Fine / Uncool / Don’t care?
It is quite common in Pakistan for cousins to get married but here it is an anathema. So I want to know what do desis living here think.
Dard
depends on the cousin. if you get the drift ;)
Ghalib gottya
Dard: Marying your cousin is not a problem at all. Medically, relegiously or moraly, it is quite right to marry to your cousin.
Dear msaquibj,
may i dare disagree with you? 
Moral correctness of marrying one’s cousin is certainly a matter of what society you live in! Ancient egyptians used to marry their sisters as an accepted custom! We cannot even think of such a thing today!
As far as medical reasons goes, it is always safer not to marry within your blood relatives.Marrying inside one’s own family does tend to bring out recessive genetic disorders in the offsprings.
Queer I couldn’t agree more..
Yaar ye kyaa hai..pehle behn behn karo aur baad maiN shaadi..
http://www.pak.org/gupshup/frown.gif
Ramis
[This message has been edited by Ramis (edited April 09, 1999).]
Deer queer:
[QUOTE]
Ancient egyptians used to marry their sisters as an accepted custom! We cannot even think of such a thing today!
[QUOTE]
If you read the topic again, it says "MARRYING COUSIN" no one talked about marrying to brother or sister. Marrying to a cousin is entirely different than marrying to a brother and sister.
[QOUTE]
Marrying inside one's own family does tend to bring out recessive genetic disorders in the offsprings.
[QUOTE]
This quote has been proven wrong already and is now being used as an old saying.
In Pakistan marrying to your cousin is common practice. How many people are disorder?
That is the proven evidence that marrying to your cousin does not bring any medical diorder.
[This message has been edited by msaqibj (edited April 09, 1999).]
I have to agree with msaqibj bhai.
Call me old fashioned, but i try and look at everything from an Islamic perspective first. And islamically it is permissible to marry within 'cousin hood.'
Also medically it has been proven generically safe. Besides, there are many scientific facts in the Qur'aan and those that have been mentioned by the Prophet (salallaahu 'alaihi wassallam), which scientists are only discovering in recent times. But eventually they're all being proven right ... from the unknown to the unimaginable.
So trying desperately not to stray off the topic, this is just another straight forward answer as far as science is concerned.
regards
msaquibj saheb,
i gave the example of egyptians just to illustrate a point!Besides, i always thought that cousin was short for cousin sis or cousin bro!
U sure about the recessive disorder part?I have a decent knowledge of genetics and as per my knowledge, inbreeding very much leads to recessive disorders being brought out!
This is quite well known in the case of pedigree dogs!
Lets ask Kash.Girl ;) she's in the med.profession!
And besides, recessive disorder doesnt necessarily mean something exotic! It could just be increased risk to cardiovascular disorders, cancers etc!
Hasnain jee,
It's again a personal matter whether u want to accept the scientific viewpoint or the religious one...I'd prefer the scientific one anyday!
[This message has been edited by queer (edited April 09, 1999).]
Hasnain Mian I agree with you when you say "there are many scientific facts in the Qur'aan and those that have been mentioned by the Prophet (salallaahu 'alaihi wassallam), which scientists are only discovering in recent time"
But I am sorry to say the Inter-family marriages DO lead to handicapped children..And that is medically proven..!!! Even in the Holy Quran you wouldn't find evidence saying the contrary..
Religion has nothing to do with this...!!!
Ramis
good point queer!! so now we can safely assume that all those who practice inter cousine marriages, are all handicaps, mentally, genetically, physically retarded, while those who follow 'scientific proofs' are all God vaccinated against genetic birth defects, diseases, disorders, and just about any thing that west tend to attach towards cousine marriages. This leads to conclude that there should not be any such disease or problem in western countries since people here don't follow this practice??
Point is, if the code goes wrong in your genes, you will be transferring it over to your offspring, doesn't matter if marry an outsider or within cousines. The probability is even in both cases.
KK,
Let me explain! :)
If the genetic code is wrong in both the parents,(which is more likely if both are blood relatives), the kid is sure to be affected!
Recessive gene disorders do not affect the child if only one parent carries the defective gene!
A famous example is haemophilia in the British royal family! (I just remembered )
queer:
Its nice to know that you have the genetic knowledge:
Could you please tell me that there is any assurance of no chance of disorder genes in parents who are not cousins to each other.
Is there any guarantee?
Would you please tell us in the light of current research what is the brobability of finding disorder genes in parents who are not cousins to each other and vice versa?
Deer you are right that if the genetic code is wrong in both the parents,the kid is sure to be affected! But there is equal chances of disorder genes in both parents regardless if they are cousins or not.
Hasnain: You are 100% right that there are hundrads of things are being proven right these days by the science which have been mentioned in Quaran or by the Phrophat Muhammad (SAW) about 1500 years ago.
