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{{short description|Marriage between those with common grandparents or other recent ancestors}}{{expert needed|Genealogy|talk=The chart is wrong|date=May 2021}}{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2017}}{{Use American English|date=November 2020}}{{Anthropology of kinship}}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, though in some jurisdictions such marriages are prohibited.WEB,weblink When Did Cousin Marriage Become Unacceptable?, History, Mr, 2017-01-24, HistoryNet, 2019-08-10, Worldwide, more than 10% of marriages are between first or second cousins. Cousin marriage is an important topic in anthropology and alliance theory.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. Cousin marriage was historically practiced by indigenous cultures in Australia, North America, South America, and Polynesia.{{Citation|last=Dousset|first=Laurent|title=Part three: Western Desert kinship ethnography|date=2018-05-17|url=http://books.openedition.org/pacific/563|work=Australian Aboriginal Kinship : An introductory handbook with particular emphasis on the Western Desert|pages=75–94|series=Manuels du Credo|place=Marseille|publisher=pacific-credo Publications|isbn=978-2-9563981-1-0|access-date=2021-04-15}}{{Citation |last=Dousset |first=Laurent |title=Part two: Some basic concepts of kinship |date=2018-05-17 |url=http://books.openedition.org/pacific/562 |work=Australian Aboriginal Kinship : An introductory handbook with particular emphasis on the Western Desert |pages=45–74 |series=Manuels du Credo |place=Marseille |publisher=pacific-credo Publications |isbn=978-2-9563981-1-0 |access-date=2022-11-03}}{{Citation |title=Glossary |date=2018-05-17 |url=http://books.openedition.org/pacific/558 |work=Australian Aboriginal Kinship : An introductory handbook with particular emphasis on the Western Desert |pages=125–132 |access-date=2023-09-13 |series=Manuels du Credo |place=Marseille |publisher=pacific-credo Publications |language=en |isbn=978-2-9563981-1-0}}In some jurisdictions, cousin marriage is legally prohibited: for example, first-cousin marriage in both Chinas, both Koreas, the Philippines, for Hindus in some jurisdictions of India, some countries in the Balkans, and 30 of the 50 United States.WEB,weblink The Surprising Truth About Cousins and Marriage, 14 February 2014, JOURNAL, Paul, Diane B., Spencer, Hamish G., 23 December 2008, "It's Ok, We're Not Cousins by Blood": The Cousin Marriage Controversy in Historical Perspective, PLOS Biology, 6, 12, 2627–30, 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060320, 19108607, 2605922, free, 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,WEB, Final Thoughts,weblink Cousin Couples, 4 June 2016, MAGAZINE,weblink Cousin Marriage OK by Science, Wired, Brandon Keim, 23 December 2008, while opponents may appeal to moral or other arguments.JOURNAL,weblink The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Surname, William, Saletan, 10 April 2002, Slate, Opinions vary widely as to the merits of the practice. Children of first-cousin marriages have a 4-6% risk of autosomal recessive genetic disorders compared to the 3% of the children of totally unrelated parents.JOURNAL, Hamamy, Hanan, July 2012, Consanguineous marriages, Journal of Community Genetics, 3, 3, 185–192, 10.1007/s12687-011-0072-y, 1868-310X, 3419292, 22109912, 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.MAGAZINE,weblink When Incest Is Best: Kissing Cousins Have More Kin, Scientific American, 8 February 2008,

History

The prevalence of first-cousin marriage in Western countries has declined since the late 19th century and early 20th century.Ottenheimer 1996, pp. 58, 92Freire-Maia 1957 In the Middle East and South Asia, cousin marriage is still strongly favored.Bittles 1994, p. 563The National 2009Bittles 2000Cousin 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 pages on arranged marriage in the Indian subcontinent, arranged marriages in Pakistan, and arranged marriages in Japan).WEB,weblink Go Ahead, Kiss Your Cousin – DiscoverMagazine.com, Bittles 1994, p. 567Bittles and Black 2009, Section 7WEB, Cheema, Sukhbir, 2020-06-25, Indonesian man marries two women. Both are cousins.,weblink 2024-01-21, Mashable SEA {{!, Latest Entertainment & Trending |language=en-sg}}WEB, Hastanto, Ikhwan, 2019-07-15, In Indonesia, Google Searches About Marriages Between Cousins Spike During the Holidays,weblink 2024-01-21, Vice, en,

