{"id":17580,"date":"2011-12-28T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T17:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=17580"},"modified":"2013-11-09T04:48:08","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T09:48:08","slug":"kissing-cousins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/12\/28\/kissing-cousins\/","title":{"rendered":"Cousin Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>For the last week of December, we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Kristina Killgrove, anthropology professor at\u00a0University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, asked a great question about a set of maps posted at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/front.moveon.org\/how-many-states-that-ban-gay-marriage-let-you-marry-your-cousin\/\" target=\"_blank\">Move On<\/a>. \u00a0The maps compare the states that allow gay marriage with the states that allow cousin marriage. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/11\/26\/garden\/26cousins.html?pagewanted=1&amp;emc=eta1\" target=\"_blank\">Most Americans find cousin marriage to be disturbing<\/a> and testimonials from married cousins about their deteriorated family relations and social stigma attest to it. \u00a0The idea behind these maps, then, is that cousin marriage is\u00a0<em>genuinely <\/em>weird or gross, and yet many states grant cousins the right to marry, but not gays and lesbians.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/07\/14.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/07\/14.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In fact, \u00a0emerging evidence that cousin marriages do not significantly increase the risk of birth defects suggest that the stigma and laws against cousin marriage are unwarranted.\u00a0 A doctor cited in the study suggests that disallowing their marriages or rights to have children are tantamount to &#8220;eugenics or forced sterilization.&#8221;\u00a0 Even if there were significantly increased risks of genetic disorders, Dr. Bittles argues, &#8220;People with severe disorders like Huntington\u2019s disease, who have a 50 percent chance of passing it on to their offspring, are not barred from marrying because of the risk of genetic defects&#8230; so cousins should not be, either.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In any case, U.S. aversion to cousin marriage is culturally and historically contingent.\u00a0 That is, it is related to our particular time and place.\u00a0 Worldwide, more than 10 percent of marriages occur between first cousins and cousin marriage, historically, has been quite desirable.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the last week of December, we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 Kristina Killgrove, anthropology professor at\u00a0University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, asked a great question about a set of maps posted at\u00a0Move On. \u00a0The maps compare the states that allow gay marriage with the states that allow cousin marriage. \u00a0Most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,329,272,293],"class_list":["post-17580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-emotion","tag-marriagefamily","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17580"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58550,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17580\/revisions\/58550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}