, of course) it’s specifically about marriage customs.
That is purely your specuration. Of course it is pleasanter to live in a country where 30% of the population are non severely disabled, if only aesthetically, and the idea of the State caring for the quality of its citizens is rather Fabian, but it is a very expensive problem for the non disabled.
I fear your rather laboured sarcasm has obscured your argument to the point that your explicit parody becomes indistinguishable from your implicit bad faith.
Is the problem expense now? Or is it disability? Or is ‘the quality of citizens’? Or are we sticking with concern for Muslim babies?
As you so presciently observe – one can only speculate.
Nonsense they aren’t mutually exclusive … you can be horrified at the practice and the results of systematic inbreeding AND deplore your cities being turned into third world Afro/Islamic slums.
Men are men and girls are little girls. That ok with you, William?
The problem is that it is multi generational. One time, cross your fingers and hope. 4 th generation, and the odds are appalling, and the number of people with awful disabilities rises. Fine, but the NHS and welfare system has to pay for it. Btw, your allegation that it was normal in Britain is quite wrong. Who lived too far away to find a mate who wasn’t a close relative? Feet, horses, bicycles , all helped. Can you prove your assertion with the figures of 1st cousin disabilities?
I am afraid so. And it is only more common among them. It is not as if they all do it. Or that no White Britons who are not Muslims do, come to that.
The irony is that those advancing this sort of legislation don’t see that they are stepping bilndly, themselves, into the role of sectarian antagonist.
One side asks for ‘respect’ laws ‘for all Abrahamic faiths’. The next week the other side askes to ‘ban cousin marrriage’.
I have seen it in other countries and contexts.
‘Animal welfare’ or ‘equality’ or ‘modernity’ or such things are the usual pretexts but underneath the motive is almost always much darker, more atavistic and usually concealed even from the ones that propose the legislation in the first place.
Oh, they know exactly what they are doing.
Well we’re taking a leaf out of their book as the ‘Abrahamic faiths’ ploy really meant please introduce blasphemy laws to stop criticism of Islam … alas we have to ‘dress it up’ when we are trying to ban a disgusting imported practice as the liberals won’t engage otherwise and it won’t pass. Blame academia for that. The main thing is that it gets banned.
Indeed, this is precisely my contention.
I respect and appreciate your candour in this instance.
Why are we paying for it?
I don’t know if it was endemic before the First World War, when doing some family history research of some relatives of late 19C / early 20C, I found second cousins had married, this was something which was stigmatised and shamed their descendants and was hushed up. This was in a rural area where there were fewer people to meet.
Neither endemic in British society, nor as rare as you are suggesting. I’m an experienced genealogist and I’ve come across first cousin marriages numerous times, including one in my own family: my mother’s aunt married her first cousin in 1917; this was not illegal, although I have no information as to how well it was received within the family. Sadly, she died giving birth to her first child, which presumably was not as a result of the consanguinity.
Perhaps it was a class thing? The further up the class system you went, the more normal it was. Nineteenth-century novels are full of it. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were of course first cousins. As recently as To the Manor Born, it was just assumed that Audrey fforbes-Hamilton was her late husband’s cousin. It looks as if, when the working class urbanised, it came to associate this, among many other things, with the countryside that it had escaped.
Probably better that we throw them out.
Ban it. And the Burka and Halal.
Whose culture? As Richard Holden pointed out in the House of Commons, the legality of marriage between first cousins is a product of the Reformation. Its prevalence until the First World War, and as recently as that, may once have been a badge of English Protestant honour, since Henry VIII had legalised it when he had wanted to marry Catherine Howard, who was Anne Boleyn’s cousin.
Until then, the Late Roman ban on marriage to the fourth degree of consanguinity had obtained, extended to affinity because in marriage, “the two shall become one flesh.” Catholic Canon Law has therefore always banned cousin marriage, at one time to the seventh degree, although with possibilities of dispensation since the ban was not in the Bible. Such dispensations did not do the Hapsburgs any good.
This seems to be a Two Cultures thing. Although Charles and Emma Darwin were first cousins who had 10 children, and although Albert and Elsa Einstein were both maternal first cousins and paternal second cousins such that her maiden name was Einstein, the mere thought of this practice is profoundly shocking to scientists. But to people formed by the study of literature and history, then, while that is where it belongs, that is where you will find it routinely. Mainstream British society was educated out of it, and not very long ago, so that can obviously be done. South Asians are hardly unreceptive to education.