China

{{Further|Chinese marriage}}Confucius described marriage as "the union of two surnames".Dawson 1915, p. 143 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 have the effect of eliminating parallel-cousin marriage as an option because they would have the same surname but would leave cross-cousin marriage acceptable.Chen 1932, pp. 628–629 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 ( shÄ“ng), with father's brother's children ( shÄ“ng) and mother's sister's children ( cóngmÇ” kÅ«ndì for boys and cóngmÇ” zǐmèi for girls) both being distinct.Feng 1967, p. 37 However, whereas it may not have been permissible at that time, marriage with the mother's sister's children also became possible by the third century AD.Feng 1967, p. 44 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.Feng 1967, p. 38 This usage remains today, with biÇŽo () cousins considered "outside" and paternal táng () cousins being of the same house.Chen 1932, pp. 650–651Anthropologist Francis L. K. Hsu described a mother's brother's daughter (MBD) as being the most preferred type of Chinese cousin marriage.Hsu 1945, p. 91 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 disfavored.Zhaoxiong 2001, p. 347–349 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. In Chinese culture, patrilineal ties are most important in determining the closeness of a relation.Zhaoxiong 2001, p. 355 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.Zhaoxiong 2001, p. 356–357 Later analyses have 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.The following is a Chinese poem by Bai Juyi (A.D. 772–846), in which he described an inbreeding village.WIKISOURCE, 白居易, 朱陳村, zh, Chen 1932, p. 630{{blockquote|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 thereWhich have 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.Feng 1967, p. 43 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". 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.JOURNAL, Engel, John W., 1984, Marriage in the People's Republic of China: Analysis of a New Law,weblink Journal of Marriage and Family, 46, 4, 955–961, 10.2307/352547, 352547, 0022-2445,

Middle East

Cousin marriage has been allowed throughout the Middle East for all recorded history.Goody, Marriage and the Family in Europe Anthropologists have debated the significance of the practice; some view it as the defining feature of the Middle Eastern kinship systemPatai while others note that overall rates of cousin marriage have varied sharply between different Middle Eastern communities.Meriwether Very little numerical evidence exists of rates of cousin marriage in the past.Holy, also Patai, p. 140Raphael Patai reports that in central Arabia, no relaxation of a man's right to the father's brother's daughter seems to have taken place in the past hundred years before his 1962 work. Here the girl is not forced to marry her male cousin, but she cannot marry another unless he gives consent.Patai, Golden River to Golden Road, 145–153 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.Patai 153–161 In Iraq, the right of the cousin also traditionally was followed Patai 166 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,{{clarify|date=October 2011|see talk page, can this be explained by polygyny by men marrying two or more of their cousins?}} merchant families, and older well-established families.Meriwether p. 135In-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.Patai 141 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. In ancient Persia, the Achaemenid kings habitually married their cousins and nieces,Women in Ancient Persia, 559–331 BC By Maria Brosius, p. 68 while between the 1940s and 1970s, the percentage of Iranian cousin marriages increased from 34 to 44%.Givens 1994 Cousin marriage among native Middle Eastern Jews is generally far higher than among the European Ashkenazim, who assimilated European marital practices after the diaspora.Patai, The Myth of the Jewish Race, "Cousin Marriage"According to anthropologist Ladislav 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".Holy, 110–117 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.Holy, 118–120 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 behavior.Holy, 120–127 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.Holy, Chapter 2Patai 144–145 Throughout Middle Eastern history, cousin marriage has been both praised and discouraged by various writers and authorities.Patai 173–175A 2009 study found that many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and that first cousin marriages which may reach 25–30% of all marriages.{{Harvnb|Tadmouri|2009}} (Table 1). In Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, consanguinity rates are increasing in the current generation. Research among Arabs and worldwide has indicated that consanguinity could have an effect on some reproductive health parameters such as postnatal mortality and rates of congenital malformations.JOURNAL, Tadmouri, Ghazi O., Pratibha Nair1, Tasneem Obeid1, Mahmoud T Al Ali1, Najib Al Khaja1, Hanan A Hamamy, 2009, Consanguinity and reproductive health among Arabs, Reproductive Health, 6, 17, 17, 10.1186/1742-4755-6-17, 2765422, 19811666, {{harvid, Tadmouri, 2009, |doi-access=free }}

