February 18, 2006

First cousin marriages: Poll result













I figure the time has come to print the poll results of my first poll "What is your take on first cousin marriages". I suppose I asked this question mainly because it is a very predominant custom among my Pakistani friends and family and it is something that is being more and more debated and even questioned. Every man to his own I say.

Do vote in my next poll:
"Under which of the following would you categorize the publication of the danish caricatures?"

14 comments:

BuJ said...

very good.. i voted, but i'm trying to vote twice but it seems to have a way to detect it and stop me..
aggh technology!

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Yes indeed I have restricted it to one vote per IP user...

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Welcome Nabil! G'day to yourself too :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah Dave that sure is true. I have relatives who have done the same but mostly it's frowned upon.

* said...

Think of the Shia community who only marry within their communities, or Aga khaanis,Parsis to mention a few.
Its almost incestous isn't it though, esp like me if you have a very small family and have grown up with your cousins. Yewwwww!

* said...

OOh yeh. On your new poll you could have also offered the option of cheap publicity. Kinda like them Page 3 girls showing off their.......

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

page 3 girls lol indeed Kaya. Thing is for me I feel like if one marries a cousin, fine, it's your life, but they do it in generations. I have a friend who married a cousin, and their parents married cousins, and their grandparents were also cousins...I mean that just can't be good in the long run. To do it once doesn't seem to be a problem, medically speaking.

Dave: Thanks for enlightening me. I guess the difference is, people who marry cousins in the states get labelled as rednecks (in pakistan the equivalent would be "paindoo"), however no one gets socially stigmatized for marrying a cousin in Pakistan. Rather a person who doesn't want to marry his/her cousin gets the question "Is my son/daugter not good enough for you".

secretdubai said...

Coming from the UK, although cousin marriage is rare, it's not illegal. So I've never been particularly worried or grossed out by it (like some Americans are, in the states where it is categorised as incest). Nor do I think that in-breeding is a hugely significant concern with occasional cousin marriage.

The problem is where cousin marriage is very common - even the norm - in a society, that inbreeding becomes a problem. When you count the number of grandparents and greatgrandparents, they are greatly reduced: because cousins in some societies here are far more closely related than in others. Have two female sisters marrying their two male cousins - then if their own children decide to marry (or more likely it is decided for them that they will marry), things start getting pretty unhealthy.

So I'd have to vote 4: except when it happens extremely rarely, it's not a good idea.

samuraisam said...

add "attention seeking" to your new poll, the only reason someone would draw such cartoons, after all, is just for attention.

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Ah indeed sam, Kaya was mentioning more or less the same point. Haven't gotten around to adding that, but will do so now. Thanks for stopping by :)

SD: Welcome! Well the whole idea of discussing the concept of cousin marriage is to highlight the problems that are connected to the idea of "cousin marriage" being the "default" version of marriage, which it is in eg. Pakistan. An occasional cousin marriage does not have effects upon genetics (except in rare cases), however the social structure of promoting cousin marriages as a norm is problematic since it is then, like you said, done in generations.

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Poll edited... :)

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed a lot!
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Anonymous said...

best regards, nice info »

Anonymous said...

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