The British Empire never suppressed cousin marriage. For that matter, in 14 years, the Conservatives never banned it. Anglo-Saxons and Scotch-Irish still regularly marry their first cousins in several of the parts of the United States that were most likely to vote for Donald Trump, and they did so as a matter of course into the very recent past. But if the argument is that this was something that certain other ethnic groups did, then it is probably better to treat it as a health education matter rather than a criminal one. After all, that was what worked with everyone else. Nineteenth-century novels are full of marriages between first cousins as the most normal thing in the world, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins.
By descent from that marriage, the King’s parents were third cousins, while they were also second cousins once removed through a different line. But the King is a last hurrah of that sort of thing. His mother was one of the least inbred monarchs ever, and his son and grandson are not at all inbred. Educate people, and it will mostly or entirely die out. That worked with everyone else. Even the Royal Family.
With respect, that is a medical question, not yet a moral one.
It assumes, as self evident, that not-being-born is automatically preferable to a life beset by avoidable illness. It may well be so, but the opposite view is not ‘indefensible’.
In a different context, now that the human genome is mapped, should we all be compelled to undergo checks for hereditable diseases before we marry? And if we find that such heredities exist is it unethical to have children?
These are vexed questions, far from self evident.
> should we all be compelled to undergo checks for hereditable diseases before we marry? And if we find that such heredities exist is it unethical to have children?
Hey look it’s eugenics back at it again I thought we threw you out of the party back in the 40s and told you not to come back. Look you’re still wearing that coat of “the science” to cover up the fact your saying you should be the judge of life and death for millions of people. But hey I’m sure it will work this time, because this time we are so advanced and intelligent and so much smarter than those fools who lived almost 60 years ago.
I think you have misunderstood my position.
We are of one mind with regards to the question of Eugenics. It is a foul para-science.
I think that was his point actually. He was pointing out dangerous the logic can be. If we’re using the logic that cousins shouldn’t be allowed to marry because of an increased risk of birth defects, can’t we use the same logic to ban people from having children over a certain age, or to ban people with certain genetic disorders from having children. After all, that’s what the science says. There’s a statistically measurable increase in risk for all these scenarios. He’s simply pointing out the implied assumptions that eugenics always makes when it pretends to be a scientific discipline. It assumes that the people who have such defects are worthless and their lives are less valuable. The assumption, which is pretty obvious when one considers the question, is that is preferable never to have been born. I suspect a lot of disabled people would probably contest that point. Quoting scientific studies about the risks of birth defects and citing that as reason for a legal prohibition on a particular practice is not a good look because it leads to the exact problems you mention. We’ve all seen what lies a ways down that road, and most of us don’t want to go there.
Let’s not exaggerate. There are still States in the US where you have to have a certificate that you are free from syphilis before marriage. Doesn’t seem to have done any harm. Eugenics has to be embedded in the Fabian- Labour mentality of State responsibility for its citizens. See GK Chesterton’s splendid pamphlet attacking state plans for eugenic policies.
Like some anti abortion arguments, your argument assumes that the unborn (or rather the unconceived) somehow pre-exist their conception. That there is somebody who misses out. There isn’t.
If cousins don’t marry and the children they would have had are not born, this doesn’t mean there is a queue of souls in some sort of limbo feeling disgruntled at having missed out on life.
Every sperm is sacred…
Thank you for your response, I actually do not, myself, have a developed position on the question.
I have tried to limit myself to suggesting that the answer to the question itself is far from self evident, as the author suggests.
I believe the diversity of thought provoking responses on this thread would bear that out.
Medical questions BECOME moral questions. The origin of prohibitions comes about due to the fact that the prohibited activity leads to a bad outcome. Why do Jews avoid pork? It is due, I have always believed, to the fact that trichinosis is a consequence of the consumption of infected pork.
But Muslims avoid pork as well.
Is it not the case that pork prohibition is based on idea that pork spoils quicker than lamb in hot climate?
Which was quite relevant before refrigeration was widely available.
That is on way of looking at it, certainly, but far from the only way.
Others would argue that the distinction between the sacred and the profane is a fundamental psycho-spiritual reality and an indelible part of the human condition across all eras and cultures. The object on which that distinction is drawn is really entirely incidental.
Of course there is no Scientific way of deciding the question, no way which meets the the evidential threshold demanded by the scientific method.