Middle Eastern parallel-cousin marriage

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.Korotayev A. V. Parallel Cousin (FBD) Marriage, Islamization, and Arabization // Ethnology 39/4 (2000): 395–407.Islam forbids marrying one's nephew or niece, this can be found in the Quran 4:23 which states (translated from Arabic):"Prohibited to you [for marriage] are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your father's sisters, your mother's sisters, your brother's daughters, your sister's daughters, your [milk] mothers who nursed you, your sisters through nursing, your wives' mothers, and your step-daughters under your guardianship [born] of your wives unto whom you have gone in. But if you have not gone in unto them, there is no sin upon you. And [also prohibited are] the wives of your sons who are from your [own] loins, and that you take [in marriage] two sisters simultaneously, except for what has already occurred. Indeed, Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful."

Africa

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.Bittles 1994, p. 565 In Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa, the three largest ethnic groups in order of size are the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.CIA 2010 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.Swanson 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.Karo 1982, p. 268 Divorce can be accomplished easily by either the male or the female, but females must then remarry.Karo 1982, p. 9 Even for a man, lacking a spouse is looked down upon.Karo 1982, p. 264 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.Karo 1982, pp. 102–10350% of the Yoruba people are Muslim, 40% Christian and 10% adherent of their own indigenous religious traditions.Suberu 2001, p. 3 A 1974 study analyzed Yoruba marriages in the town Oka Akoko, finding that among a sample of highly polygynous marriages having an average 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 favorite wives in the marriage and gave birth to more children. However this was not a general study of Yoruba, but only of highly polygynous Yoruba residing in Oka Akoko.Scott-Emuakpor 1974The Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria, who are predominantly Christian, strictly practice non-consanguineal marriages, where kinfolks and cousins are not allowed to marry or have 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 avoid 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.Schwimmer 2003In 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.Crummey 1983, p. 207 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’.Crummey 1983, p. 213 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.Abbink 1998, p. 113 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.Abbink 1998, pp. 112, 118 The Afar practice a form of cousin marriage called absuma, which is arranged at birth and can be forced.Save the Children USA 2007, pp. 6–8

