Posted on 03/29/2005 3:26:58 PM PST by SmithL
...and your family tree has only one branch,
Our society's taboo on first-cousin marriages is quite new, from a historical perspective. Up until the mid 1800s, for first cousins to marry in Europe was common practice, and there was zero shame in it. Many of Jane Austen's novels include romances and marriage between first cousins. Charles Darwin was married to his first cousin -- for his time, it wasn't at all unusual or shameful. I also expect that birth defects from first cousin unions are overstated; probably, they were more likely to happen in the case of two or three generations of first-cousin unions.
Now that you mention it, there is a family resemblence.
My thoughts exactly. Major disclaimer, I am from a hillbilly family (well, one branch is) so I've got license ... for example, you well know that there are some real natural hillbilly figure skaters - the old one leg shorter than the other thing is a great help! [one can also substitute such material into Swiss jokes, since Switzerland and its insularity has long been a cauldron of inbred folk ... ! ;) ]
I have a friend who's brother is married to his mother in law.
Eeewww! Disturbing.
Are relative humidity jokes allowed on this thread ?
Andrews grew up in the South, . . .
How did I know?
For what it's worth, first cousin marriage of cross cousins is common and often preferred....
The presence of elaborate systems for arranging and regulating marriages in widely different cultures suggests to anthropologists that marriage often serves to create and maintain alliances and exchanges between groups. Many of these exchanges are made on an ad hoc basis to cultivate strategic relationships, such as "political marriages" between the children of important leaders. More extensive, stable, and permanent transgeneration ties among allies can be developed ed by a widely instituted system of cross-cousin marriage. Relevant rules specify a man must or should marry either:
* his mother's brother's daughter, matrilateral cross cousin,
* father's sister's daughter, patrilateral cross cousin, or
* under special circumstances, a relative who is simultaneously his mother's brother's and father's sister's daughter, bilateral cross cousin.
http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/marriage/xcuz.html
My relatives liked to marry their relatives by marriage - no blood tie within the marriage, but it gets convoluted to figure out how people are related.
My 2 greats grandmother's daughter married a man who had a sister whose daughter married the half-brother of his wife, so his mother-in-law and his sister were co-mother-in-laws....
But the most interesting one is my great aunt Lilly.
My grandmother's first husband was a man named Tom. His sister had a daughter named Lilly. So for awhile, my grandmother was Lilly's aunt by marriage. Tom dies, and my grandmother remarries his cousin Bill. Now Lilly is a cousin by marriage, I guess you could say. Lilly marries a man that is a cousin to my grandmother on her father's side. Her son is my grandmother's cousin once or twice removed (I forget which.) Lilly's husband died, and she remarries my grandmother's brother, making them now sister-in-laws.
I have to write it down to figure out all the ways we are connected.
LOL
'cep'n y'ave'ta replace them thar bottles wi' a coupla tin cups full up wi' some shine ... ;)
Being more than kissing cousins OK
Fears of passing defects to offspring overblown, research finds
- Denise Grady, New York Times
Thursday, April 4, 2002
Contrary to widely held beliefs and long-standing taboos in America, first cousins can have children together without a great risk of birth defects or genetic disease, scientists are reporting today. They say there is no biological reason to discourage cousins from marrying.
First cousins are somewhat more likely than unrelated parents to have a child with a serious birth defect, mental retardation or genetic disease, but their increased risk is nowhere near as large as most people think, the scientists said.
In the general population, the risk that a child will be born with a problem such as spina bifida or cystic fibrosis is 3 to 4 percent; to that background risk, first cousins must add 1.7 to 2.8 percentage points, the researchers said.
(continues)
Now that's more like it. No joke, I really had a hat like that when I was a young un. Passed to me by my grand pappy !!!
Tennessee. I think we have a winner . . .
Thank you for educating the uninformed. I thought I was going to have to do it.
There is Baltimore, and then, there are them thar hills ;)
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