While I respect the ingenuity of the conclusion you favour, to my mind, at least, linking religious questions with instrumentalist material explanations like food-poisoning begins to look a liitle bit like a para-scientific just-so-story.
Nations are different to each other because their peoples are different.
People don’t magically change when they cross a border.
Change the people and you change the nation.
Cousin marriage was once rare in the UK. So rare the state didn’t need to ban it. Cousin marriage is no longer rare because the people have been changed. The UK will increasingly resemble the nations its new people are drawn from. Nations where Joan Smith’s enlightened views are not shared by the people.
So if Joan Smith wants her enlightened views to prevail, she needs to protest the dilution of her enlightened views by the importation of people with very unenlightened views. Demographics are destiny.
There also wasn’t much gang-rape of teenage girls or killing of little girls at pop concerts until those people were imported. You reap what you sow.
I understand that the chance of real immigration-limiting reform is…zero. At least for the next few years under the Labour Party. So maybe Ms. Smith’s idea about smaller targets, the ones that really rub most Brits the wrong way, is a good tactic for now. Child marriage, blasphemy laws, anti-masking (to make the women uncover their faces, at least), etc.
If the UK was less friendly to those with hard-line orthodox attitudes, and more welcoming to those more willing to compromise, your problem with violent, grasping Islamists might just begin to fade away.
Not just the Labour Party. Fourteen years of Conservative (in name anyway…) government ended just this year.
Good start would be to deport people like Iqbal to country more to his liking.
Cousin marriage was rare because all the established religions banned it creating a cultural ethos that frowned on it.
Many inner-city MPs depend on British-Asian votes,
—————————-
They all do more in London, Brum, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Wolverhampton, Leicester and Coventry for example. However I will suggest the reliance is less so on British-Indian Hindu and Sikhs and more likely Muslim voters
> It’s why it’s still legal in Britain
It’s pretty simple answer. British MPs are all cowards that are afraid of the particular group that practices cousin marriage and afraid that they will be targeted by them if they do anything they don’t like.
Sorry Brits your goose is cooked, you no longer get to run your own country. My condolences.
Nail struck squarely on head!
Yes, you can reach a point where it is too late to turn the ship around. The people who remember and value the ‘old’ Britain are dead and dying. (And while the leftists automatically assume that phrasing is code for racism–and it may mean that for some–my meaning is the customs, traditions, religion and shared history that made people Britons.)
You can blame Henry VIII for the legality of cousin marriage. It was illegal here for centuries. The Catholic Church hated the practice.
I put up a comment about that an hour or so ago, and it has disappeared.
Your comment is below.
Every comment section you get the same whine from the same people, yet their comments always appear. You’d think they’d have realized by now that certain words trigger the automatic filter and they then have to be checked before being reinstated
The Catholic/early Christian church’s opposition to first cousin marriage was established to help the religion spread more broadly, by not isolating it within certain family/social groups. First cousin marriage, carried out across multiple generations, narrows the gene pool and — especially over time — greatly exacerbates medical risks.
Not too long ago, marriage rested on three pillars: 1) two people, 2) of the opposite sex, 3) who are unrelated. You cannot legalize one and think the other two will be ignored.
Love is love, Alex…
For the downvoters, I’m agreeing with Alex.
Alex, in some countries, marriage rests on these three pillars: 1) two people, 2) of the opposite sex, 3) who ARE related. Pakistan has one of the highest rates of cousin marriage in the world, with an estimated 65% of marriages occurring between close relatives. This is more common than in other countries with high rates of cousin marriage, such as India (55%), Saudi Arabia (50%), Afghanistan (40%), Iran (30%), Egypt, and Turkey (20%). Point being, many people think and act differently than you and the Western world. The genetic risk for children born to related couples is 1% greater than for children born to non-related couples. Some of these countries require pre-marital genetic testing to mitigate serious risks. The real issue is immigration, the lack of assimulation and the much higher birth rates of people in the countries listed above.
Does Joan Smith seriously think that the motivation here was “misogyny”? – that there was an NHS board of men who hate women?
Similarly, J.K. Rowling accused the Olympics committee of “misogyny” for allowing some (apparent) biological males to compete against biological women. But does Rowling seriously think the committee is an all-male group of women haters? The committee’s literature was full of slogans about women’s empowerment, after all.
