Unveiling the Legalities and Risks: Cousins Getting Married in the UK
Can I marry my cousin in the UK?
Across the globe, more than 10 percent of marriages are between first or second cousins. In the UK, there’s no legal bar to two cousins having a relationship. That means that if end up falling for the children of your aunts and uncles, there’s nothing stopping you from eventually tying the knot. If you’re over the age of 18, you can do this without the consent of your legal guardian or parent. First-cousin marriages were once quite common in Europe, especially among the elite. But all this changed in the late 19th century. As social mobility grew, so did a perception of the risks associated with cousin marriages.
Can having children with cousins affect babies?
Countless studies have been done on how a relationship between two cousins will affect their children if they choose to have them. According to Alan Bittles from the Centre of Comparative Genetics in Australia, the risk of birth defects rises from roughly 2 percent to 4 percent for first cousins. Hereditary disorders and defects can occur in various different ways, but the one that could relate to cousins is known as autosomal recessive inheritance. This means the condition can only be passed on to a child if both parents have a copy of the faulty gene – this means both are “carriers” of the condition – and this is more likely if the parents are related. Conditions passed on in this pattern are cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, and Tay-Sachs disease, but there are many others too. If a person does not have a disease or disorder that they know of, they still may have the gene inside them and be a carrier, which would be recessive. If just one parent has this and the other does not, their child may be a carrier of the gene but will definitely not develop a condition – it means they could then pass the carrier gene on to their own children. If two recessive genes of the same disorder or disease come together, one from each parent, there is a one in four chance of the child developing that disorder, according to the NHS, and the child will have a 50 percent chance of being a carrier. In the context of first cousins marrying, the cousins are more likely to carry similar genes, and therefore the chance of two recessive genes coming together is greater. Studies have shown that a child of first cousins is more likely to have birth defects than two people who meet at random, because first cousins share 12.5 percent of their DNA, according to a 2002 study in the journal of genetic counseling. Because of the overlap, there is a 1.7 to 2.8 percent bigger risk of intellectual disability and genetic disorders than the general population says Robin Bennett, the lead author of that research. A variety in genetics will help prevent disease. There are still wide-ranging views on the matter, however. Alan Bittles, from the Centre for Comparative Genomics in Australia, says that the risk of birth defects rises from roughly 2% in the general population to 4% for first cousins and “it would be a mistake to ban it”. Hamish Spencer, head of zoology at the University of Otago in New Zealand told ScientificAmerican.com the elevated risk is comparable to a 40-year-old woman having children and we consider that perfectly acceptable. “I can’t imagine a law saying they’re not allowed to have children.” Marrying a first cousin is a common practice in the Pakistani community. And a study carried out in Bradford where there is a high level of Pakistanis living showed that birth defects are increased when two family members procreate. Marriage between first cousins more than doubles the chance of having a child with potentially life-threatening defects, it showed. Out of 11,000 births between 2007 and 2011 in Bradford, more than 2,000 babies were born from first cousin parents. The children had a six percent chance of having an abnormality from birth, compared to the average of three percent. Children born to parents that were related but not first cousins also had a higher chance of abnormalities.
Which relatives cannot marry?
Just because you can marry your cousin, does not mean that you can marry every relative in your family tree. There are relatives who you cannot marry, no matter how much you love them:
– Siblings and half-siblings cannot marry each other.
– A parent cannot marry his or her son or daughter.
– You cannot marry any one of your grandparents.
– You cannot marry your parents’ siblings – meaning your aunts and uncles.
– You cannot marry your nephews – meaning your siblings’ children.
– Adoptive children cannot marry their genetic parents or grandparents or their adoptive parents.
Which famous people have married their cousins?
There are many famous people out there who made headlines for marrying their cousins. Here, we name a few: