"It's Fine to Marry Your Cousin as Long As You Know the Risks You're Taking"

[NoNukes]

My wife's parents were first cousins and there was no problems at all.

 

[JWBooth]

It would be one thing if first cousins marry & don't have children together. It's another if first cousins marry & have children together, & that continues through the generations. Eventually - like the Romanovs - you start getting hemophilia & other congenital defects.

Each society/culture decides how much they want to gamble with the genetic dice (how much inbreeding to tolerate) - but when education/training is at a premium - I think it's wasteful to educate/train individuals whose bloodlines become weaker with time, instead of stronger.

The Islamic countries/cultures with the largest population bases seem to hardly value women, other than as housekeepers & brood mares. I don't know much about Islamic courtship practices - is it an issue of How do you meet elegible women? Does anyone know?

Back breeding is common practice in livestock, it can improve a herd....however in livestock you get to cull the defectives.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Prohibition is rarely the best answer in the long run.

Education, education, education.

 

[Circe]

....however in livestock you get to cull the defectives.

In humans the mom has to devote her entire life to caring for the defective, while the father runs out on her and finds another woman.

Probably better for women to avoid all that as much as possible.

 

[Connery]

Prohibition is rarely the best answer in the long run.

Education, education, education.

I agree, we can see what happened during "The Great Experiment" in the US.

Prohibition: The Great Experiment

People have free will, prompting informed choices would lead to a better end in most situations.

 

[martybegan]

Other groups that have a lot of trouble with inbreeding defects are Amish and fundamentalist Mormons. That polygamy with their uncles and half-brothers results in a lot of Mormon retardation and serious handicaps.

Charles II of Spain, the last of the Spanish Hapsburg rulers, and the poster boy for inbreeding being a bad idea.

Charles II of Spain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dating to approximately the year 1550, outbreeding in Charles II's lineage had ceased (see also pedigree collapse). From then on, all his ancestors were in one way or another descendants of Joanna and Philip I of Castile, and among these just the royal houses of Spain, Austria and Bavaria. Charles II's genome was actually more homozygous than that of an average child whose parents are siblings.[2] He was born physically and mentally disabled, and disfigured. Possibly through affliction with mandibular prognathism, he was unable to chew. His tongue was so large that his speech could barely be understood, and he frequently drooled. It has been suggested that he suffered from the endocrine disease acromegaly, or his inbred lineage may have led to a combination of rare genetic disorders such as combined pituitary hormone deficiency and distal renal tubular acidosis.

 

[Circe]

Other groups that have a lot of trouble with inbreeding defects are Amish and fundamentalist Mormons. That polygamy with their uncles and half-brothers results in a lot of Mormon retardation and serious handicaps.

Charles II of Spain, the last of the Spanish Hapsburg rulers, and the poster boy for inbreeding being a bad idea.

Charles II of Spain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dating to approximately the year 1550, outbreeding in Charles II's lineage had ceased (see also pedigree collapse). From then on, all his ancestors were in one way or another descendants of Joanna and Philip I of Castile, and among these just the royal houses of Spain, Austria and Bavaria. Charles II's genome was actually more homozygous than that of an average child whose parents are siblings.[2] He was born physically and mentally disabled, and disfigured. Possibly through affliction with mandibular prognathism, he was unable to chew. His tongue was so large that his speech could barely be understood, and he frequently drooled. It has been suggested that he suffered from the endocrine disease acromegaly, or his inbred lineage may have led to a combination of rare genetic disorders such as combined pituitary hormone deficiency and distal renal tubular acidosis.

Yes! The Hapsburgs were a great example.

A lesser but very severe example of deleterious royal inbreeding was the hemophilia of much of the royal families of Europe probably from Victoria's line.