In both cases, the NHS Trust and Olympics Committee were trying to negotiate the contradictory demands of intersectionality, and in both cases, they found a group that was higher in the hierarchy of oppression than women-in-general. So in one case, women had to submit to the superior demands of “transwomen”, and in the other case to the superior demands of the followers of a certain prophet.
But social constructionism and hierarchies of oppression are baked into feminism, so when feminists encounter these ideological tools being used against them, “misogyny!” is the reaction of first recourse – to avoid facing the problem.
Joan’s problem is she is trying to insert the square peg of feminism into the round hole of biology. It is well known that older mothers increase the likelihood of congenital problems in their offspring. It is also true that putting off pregnancy occurs for lifestyle reasons. She just doesn’t want any of this to be true.
“It is also true that putting off pregnancy occurs for lifestyle reasons.” I seriously doubt if there is much firm evidence to back up that claim, Derek, anymore than there is for the NHS Bradford claim that putting off pregnancy “is largely a result of choosing lifestyles embedded in liberal values such as preferring jobs, careers, bodily fitness and individualism over giving birth before the age of 34”. Why is it so easy to lay blame on women and their “lifestyles”? I doubt if you are a misogynist in any thoroughgoing sense, but surely you can see how easy it is dismiss its possibilities the way Jonathan does by raising imaginary and ludicrous entities such as woman-hating boards and committees. It doesn’t take simple woman-hating for misogynistic biases to come into play. Even talking about women’s “lifestyles” rather than their “lives” shows a bias. Above all, though, I cannot believe that women going to the gym or having a career are the only factors in play in this whole issue. I certainly agree that many women may choose not to become mothers to avoid the impact on their careers, but I do wonder why other factors such as rising costs of living and of health care itself, the growing unaffordability of housing, and general economic instability are less important factors than some imputed selfishness of women? Some women may even choose to not have children as an unselfish act in service of such ideas as supporting ecological sustainability. And all of the above factors might even influence men’s choices about fatherhood, though such choices would be seen as responsible rather than selfish. As for patriarchy having no impact, such effects must be non-existent given the exemplary provisions for such things as adequate child care and paid family leave that might make motherhood less onerous. But just look at the subsequent comments your post sparked such as David Morley’s opportunistic shot that “you can’t really teach an old feminist new tricks. Misogyny and patriarchy is their go to explanation for all human ills.” Aside from the fact that this article is not about “all human ills,” the comment does provide another example of how it can almost be a reflex to narrowly focus blame on women and their obviously blindered and irrational selfish views about misogyny and the patriarchy.
“It is also true that putting off pregnancy occurs for lifestyle reasons.” I seriously doubt if there is much firm evidence to back up that claim, Derek, anymore than there is for the NHS Bradford claim that putting off pregnancy “is largely a result of choosing lifestyles embedded in liberal values such as preferring jobs, careers, bodily fitness and individualism over giving birth before the age of 34”. Why is it so easy to lay blame on women and their “lifestyles”? I doubt if you are a misogynist in any thoroughgoing sense, but surely you can see how easy it is dismiss its possibilities the way Jonathan does by raising imaginary and ludicrous entities such as woman-hating boards and committees. It doesn’t take simple woman-hating for misogynistic biases to come into play. Even talking about women’s “lifestyles” rather than their “lives” shows a bias. Above all, though, I cannot believe that women going to the gym or having a career are the only factors in play in this whole issue. I certainly agree that many women may choose not to become mothers to avoid the impact on their careers, but I do wonder why other factors such as rising costs of living and of health care itself, the growing unaffordability of housing, and general economic instability are less important factors than some imputed selfishness of women? Some women may even choose to not have children as an unselfish act in service of such ideas as supporting ecological sustainability. And all of the above factors might even influence men’s choices about fatherhood, though such choices would be seen as responsible rather than selfish. As for patriarchy having no impact, such effects must be non-existent given the exemplary provisions for such things as adequate child care and paid family leave that might make motherhood less onerous. But just look at the subsequent comments your post sparked such as David Morley’s opportunistic shot that “you can’t really teach an old feminist new tricks. Misogyny and patriarchy is their go to explanation for all human ills.” Aside from the fact that this article is not about “all human ills,” the comment does provide another example of how it can almost be a reflex to narrowly focus blame on women and their obviously blindered and irrational selfish views about misogyny and the patriarchy.
The reaction by Rotherham Children’s Services at uncovering of the rape gangs..that child abuse occurs mostly in the white population was one of the most ridiculous attempts at blindsiding ever offered by a local authority..
