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Compare that law to the laws in Netherlands where almost everything is allowed. Germany isn't that 'liberal' but still first cousins can marry as far as I understand. I think most of Europe is like Germany.
Exactly. Before that time all villages in Europe looked like populations of cousins. Not much different than what we still see in Middle East and other places around the globe. Modern world definitely made population very mobile and better mixed.Otherwise, the story is the same for the Netherlands as it was for most of Europe in that consanguineous marriages declined starting in the 19th century. The earlier that a country industrialized and created efficient methods of modern transportation, leading to increased mobility, the earlier the decline began.
I hope Papadimitriou doesn't mind, but I came across this when I wrote my prior post on this thread.
See:
https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/360761
"According to the Dutch Civil Law, marriages betweenfirst cousins are allowed; Catholics, however, need dispensationfrom their church for such unions. Under DutchCivil Law, uncle-niece and aunt-nephew marriages arenot allowed, but dispensation by a Royal Decree can begiven."
I don't know if a ban has since gone into effect.
Otherwise, the story is the same for the Netherlands as it was for most of Europe in that consanguineous marriages declined starting in the 19th century. The earlier that a country industrialized and created efficient methods of modern transportation, leading to increased mobility, the earlier the decline began.
Another interesting fact is that consanguineous marriages are usually slightly more prevalent among Protestants than among Catholics, because Catholics require dispensations. Lutheranism got rid of those requirements.
"They were more frequent in 3 out of 6 socialclasses, and more prevalent among orthodox Protestantsin the so-called Bible Belt area, stretching from the SouthWesternprovince of Zeeland to the North-Western partof the province of Overijssel. The 6 distinguished socialclasses were: (1) higher managers and professionals; (2)lower managers and professionals; (3) farmers and fishermen;(4) lower skilled workers; (5) unskilled workers, and(6) farm workers. Classes 1, 2 and 3 were overrepresentedamong the consanguineous couples. Bras et al. [11] arguedthat for these social classes cousin marriages servedboth an economic and a political purpose."
"There are a number of communities in the Netherlands,in which certain autosomal recessive disordersand parental consanguinity or at least endogamy aremore prevalent. One-time islands in the former Zuiderzeeand fishing towns, such as the ones around it, arefamiliar examples."
where did you get that?
can you show me the law?
they are refering to Urk, a once isolated fishing community on an island in the Zuiderzee, which today isn't an island any more
it is the only example I know of
I'm pretty sure consanguinity in the Netherlands is not higher than in Greece or Italy
As you point out, even if their were no laws against it, the community didn't allow cousins to marry. It was not done, and still is not done.
But marriage was still mostly within the same village because of limited contacts, at least for the lower classes.
I know however many Marrocan immigrants living in Belgium go back 'to their family' during summer holidays.
The whole village where they originate from is 'their family' and it is also there where many get their brides.
I don't know what their customs are over there.
I read in the study you mention:
'The public opinion at present is opposed to consanguineousmarriages, since it has long been generally feltthat consanguinity of the parents is a threat to the healthof the children. A ban on consanguineous marriages is beingprepared by the present government in an attempt tofight forced marriages.'
So, there was no need for a law before, but these 'forced marriages' are something new, it is about arranged marriages between immigrants, either among immigrated families or getting the bride from their 'home villages'.
they are refering to Urk, a once isolated fishing community on an island in the Zuiderzee, which today isn't an island any more
it is the only example I know of
I'm pretty sure consanguinity in the Netherlands is not higher than in Greece or Italy
As you point out, even if their were no laws against it, the community didn't allow cousins to marry. It was not done, and still is not done.
But marriage was still mostly within the same village because of limited contacts, at least for the lower classes.
I know however many Marrocan immigrants living in Belgium go back 'to their family' during summer holidays.
The whole village where they originate from is 'their family' and it is also there where many get their brides.
I don't know what their customs are over there.
I read in the study you mention:
'The public opinion at present is opposed to consanguineousmarriages, since it has long been generally feltthat consanguinity of the parents is a threat to the healthof the children. A ban on consanguineous marriages is beingprepared by the present government in an attempt tofight forced marriages.'
So, there was no need for a law before, but these 'forced marriages' are something new, it is about arranged marriages between immigrants, either among immigrated families or getting the bride from their 'home villages'.
As you can see from the maps above, different studies show slightly varying percentages by country in Europe, probably mostly because of different definitions of consanguinity. Some would look only at first cousin marriages, some would include second cousins, or even third cousins, although I think by the time you're talking about the inbreeding coefficient of third cousins you're no longer talking about appreciable risk so long as the group you're looking at hasn't been inbreeding for generations already. In that case, third cousins might actually be closer to "real" first cousins.
