Deadly Love
May 04, 2008
On cousin marriages in the United Arab Emirates:
a haemo-globinopathy specialist says that “many couples were going ahead with their wedding plans despite discovering they were thalassaemia carriers. “We found most of the couples coming just a few days before their wedding day. During this time, whenever you try to explain to them - there is already a sort of bond between this couple. To break this bond, in our culture, it will not be accepted easily,” he said… health officials said they were still receiving babies born with thalassaemia, adding they did not notice a drop of new cases since pre-marital genetic testing became a requirement in the UAE in 2006.
The spineless reaction of the UK government is not much different.
Sickle cell is a problem in the Gulf nations too. But I don't know as we can say anything about that, because we're not doing anything about it here. It is illegal for first cousins to marry in a lot of states, but since people don't wait to get married to have babies anymore, and since sickle cell is so widespread, that doesn't make any difference. I'm not sure that anyone even suggests to sickle cell carriers that they not have kids. Probably it wouldn't do any good.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) | May 04, 2008 at 07:14 PM
The only consolation is that the suffering caused to the surviving children and those participants who are pressured into this sort of marriage, not to mention the impact on the health care systems will be self-limiting since the impact on fertility of this behavior is unsustainable both genetically and socially. Eventually kids are going to want to do anything they can to escape the customs of their communities as the results become harder to ignore.
Posted by: Saul Wall | May 04, 2008 at 07:21 PM
The main problem in cousin marriages is repetition. An individual instance presents a low enough risk that most nations do not criminalize it. But when it is done repeatedly in a family and in multiple neighboring families due to cultural incentives, beliefs in racial or religious "purity" and or inheritance laws (i.e. keeping land or wealth in a family necessitates it), then the risks start to magnify. Genetic errors that would ordinarily be unnoticed due to redundancy being to interact in ways that would be very unlikely in more diverse mating pools.
Posted by: Saul Wall | May 04, 2008 at 07:32 PM
Saul Well: In the comments on the linked post, a person writes about his friend who didn't want to get married to his cousin but seems to have given in to the pressure.
His parents and grandparents are also cousins.
He'll find himself with tremendous misery -- and he'll inflict it on others -- with the full knowledge that he could have prevented it all.
Posted by: Isaac Schrödinger | May 04, 2008 at 08:12 PM