“It is also true that putting off pregnancy occurs for lifestyle reasons.” I seriously doubt if there is much firm evidence to back up that claim, Derek, anymore than there is for the NHS Bradford claim that putting off pregnancy “is largely a result of choosing lifestyles embedded in liberal values such as preferring jobs, careers, bodily fitness and individualism over giving birth before the age of 34”. Why is it so easy to lay blame on women and their “lifestyles”? I doubt if you are a misogynist in any thoroughgoing sense, but surely you can see how easy it is dismiss its possibilities the way Jonathan does by raising imaginary and ludicrous entities such as woman-hating boards and committees. It doesn’t take simple woman-hating for misogynistic biases to come into play. Even talking about women’s “lifestyles” rather than their “lives” shows a bias. Above all, though, I cannot believe that women going to the gym or having a career are the only factors in play in this whole issue. I certainly agree that many women may choose not to become mothers to avoid the impact on their careers, but I do wonder why other factors such as rising costs of living and of health care itself, the growing unaffordability of housing, and general economic instability are less important factors than some imputed selfishness of women? Some women may even choose to not have children as an unselfish act in service of such ideas as supporting ecological sustainability. And all of the above factors might even influence men’s choices about fatherhood, though such choices would be seen as responsible rather than selfish. As for patriarchy having no impact, such effects must be non-existent given the exemplary provisions for such things as adequate child care and paid family leave that might make motherhood less onerous. But just look at the subsequent comments your post sparked such as David Morley’s opportunistic shot that “you can’t really teach an old feminist new tricks. Misogyny and patriarchy is their go to explanation for all human ills.” Aside from the fact that this article is not about “all human ills,” the comment does provide another example of how it can almost be a reflex to narrowly focus blame on women and their obviously blindered and irrational selfish views about misogyny and the patriarchy.
Sorry. In my desperate attempts to prove “i am not a robot” I somehow managed to post in triplicate. Really, I only wanted to say what I said one time.
Sorry. In my desperate attempts to prove “i am not a robot” I somehow managed to post in triplicate. Really, I only wanted to say what I said one time.
“It is also true that putting off pregnancy occurs for lifestyle reasons.” I seriously doubt if there is much firm evidence to back up that claim, Derek, anymore than there is for the NHS Bradford claim that putting off pregnancy “is largely a result of choosing lifestyles embedded in liberal values such as preferring jobs, careers, bodily fitness and individualism over giving birth before the age of 34”. Why is it so easy to lay blame on women and their “lifestyles”? I doubt if you are a misogynist in any thoroughgoing sense, but surely you can see how easy it is dismiss its possibilities the way Jonathan does by raising imaginary and ludicrous entities such as woman-hating boards and committees. It doesn’t take simple woman-hating for misogynistic biases to come into play. Even talking about women’s “lifestyles” rather than their “lives” shows a bias. Above all, though, I cannot believe that women going to the gym or having a career are the only factors in play in this whole issue. I certainly agree that many women may choose not to become mothers to avoid the impact on their careers, but I do wonder why other factors such as rising costs of living and of health care itself, the growing unaffordability of housing, and general economic instability are less important factors than some imputed selfishness of women? Some women may even choose to not have children as an unselfish act in service of such ideas as supporting ecological sustainability. And all of the above factors might even influence men’s choices about fatherhood, though such choices would be seen as responsible rather than selfish. As for patriarchy having no impact, such effects must be non-existent given the exemplary provisions for such things as adequate child care and paid family leave that might make motherhood less onerous. But just look at the subsequent comments your post sparked such as David Morley’s opportunistic shot that “you can’t really teach an old feminist new tricks. Misogyny and patriarchy is their go to explanation for all human ills.” Aside from the fact that this article is not about “all human ills,” the comment does provide another example of how it can almost be a reflex to narrowly focus blame on women and their obviously blindered and irrational selfish views about misogyny and the patriarchy.
The motivation may not have been misogyny, but that’s the result.
Same difference, as they say…
Spot on. Though you can’t really teach an old feminist new tricks. Misogyny and patriarchy is their go to explanation for all human ills.
This is a valid point. Procreation at a later age introduces new genetic defects, which consanguineous marriage does not.
It does. But what about first cousins who get married who have kids at a later age? Ban that or just go for double or quits?
So let’s ban women of marriageable age from the workplace. It worked in the 50s.