Catholic Church and Europe

File:Table of Consanguinity showing degrees of relationship.svg|upright=1.3|right|thumb|The number next to each box in the Table of Consanguinity indicates the degree of relationship relative to the given person according to Roman lawRoman lawRoman civil law prohibited marriages within four degrees of consanguinity.de Colquhoun, Patrick MacChombaich, A summary of the Roman civil law (William Benning and Co., Cambridge, 1849), p. 513 This was calculated by counting up from one prospective partner to the common ancestor, then down to the other prospective partner.Bouchard 1981 p. 269 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.BOOK, Constance B., Bouchard, Those of My Blood: Creating Noble Families in Medieval Francia, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001, 40, These laws would severely cripple the existing European kinship structures, replacing them with the smaller nuclear family units.WEB, Price, Michael,weblink How the early Christian church gave birth to today's WEIRD Europeans, 7 November 2019, Science (journal), Science, 6 March 2023, In the 9th century, however, 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.Bouchard 1981 p. 270 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.James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 356 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.Bouchard 1981 pp. 270, 271In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council reduced the number of prohibited degrees of consanguinity from seven back to four.WEB,weblink Lateran 4 - 1215, www.ewtn.com, John W. Baldwin, The Language of Sex: Five Voices from Northern France around 1200 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 78 After 1215, the general rule was that while fourth cousins could marry without dispensation, the need for dispensations was reduced.For example, the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain was a first-cousin marriage on both sides.Other examples are: Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor and Margarita, William III and Mary II, Philippe I and Henrietta, Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea, Christian VII of Denmark and Caroline Matilda, George IV and Caroline, Albert and Queen Victoria, Prince Henry of Prussia and Princess Irene, Olav V of Norway and Princess Märtha, Ernest Louis and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who also married Kirill Vladimirovich, another first cousin. It began to fall out of favor in the 19th century as women became socially mobile. Only Austria, Hungary, and Spain banned cousin marriage throughout the 19th century, with dispensations being available from the government in the last two countries.Ottenheimer 1996, p. 90. 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.Ottenheimer. p. 81. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were a preeminent example.WEB,weblink There's nothing wrong with cousins getting married, scientists say, Independent.co.uk, 24 December 2008, {{sfn|Darwin|1875}}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.Ottenheimer. p. 84NEWS,weblink We ought to be exterminated, The Guardian, 19 January 2009, Steve, Jones, London, In fact, Mitchell's own data did not support his hypotheses and he later speculated that the dangers of consanguinity might be partly overcome by proper living. 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.BOOK, Forbidden Relatives: The American Myth of Cousin Marriage,weblink registration, Ottenheimer, Martin, 1996, University of Illinois, Chapter 4, 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.WEB, 2016-10-19, First Cousin Marriages in Italy, by percentage (1930–1964),weblink 2022-10-03, Vivid Maps, en-US, Cousin marriage to third cousins is allowed and considered favorably in Greece.BOOK,weblink Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological Ethnography, Forbes, Hamish, 2007, Cambridge University Press, 978-0521866996,

Ancient Europe

Cousin marriage were 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,Ottenheimer 1996, p. 63Grubbs 2002, p. 163 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.Goody 1983, pp. 51–52 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 Octavian, 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 avoid 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%.Shaw 1984 They further point out that since property belonging to the nobility was typically fragmented,{{clarify|date=November 2012}} 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.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. 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.Patterson 1998, p. 98

Early medieval

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.Goody 1983, p. 45 In contrast, contemporary English law was based on official Catholic policy, and Anglo-Norman clergy often became disgusted with the Irish "law of fornication".Goody 1983, p. 44 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.Bouchard 1981 pp. 269-270 Finally, Edward Westermarck states that marriage among the ancient Teutons was apparently prohibited only in the ascending and descending lines and among siblings.Westermarck 1921, Vol. 2, p. 101

United States

Anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer argues that marriage prohibitions were introduced to maintain the social order, uphold religious morality, and safeguard the creation of fit offspring.WEB,weblink Index of /~omar, www-personal.ksu.edu, 31 March 2014, 23 February 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170223085419weblink">weblink dead, 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 avoiding "the evils of consanguine marriage", avoidance 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.Ottenheimer. p. 111. Morgan himself had married his cousin in 1853.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.These developments led to 13 states and territories passing cousin marriage prohibitions by the 1880s. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play much of a 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. Since that time Kentucky (1943) and Texas have 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.Bittles and Black 2009, Section 2

Legal status

File:CousinMarriageWorld.svg|thumb|upright=2|Laws regarding first-cousin marriage around the world.{{legend|#000099|First-cousin marriage legal}}{{legend|#0066ff|Allowed with restrictions}}{{legend|#ec8028|Legality dependent on religion or culture2}}{{legend|#ff7777|Banned with exceptions}}{{legend|#FF0000|Statute bans marriage, but not crime}}{{legend|#990000|Criminal offense}}{{legend|#b9b9b9|No available data}}1For information on US states see the map below.2See sections on India and Hinduism.]]

