Re: A double wedding

In a message dated 2/12/2006 6:12:35 PM Mountain Standard Time,

roy...

I confess I've often wondered why marriages of first cousins don't
fall within the grounds of consanguinity generally. First cousins
who marry share a pair of grandparents in common and one parent of
each party are siblings, so it seems to me that in blood terms they
aren't very far removed from half brothers and sisters.

Of course, it's often been popular amongst the royals and
aristocracy, usually more as ways and means of obtaining power or
keeping money within the family, rather than for love.

Steve Hayes...

There are many societies in which cross-cousin marriages are common and
encouraged, and others in which they are taboo.

But there are very few societies where parallel cousin marriages are
encouraged.

With sincere apologies to anyone who may be married to their
first cousin!

Roy Stockdill

"There are no credentials. They do not even need a medical certificate. They need not
be sound either in mind or body. They only require a certificate of birth - just to
prove they are first of a litter. You would not choose a spaniel on these principles."

David Lloyd George on the aristocracy

In fact, first-cousin marriages are illegal in many states of the USA.

Wonder how the license clerk knows the couple are first cousins, or any
other relation for that matter?

myths...

I read a few years ago that a couple discovered in the UK that they
could not marry because the Registrar queried the fact that they had
put down the same father's name. They had not realised that being

roy...

I very dimly remember that case, but it was a good many years ago. I
believe it was one of those unfortunate affairs where both had the
same father but were unaware of each other's existence until they
subsequently met and fell in love. Being half brother and sister,
they were of course unable to marry here but, if I rightly recall,
they went and got married in some Scandinavian country where,
astonishingly enough, it was permitted at the time (may still be, for
all I know).

Roy Stockdill

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about."

Oscar Wilde

brother and sister would be a problem.

Graeme Wall...

I know of no current[1] racial, tribal, ethnic or religious community where
that wouldn't be a problem.

[1] to eliminate the Ancient Egyptians etc

Charani...

A query might be raised if the couple had the same surname, esp if it
was an unusual one, but if they had different surnames, I doubt
there'd be any suspicions. It would also depend on how small the
community was and how much they all knew about each other.

A. Gwilliam...

Aren't (some of) the states over there generally fussier about
marriages than the various British jurisdictions? Getting blood tests,
for example? Perhaps the couple had to provide their birth
certificates, and perhaps those birth certificates are more detailed
than the English ones.

mary lou