I suggest you research the Habsburgs, especially Charles II of Spain (1661 -1700), to see what happens after consanguineous marriage.
There are plenty of studies that show the risk of birth defects is greater for the children of older men as well. I don’t know off the top of my head if it’s equal to the risks in older women, but it exists and I would think it would make sense for the author to point that out given what she said in your quote. She might also have pointed out that the person who made the remark failed to mention that and instead ‘blamed the woman’. Further, she might have mentioned the religious and cultural background of the speaker and how that particular religion and those particular cultures have something of a reputation for misogyny in general and for a general hostility toward modern European liberal values. She seems utterly determined to avoid mentioning the 800 pound gorilla in the room, that Muslim culture and modern European culture are not compatible with one another. Gee, I wonder why that is. Could it be that there’s a taboo among liberal commentators to acknowledge that culture exists and is important to the stability of communities, regions, and nations? No, it couldn’t be that….
Can you link to the evidence for this claim about older men? I don’t think that makes much sense given that men produce new sperm daily where as women are born with all their eggs. the risk for older women was due to DNA damage for older eggs I thought
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/10/older-fathers-associated-with-increased-birth-risks.html
They make new sperm daily but the men themselves age. As we age our DNA breaks down and our organs wear down over time, including those that make sperm. I admit I am not sure how the magnitude of increased risk compares in terms of men and women.
The people who invented the concept of ‘intersectionality’ are seriously evil.
In 2009, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary by Dispatches called When Cousins Marry. It focused on the horrendous results of so many of these marriages, the terrible suffering inflicted on too many children, the burden placed on the NHS and special needs education resources. The program sparked consternation but there was pushback from the usual sources and the media allowed the subject to be buried. So ignorance continued to reign. The suffering of children was brushed under the carpet- it had become a habit by then especially where a certain religion was concerned.
The same program makers had made Undercover Mosques which uncovered extraordinarily worrying information about what was happening in some mosques up and down the country.
That program resulted in the makers being accused and investigated by the police ( later the police were forced to apologise to them).
The effort to keep the public in the dark has been long and sustained and has come from the very top. The question we should be asking now is why? We should also be demanding answers.
and the first rule of feminism is that it never is.
But so what. Some women have no choice but to delay motherhood, and some delay it as a choice. When they do it is arguably a bad choice, and they should be advised of the facts – perhaps actively discouraged from waiting. Like cousin marriage it is an aspect of culture, specifically a modern post-feminist culture.
But delaying pregnancy can scarcely be rendered illegal. Cousin marriage can.
We’re still waiting for the Male Genital Mutilation Act.
There is a lot of activism around the issue of circumcision, which is the male analog of FGM. I was circumcized. It happened when I was 1 day or so. I had no choice in the matter. I have no idea if it reduced my sexual sensation – I certainly have some. My wife and I chose not to circumcize our son. I think that the reflexive choice is no longer made by most non-jews.
If that were the real explanation it would be a relatively unchanging feature of western life. But it’s not. The average age of having a first child is far later than it used to be, and this in spite of improvements in fertility treatment. This is a cultural phenomenon.
Where the Trust gets it wrong is in using one practice to defend another. Both are ill-advised.
The large number of men leaving the dating pool because they are gay is relatively recent. The result for women is like, demographically speaking, a terrible battle, in which 10% say of the male population disappear.
Doubling birth defects at a particular level of consanguinity also serves to winnow out genetic problems that will lead to future defects. The whole effect is hardly critical, and perhaps it is not the cultural program most important to enforce.
Isn’t the effect of multi generational cousin marriage extraordinarily high? Yes, if we weren’t a welfare state with a free health service, and free education it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.
Is it extraordinarily high? Like I said, the defective genes typically cause problems when they double up, and they double up more often when close cousins marry. It’s no less true that if they don’t double up, they will hang around in the gene pool for posterity.
Why? The same reason they keep ignoring halal slaughter.
This is still legal in the US in some states. The odd thing is it’s the exact opposite of what you’d expect. Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and nearly all of middle America have bans in place. Some won’t even recognize marriages from other states. On the other hand, New York, California, Arizona, and most of the Northeast allow it and it’s been that way for an awfully long time. Most of the bans date to well before WWII. At least the southern states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas play to type in allowing cousins to marry.
“ Not offending other “cultures”, unfortunately, always comes before the welfare of women and children.”
And one ‘culture’ above all others must never be offended, even when it treats women like valueless chattels.
