Re: Cousin marriages- yay or nay in this day and age.
I disagree with the bolded part of your statement because, unfortunately, some people do and this seems to be a trend in some areas. This may not be the case where you live, but it seems to happen more often abroad. I live in the UK and have noticed that many marriages are, indeed, based on convenience. In a section of certain communities (and no, I am not generalising and saying that everyone does this but enough people do that it’s been in the paper recently), there has been a trend in recent years (or maybe it’s been happening for the past few years but people have only noticed it now that it’s been in the papers) of forced marriages to cousins from back home for the sole purpose of bringing extended family over to the UK.
In many of those cases, the cousins had never even met or even spoken to one another, so I doubt it had anything to do with finding the best match. It was also noted (from what I read and heard from people as well) that many of these “marriages” were contractual in nature in that parents living in the UK had made agreements before their children were even born to marry them to the children of their siblings living back home for the purpose of bring them over to the UK. I’m sorry but that does not sound like the parents were thinking of finding their children the best match or even had their best interests in mind.