The answer is simply yes everybody should have the right to do anything that is of course excluding crimes but that shouldn't be a crime if they want to marry they should marry if they don't want to marry they shouldn't marry.

Of course. There are no legitimate arguments against it.

Well at a personal opinion point of view, I think 1st cousins shouldn't have the right to marry because it would be morally wrong if they did because that counts as insest, and if they produced offspring it would most likely be shunned and humiliated by the rest of their respected family. But at a legal stand point I feel they should have the right to marry if they want, and it shouldn't be a crime if 1st cousin's want to marry be because they are just pursuing what makes them happy and it isn't really hurting others.

Divine Aurora : Pretty much verbatim of what I was going to say. It all depends on what lens your using to discuss this issue. If your looking at it from a morality, principle or values lens/point of view, one can conclude that allowing 1st cousins to marry goes against everything you believe in. However, if you look at it from a legal perspective, there is no legitimate reason to not allow such marriages to be performed. I mean if a mom wanted to marry her son... as SICK as that is.... legally it should be allowed in my view.

DH110985 : Ah yes the story of Oedipus. Of course we all know how that ended (if anyone has read the book).

Aside from just being incest in general, it's pretty much very supported that in-breeding leads to a lot of defects and diseases in offspring. That's why some of those long dynastic families back in the earlier centuries like the Romanovs in Russia had lots of medical problems like hemophilia. So I guess the reason why there are laws preventing these kinds of things besides the whole "incest is wrong" thing is just that they want to prevent in-breeding for medical reasons.

Oldschool41 : I would caution you against using Greek Mythology as a basis for a modern moral framework. Especially since the gods who so judiciously punished Oedipus for his transgressions were engaged in some fairly incestuous behaviour themselves.


On the whole, I find this "moral" argument confusing. There are a wide range of common practices I find disturbing, ranging from fast food to modern music to furry porn, but I don't condemn the people who practice them as immoral or sick. Perhaps I have a vastly different concept of morality, but I find judging others for their sexual practices the height of hypocrisy; we all have our preferences, and who am I to say yours is wrong and mine is right? If you wish to marry your cousin, or some other relative, I have no business telling you off. It's ridiculous, and indeed immoral, to think I could brand someone as immoral over a choice in romance. For shame.


mdynasty926 : You are completely wrong about the purpose of anti-incest laws. It has nothing to with preventing birth defects and everything to do with the outdated and judgemental attitudes expressed by society. And that's easy to prove. Is someone with a serious genetic defect barred from reproducing, even though the odds of passing that defect on are far greater than the odds of two relatives having a child with a defect? For example, if I have Huntington's Disease, I have a 50% chance of giving my child an incurable terminal disease. But there are no laws against people with genetic defects reproducing.

But it gets better. The average unrelated couple has about a 2-3% chance of giving birth to a baby with some serious genetic defect. If the parents are first cousins, the chance is doubled to about 4-6%. The dynastic families you mentioned early did indeed become rife with defects due to inbreeding. But that wasn't because some prince married his cousin. It was due to many generations of inbreeding that gradually amplified any defects in the parents' DNA until the odds of passing it down were extremely high. But I digress.

Back to the cousins, although it is true they have a 4-6% chance or so of having a child with a serious defect, if the parents are unrelated but the mother is past 40, the odds of her child having a serious genetic defect is also doubled to about 4-6%. And as a rule, the older the parents (both mother and father) are, the higher the risk of defects in the child due to increasing amounts of error present in their DNA. But there are no laws barring older people from reproducing.

For me, personally, the idea of incest makes me sick. To me, it's just not right to be in love with, let alone marry or produce offspring with, a family member.

Yeah, I am not to crazy on the idea of incest, I just thing it is wrong to reproduce with a family member and I am not for it. But if they feel the need to do that and if it is what will make them happy and since there aren't any regulations to doing so anyway, then yeah I guess it would be fine, they aren't really causing trouble for anyone else, but if they do have offspring then it will probably be a hard life for them because they'll probably get shunned and disrespected by the rest of the actual family. So overall, I think incest isn't really a good thing or the way to go, but I guess if it what really makes them happy then I guess it is okay.

While there are quite a few health risks involved when it comes to reproducing, you also kinda have to bear in mind that there are also many relationships that aren't sexual in that way.

Personally, I'd say that if they are in love, they should have the rights to marry. However, being it would be considered incest, they should have to be told the health risks at an early point in the marriage, just to know what could happen if there is ever the risk.

Plus, there are other ways to be able to reproduce than just Husband x Wife (ex: sperm donator), so it's not like there aren't ways to avoid those health risks.

Also, I kinda wanna keep track later in this thread to see who would say yes to this and no to gay marriage.

Traduweise : What you said.

Banning 1st cousin marriage is like banning marriage to a 40 year old woman because she might give birth, and thus there is more chances of defects.


austipokedude : So do you believe immediate family marriage should be legal aswell?

I usually like to stay away from this sort of thing, but I guess I will put my two sense into this. I think that it is alright because they come from two different families. Like, they aren't direct blood. I think somebody will get what I am saying. I do think that it is alright.

TreasurePlanet23 : You might want to explain a bit as I'm a tad confused.

Usually 1st cousins are blood related as to be a First Cousin, your parents must have had you and your uncle/aunt also have a child whose spouse wasn't a family member. Therefore both of you are 1st cousins as even thou your mother/father and your uncle/aunt have children by other people, both you and your 1st cousin are related to your Grandparents by blood. Hopefully that made sense.

I think you might be thinking of 1st Cousins by Marriage (when your grandma and grandpa have children BEFORE they married each other and your parents and their siblings each had a child by other non-family members). Again I hope I didn't screw up that sentence.

Sorry, Its just a no for me, I don't think its really that great of an idea.

I think yes and no. 

While we can't really dictate what others do and they can do as they please, I find it to be shocking that cousins can marry eachother in states, and the offspring they produce would probably be born differently, which is basically harming the baby.


I say no ultimately.

Pokegeek : Well most likely their child is not going to have any sort of defects, usually that takes multiple cases of inbreeding for defects to appear. The child might be a carrier of a genetic disease, but most likely just his parents if they are 1st cousins won't have any defects.