The fact is that first cousin marriage is pretty rare in most of Europe today. That wasn't always the case, however. It differed in the past based on when a country became industrialized and when modern transportation, leading to increased mobility, came about. As Le Brok pointed out, many people in Europe, rural people in particular, were marrying within villages of cousins until that new era.
I don't know how much of a difference it made in those days before the industrial revolution that Protestants were able, since the Reformation, to freely practice first cousin marriage, given the fact that dispensations were indeed given in Catholic countries. It's been studied in Italy back hundreds of years in some areas, but I don't know if similar studies were done in Protestant countries, so I don't know what a comparison would show. I don't think there would be a huge difference.
It's an interesting fact of history that it did linger on as a practice even into the 19th century in industrialized countries among "propertied" people for, as the article points out, reasons of economics and politics. In addition to Charles Darwin, all of the following married first and second cousins: H.G.Wells, Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allan Poe, Einstein, Bach, etc. Royalty and nobility are notoriously inbred.
There's no comparison between modern rates for Europeans, where first cousin marriage in most places hovers around 1%, and those for immigrants foitrom Turkey or Morocco or India, where you're talking about 20, 30 and 40% rates, usually, interestingly enough all in the paternal line, which is very different from Italy, where, at least in my area, it was through the maternal line. In other words, mothers in our area handled the matchmaking, arranging marriages for their children with members of her family and friendship networks. Still, for whatever reason, the risks were known to most people, so the degree was important. My nonna's list of "don'ts" in terms of marriage always included a warning about first, second, and even third cousin marriage. It was unnecessary, given I had imbued modern attitudes toward it, no matter how handsome they were, and how well we got along, but I can see how it was indeed necessary in the world of her youth, where these were the people among whom you spent your life, and choices were much more limited. They were smart about this in my father's villages, given that the breeding pool had been so small for so many generations.
In terms of the actual effect on fitness:
"In April 2002, the Journal of Genetic Counseling released a report which estimated the average risk of birth defects in a child born of first cousins at 1.1–2.0 percentage points over an average base risk for non-cousin couples of 3%, or about the same as that of any woman over age 40.[187] In terms of mortality, a 1994 study found a mean excess pre-reproductive mortality rate of 4.4%,[188] while another study published in 2009 suggests the rate may be closer to 3.5%.[7]Put differently, first-cousin marriage entails a similar increased risk of birth defects and mortality as a woman faces when she gives birth at age 41 rather than at 30.[189] Critics argue that banning first-cousin marriages would make as much sense as trying to ban childbearing by older women.Repeated consanginous marriages within a group are more problematic. After repeated generations of cousin marriage the actual genetic relationship between two people is closer than the most immediate relationship would suggest. In Pakistan, where there has been cousin marriage for generations and the current rate may exceed 50%, one study estimated infant mortality at 12.7 percent for married double first cousins, 7.9 percent for first cousins, 9.2 percent for first cousins once removed/double second cousins, 6.9 percent for second cousins, and 5.1 percent among nonconsanguineous progeny. Among double first cousin progeny, 41.2 percent of prereproductive deaths were associated with the expression of detrimental recessive genes, with equivalent values of 26.0, 14.9, and 8.1 percent for first cousins, first cousins once removed/double second cousins, and second cousins respectively.[190]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage
A general thing that also has to be kept in mind is that a lot depends on the mutations floating around in the "breeding pool". In other words, how many deleterious mutations did the "founding" members carry, and how many occurred in the centuries of isolation. It differs by group. Some isolated communities show a lot of genetic disease, others almost none, as Cavalli Sforza found in the Parma Valley, thank goodness.
It is not that simple to present it as a case between individualism and collectivism. It was 15th century Italy after all, where modern capital market and banking was invented. It is Northern Europe, where societies are more united in ideologies and direction, and South more divided, with thousands of small political parties, with everybody having own opinion on everything, and voiced loudly.Within this system the absolute nuclear family system is the most individualistic and egalitarian. This is very typical voor the North Sea region in Europe. From at least the early middle ages this is the area of the "free farmer" the land of the churl (anglo saxon) or Kerl (german). This is also the area of the early commerce. This free minded, capitalistic spirit (avant la lettre) went (in exaggerated form) to New Amsterdam and further....(in front of your nose Angela!).
It is not that simple to present it as a case between individualism and collectivism. It was 15th century Italy after all, where modern capital market and banking was invented. It is Northern Europe, where societies are more united in ideologies and direction, and South more divided, with thousands of small political parties, with everybody having own opinion on everything, and voiced loudly.
People in North care less how they dress, people in south are more flashy to stand out.
In WW2, German army was very coherent and sacrificial, Italian army not even close, they quit and went home.
No it's not that simple, but related to inbreeding, forced marriages etc this is pretty convincing at least according to me:
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/where-do-emmanuel-todds-family-types-come-from/
and
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/lexplication-de-lideologie/
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