Cousin couple
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A cousin couple is a pair of cousins with a romantic relationship.
Cousin couples are prohibited in certain countries and cultures because they are considered incestuous, though this is usually not the case in the Western world except for 24 of the 50 U.S. states, and even these states only prohibit marriage between first cousins.
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[edit] History
In earlier times it was relatively common for first and second cousins to marry. Since people tended not to move very far from the place of their birth, the closest eligible spouse would often be a cousin. Marrying cousins was also a way of keeping land and property within a family.
[edit] Consanguinity
The percentage of consanguinity between any two individuals decreases fourfold as the most recent common ancestor recedes one generation. For example, first cousins have four times the consanguinity of second cousins. Since the human genome is believed to contain about 30,000 genes per cell, seventh cousins and beyond share no more consanguinity to each other than any two individuals taken at random, even if there is a documented most recent common ancestor.
In April 2002, the Journal of Genetic Counseling released a report authored by a team of scientists led by Robin L. Bennett, a genetic counselor at the University of Washington and the president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, which showed that the potential risk of birth defects in a child born of first cousins was not particularly higher than the risk associated with a non-cousin couple. The report estimated the increased risk for first cousins is only between 1.7 to 2.8 percent, or about the same as any woman over 40 years of age. To put it another way, first-cousin marriages entail roughly the same increased risk of abnormality that a woman undertakes when she gives birth at 41 rather than at 30. Banning cousin marriages makes about as much sense, critics argue, as trying to ban childbearing by older women.
Other studies, however, contradict this view. A British study found that Pakistanis in Britain, of which 55% marry their cousin, are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than the general population and that one in ten children of cousin marriages either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability. Thus, Pakistanis (who constitute less than 4% of the population in Britain) have over one third of all British children with genetic illnesses.
[edit] Famous cousin couples
Some cousins who have married:
- Josiah Bartlett, second signer of the Declaration of Independence and his first cousin Mary Bartlett.
- Johann Sebastian Bach and his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach
- Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence and his second cousin.
- Charles Darwin and his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood
- Albert Einstein and his first cousin (through his mother) as well as second cousin (through his father), Elsa Löwenthal née Einstein
- Carlo Gambino and his first cousin Catherine Castellano
- Rudy Giuliani and his second cousin, Regina Peruggi
- Jesse James and his first cousin, Zerelda "Zee" Mimms
- Jerry Lee Lewis and his first cousin once removed, Myra Gale Brown
- John A. MacDonald and his first cousin, Isabella Clark
- Edgar Allan Poe and his first cousin, Virginia Clemm
- Muhammed and cousin Zaynab bint Jahsh
- Sergei Rachmaninoff and his cousin Natalie Satina
- Franklin D. Roosevelt and his fifth cousin once removed, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
- Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her first cousin, Prince Albert
- H.G. Wells and his first cousin Isabel Mary Wells
- Princess Mary of Teck (later Queen Mary) and her second cousin once removed King George V
- Edvard Grieg and his first cousin Nina Hagerup
- Queen Elizabeth II (granddaughter of King George V and Queen Mary) and her second cousin once removed (through Christian IX of Denmark), as well as third cousin (through Queen Victoria), Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