East Asia

In the Far East, South Korea is especially restrictive with bans on marriage out to third cousins, with all couples having the same surname and region of origin having been prohibited from marrying until 1997.See Article 809 of the Korean Civil Code and WEB , .Taiwan and North Korea also prohibit first-cousin marriage.Family Code of the Philippines. Article 38.China has prohibited first-cousin marriage since 1981.Marriage Law of 1981 Currently, 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."WEB, Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in New York, 14 November 2003,weblink 1 July 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100211135551weblink">weblink 11 February 2010, dead, This was then encompassed in the Civil Code, which takes effect in 2021, as its Article 1048.Unlike China mainland, the two special administrative regions of China, Hong KongWEB,weblink Cap. 181 Marriage Ordinance: Schedule 5 Kindred and Affinity, Hong Kong e-Legislation, and Macau,WEB,weblink 《民法典》第四卷 親屬法 第二編 結婚 第二章 締結婚姻之要件 第一節 結婚障礙 第一千四百八十條 （相對禁止性障礙）, 澳門特別行政區政府印務局 (Government Printing Bureau), zh-mo, 直系血親關係及二親等內之旁系血親關係亦為禁止性障礙，存有該等關係之人彼此不能結婚。, place no restrictions on marriage between cousins.

Southeast Asia

In Vietnam, Clause 3, Article 10 of the 2000 Vietnamese Law on Marriage and Family forbids marriages of people related by blood up to the third degree of kinship.WEB, The Marriage and Family Law, Ministry of Justice (Vietnam), 28 June 2013,weblink JOURNAL, Francis I., Observations on Cross-Cousin Marriage in China, K. Hsu, American Anthropologist, 47J, 1, 28 October 2009, 10.1525/aa.1945.47.1.02a00050, 83–103, Cousin marriage is also prohibited in the Philippines.

United States

File:Cousin marriage map1.svg|thumb|Laws regarding first-cousin marriage in the United States{{legend|#000099|First-cousin marriage is legal}}{{legend|#0066ff|Allowed with requirements}}{{legend|#ff7777|Banned with exceptions1}}{{legend|#FF0000|Statute bans marriage1}}{{legend|#990000|Criminal offense1}}

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1Some US states recognize marriages performed elsewhere, especially when the spouses were not residents of the state when married.{{sup|}}]]{{Further|Cousin marriage law in the United States}}Several states of the United States have bans on cousin marriage.Ottenheimer 1996, p. 90"Facts About Cousin Marriage." Cousin Couples. {{As of|2014|2}}, 24 U.S. states prohibit marriages between first cousins, 19 U.S. states allow marriages between first cousins, and 7 U.S. states allow only some marriages between first cousins. Six states prohibit first-cousin-once-removed marriages. Some states prohibiting cousin marriage recognize cousin marriages performed in other states, but this does not hold true in general despite occasional claims to the contrary.BOOK, Wolfson, Evan, Why marriage matters: America, equality, and gay people's right to marry, 2004, Simon & Schuster, 978-0-7432-6458-7, 256, registration,weblink {{clear}}

Prevalence

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.JOURNAL, Consanguineous marriages Preconception consultation in primary health care settings, Journal of Community Genetics, 3, 3, 185–192, 3419292, US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, July 2012, Hamamy, H., 22109912, 10.1007/s12687-011-0072-y, File:Global prevalence of consanguinity.svg|thumb|upright=2|Cousin marriages (second-degree cousins or closer) in the world, in percentage (%).WEB,weblink Global prevalence tables – ConsangWiki – Consang.net, www.consang.net, 18 January 2017, JOURNAL, Hammami, Abdelmajid, Elgazzeh, Mohamed, Chalbi, Noureddine, Mansour, Ben Abdallah, 1 January 2005, [Endogamy and consanguinity in Mauritania], La Tunisie Médicale, 83, 1, 38–42, 0041-4131, 15881720, {{legend|#ECE7F2|