KK:
You are absolutely right that if that is the case then there should not be any disorder person in the west.
Finding a big number of disorder people in the west proves that the theory of cousin marraige given by the west is wrong.
i cannot imagine marrying my cuz and i totally agree with ramis....anyway we r all part of a family and have grown up together.so basically y r marrying someone who reads u like a book.how boring!!!my mum is hoping that i'll marry my cuz in lahore and i have turn the proposal down without even considering not only 4 medical reasons but i 'll prefer marrying someone out of the family and if there is a conflict then its difficult as the rest of the family members will be involve and there will be tons of family politics....
Sonya:
That is true and I agree with you about all those politics and stuff but it comes under personal choice. What I am trying to explain is that there is "Noting Wrong" in it. If some one wants to marry a cousin that is his/her choice and that person is not doing any thing wrong. That is the point I am trying to explain.
Sorry to disappoint queer but I don’t have the genetics knowledge. But, what I do know I do have to agree with you.
I think the argument against it is when it is constantly repeated….with no new genetic resource brought in. I also remember geneticist did a study on the percentage of genetic disorder in Punjab of pakistan and area of japan, where they often marry cousins in comparison to areas which don't inter-marry. I wonder if anyone has more info on the results.
But i do have to admit, I’m a product of a first cousin marriage and I haven’t found any disorder….. yet. ;)
Will go further into a discussion when I return from chi…but I did want to bring up some point.
What about the difference in relationships with in-laws?
Does this actually decrease the power plays that occur in dessi families?
Does it make the initial years of marriage much more easy? Both of the parties know each other and the families most likely are very similar in style, culture, tradition (think how you eat, celebrate holidays etc.).
[This message has been edited by kashmirigirl (edited April 09, 1999).]
one more thing.
Just because Islam allows us to marry us cousins, does not mean that is the only option or better option.
It is allowable. That's it.
I don't really have any problem with cousin marriages.
In terms of genetic disorders, there is a possibility that in cases of severe "inbreeding" disorders manifest themselves in the offspring of children (as Queer has mentioned).
I read about a case in Greenland, where a small community lived. After a certain period of time, the community had a recurring problem with blindness in their offspring. I cannot recall exact numbers but the findings were startling. That of course was a case of severe inbreeding.
This is also recognized in animal species. Where certain species have suffered extinction from inbreeding. I think such species are called "bottlenecks" (but I might be wrong, my memory of introductory biology isn't what it use to be).
That being said, I think you should judge for yourself. Ask yourself, is this a family tradition which has occured over a long period of time? Are their certain disorders which seem to be recurring throughout my family? Do I run the risk of passing on defective genes to my children as a result of my marriage? If you can answer those, and you think the risks are minimal, than I think you can marry your cousin, otherwise, maybe you should think twice.
Achtung ;)
I think it is a matter of being more prone to recessive disorder vs. being less prone to. There cannot be a guarantee or assurance on either side, but, the scientific, medical knowledge is the closet clue that we have on the matter. May be 10 years from now it would actually be proven that marraying a cousin won't have any adverse effects on children, but we don't that right now.
We are talking about probable matter here: Having more probability in one case as compared to other case. If society allows you then it comes to the individual's choice if he or she take this more or less probability into any consideration or not. So msaqibj and Queer, you both have equitable but differing points of views on that and hence will may live your life accordingly. That does not make anyone of you to be more or less right than the other one, just different.
The important thing, however, is the point reached where majority of the marriages among cousins will result in handicaped children. In such a case, the probability would be so high that even a common person would think to support implementing the ban on cousin-marriages on societal level. I don't think we have reached that higher point yet, so in result, in becomes every individual's decision on what side of probability continuum he or she wants to stand.
Personally, I would avoid marraying a cousin.
I have to agree with Achtung and a-monad that it is strictly upon the person's own choice and the situation.
a_monad Yaar, Personally, I have not married to a cousin neither I am going to, you know why, (none of my cousins liked me, LOL, just kidding), it is not the tridition in my family.
looks like everyone is explaining the genetic thing so let me clarify what queer was saying in my own words...
There is more CHANCE that if you marry a relative, that they will have the same recessive defective as you, but because it is only recessive(not expressed but stored and passed on to children after copulation) the child has a 1/4 chance of getting 2 of the recessive defective traits(one from each parent-thats normal, everyone has 2 of the same genes, but when 2 recessive genes come together, that is the only way they become expressd in the individual)...so if the child has 2 of the same traits(which can code for any deficency), the trait is expressed (or rather not expressed) thus causing the disease...
But this is all on chance...I mean you can have children with someone off the street and they too may have the same unexpressed recessive trait as you, but there is more chance for the trait to be passed unknowingly through families because genes are similar...