Why do liberals ignore cousin marriage?
Why do they ignore grooming gangs?
Why do they ignore FGM?
Why do they ignore Sharia courts?
Why do they ignore the subjugation of women?
A combination of xenophilia, oikophobia and fear.
Suicidal empathy
Does the question even need to be asked? Everyone knows that “cultural sensibilities” take precedence over even the most sacred of liberal shibboleths, and that self-appointed social justice warriors are ready to call out any criticism of the practice as “racist,” and the Muslim Council to call it “Islamophobic.” And the politicians’ silence is purchased with the promise of votes.
“The most important question surrounding cousin marriage isn’t whether it should be banned. It’s why it’s still legal in Britain, years after the risks to children’s health — and women’s welfare — became known.”
“… and women’s welfare…”. If an asteroid were heading towards earth, which would wipe out human life, headlines would read, “World to end, women most affected.”
“It’s a morally indefensible position.”
On the subject of moral indefensibility, what about male circumcision (Male Genital Mutilation, MGM)? Illegal to perform (on non-medical grounds) under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 – being at least ABH and almost certainly GBH – the criminal justice system turns a blind eye to it, while there’s been specific anti-FGM legislation for 40 years. FGM was also always a crime under OAPA1861 but of course feminists never gave a damn about MGM when campaigning for legislation.
No exemptions to the law in England and Wales are allowed for religious or cultural reasons.
MGM has long been a major cause for Men’s Rights Activists, but Unherd doesn’t give a platform to MRAs or any anti-feminists, while giving a platform to many feminists. Shame on Unherd.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS http://j4mb.org.uk
CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS http://c4mb.uk
LAUGHING AT FEMINISTS http://laughingatfeminists.com
The Fabian, liberal left recognised from the outset that if it were to proceed with its grand project of mass immigration from Muslim third-world countries, then it was only a matter of time before serious conflict arose from the customs which would arrive with those immigrants.
It was essential that the law be corrupted and subverted so that these incomers were able to act as though they were outside the law.
Cousin marriages should not be banned. If a couple knowingly wants to take the small elevated risk of congenital defects, that is their decision to make and no business of the community at large.
In any case, communities which practice cousin marriages have long ago precipitated the deleterious mutations, so the real issue is lack of variety making a community vulnerable to novel pathogens.
The cousin marriage ban proposal is an own-goal. This tribalised controversy is a distraction from the real issue which is Islamic supremacism trying to impose the rule of Islam by the back door.
The cousin marriage issue is, like many social issues, a difference of perception versus reality. Many people believe that cousin marriages cause major genetic issues among the children of those marriages. But that is not the truth. For an exhaustive scholarly review of this topic visit Cousin Marriage by HandWiki Access link: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/28985
First-cousin marriages slightly increase the risk of passing on recessive genetic disorders because cousins share some of the same genes from a common ancestor. The average risk of birth defects or genetic disorders for children of first cousins is approximately 3-4%, compared to a baseline risk of 2-3% in the general population. While the risk is slightly increased, it is not as high as some might assume. The risk is higher if there is a family history of genetic disorders. Genetic counseling can help assess this risk.
Cousin marriage is not inherently harmful but carries a slightly increased genetic risk for offspring. It is advisable to consult a genetic counselor if you are considering this type of union, especially if there are known genetic issues in the family. Cultural and legal factors should also be taken into account.
Many English royal marriages were between cousins or close relatives, which was common among European royalty. From the comments here it appears that the concern is not really about cousin marriages, but about the immigrating cultures who practice it.
14 years of Conservative Government and only now is Richard Holden proposing legislation.
Why?
It turns out that all cultures are not equal.
And so another liberal myth disappears in a cloud of dust.
My partner works in childcare has known about this for some time.
Like so many things, it might be worth speaking to people on the frontline dealing with the fallout of ‘unusual’ cultural practices to gain a better understanding of the impact.
Alternatively we could just ignore it. And hope the problems go away…
I find it sad that the British are too squeamish to insist on incomers respecting the values held by most people in the United Kingdom. values.
It is Asia British people feel that such insistence would in some way be oppressive. It does not necessarily involve repression of incomers culture generallygenerally,but but surely the four host nations in the UK have the right to insist that particular cultural practices that they find repugnant should not be endorsed.
It is absurd to demand that the host culture bend to the demands of those who insist that their values be imposed on others…