Laws Against Incest May Be Relaxed. Good? Bad?

[Minnesota]

(FindLaw) -- Jerry Lee Lewis is notorious for having married his cousin. So are Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. All three suffered for having violated a widely held social norm against "incestuous" unions. Yet there may be less reason for this norm, and for the laws enforcing it, than was once believed.

A panoply of state laws say cousin marriages are taboo. But a new report in the Journal of Genetic Counseling, described in the New York Times last week, might send state lawmakers back to work revising their incest laws.

The report concludes that cousins can have children together without running much greater risk than a "normal" couple of their children having genetic abnormalities. Accordingly, the report potentially undermines the primary justification for laws that prevent first cousins from marrying or engaging in sexual relations with one another.

*SNIP*


The laws regulating incest in different states
Incest in this country is regulated through two parallel sets of laws: marriage regulations and criminal prohibitions. Marriage laws prohibit unions of parties within certain relationships of consanguinity (by blood) or affinity (by marriage). They declare such marriages void from the start.

Criminal laws prohibit marriage and sexual relationships based on the same ties (with the necessary consanguinity and affinity usually defined the same way as in the marriage laws). They penalize those who disobey with fines or imprisonment.

*SNIP*

Possible constitutional challenges to incest laws
Will the new data -- which strongly suggest, for cousins, that the genetic justification does not hold water -- mean that state prohibitions on cousin-marriages are vulnerable to constitutional attack? Certainly, the new data dramatically strengthen the basis for such an attack.

*SNIP*

Will cousins be allowed to marry?
Prohibitions on cousin marriage are unique to the United States. Most other countries permit first-cousin marriages without restriction, and the rate of cousin marriages in some countries is as high as 60 percent of all marriages. But that has always been the case, and being unique has rarely motivated Americans to change their ways.

smiley source and more

[TheOneAndOnly]

Laws Against Incest May Be Relaxed. Good? Bad?

Depends who your sister is.

[brother vinny]

Dang. Took society long enough, and I have a smokin' second cousin!

(Well, she was smokin' when I was nine years old. Haven't seen her since.)

[Hitch]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

[BeHereNow]

The worst fear of anti-homosexuals has come true. Next thing you know: bestiality.

[Rubia Warren]

Good. I think people should be allowed to marry whomever they choose, and if we allow same-sex partners to marry, then in the name of the same equality it should be extended to incestuous relationships. It absolutely should not stop at same-sex partners, and 2 cousins should not be denied the right to marry the one they love- especially those who cannot or plan to never have children.
And I am as serious as a heart attack, too.

[Piebald]

The worst fear of anti-homosexuals has come true. Next thing you know: bestiality.

That's a slippery slope, there's no re--- wait a minute, Fox News just reported that legislators are considering relaxing bestiality laws. Well, there's no way that is going to lead to necro-bestiality, that's for sure!

[Nicholas]

That's a slippery slope, there's no re--- wait a minute, Fox News just reported that legislators are considering relaxing bestiality laws. Well, there's no way that is going to lead to necro-bestiality, that's for sure!

I'm suddenly reminded of the movie The Omen. The kid was born to a Jackal, although one of the two sequels did have a fox hunt in it.
Then again, maybe I'm reading into the whole Fox news thing here...

[CatholicSage]

My opinion. Incest=bad. There, I said it, and I won't take it back.

[Epoetker]

Prohibitions on cousin marriage are unique to the United States. Most other countries permit first-cousin marriages without restriction, and the rate of cousin marriages in some countries is as high as 60 percent of all marriages. But that has always been the case, and being unique has rarely motivated Americans to change their ways.

Hey look! Now you have the dividing factor between Americans and the rest of those ignorant inbred peoples of the world. Looks like I have to change my usual anti-racist tune-there IS actually a racial component to American exceptionalism.

In all seriousness, this is actually given as one of the big reasons so many countries fail:

After the exclusion of women from productive endeavors, the next-worst wastage of human potential occurs in societies where the extended family, clan, or tribe is the basic social unit. While family networks provide a safety net in troubled times, offering practical support and psychological protection, and may even build a house for you, they do not build the rule of law, or democracy, or legitimate corporations, or free markets. Where the family or clan prevails, you do not hire the best man (to say nothing of the best woman) for the job, you hire Cousin Luis. You do not vote for the best man, you vote for Uncle Ali. And you do not consider cease-fire deals or shareholder interests to be matters of serious obligation.

Such cultures tend to be peasant-based or of peasant origin, with the attendant peasant's suspicion of the outsider and of authority. Oligarchies of landed families freeze the pattern in time. There is a preference for a dollar grabbed today over a thousand dollars accrued in the course of an extended business relationship. Blood-based societies operate under two sets of rules: one, generally honest, for the relative; and another, ruthless and amoral, for deals involving the outsider. The receipt of money now is more important than building a long-term relationship. Such societies fight well as tribes, but terribly as nations.

At its most successful, this is the system of the Chinese diaspora, but that is a unique case. The Darwinian selection that led to the establishment and perpetuation of the great Chinese merchant families (and village networks), coupled with the steely power of southern China's culture, has made this example an exception to many rules. More typical examples of the Vetternwirtschaft system are Iranian businesses, Nigerian criminal organizations, Mexican political and drug cartels, and some American trade unions.

Where blood ties rule, you cannot trust the contract, let alone the handshake. Nor will you see the delegation of authority so necessary to compete in the modern military or economic spheres. Information and wealth are assessed from a zero-sum worldview. Corruption flourishes. Blood ties produce notable family successes, but they do not produce competitive societies.

The prevalence of first-cousin marraiges is why, for example, Iraq had so much trouble adjusting to democracy with a market economy-landed families don't like doing business with people outside the family who might stiff you on a deal.

But, as I've been saying all this time, money is trust. Such a mistrusting arrangement that allowing widespread cousin marraiges would create is anathema to my view as an American patriot and partisan. The experiments with gay marraige in other countries have not yet been borne out. The terrible legacy of cousin marraiges, however, is plain to anyone who takes the time to look at the history.

[SpinyNorman]

Depends who your sister is.

[SpinyNorman]

Good. I think people should be allowed to marry whomever they choose, and if we allow same-sex partners to marry, then in the name of the same equality it should be extended to incestuous relationships. It absolutely should not stop at same-sex partners, and 2 cousins should not be denied the right to marry the one they love- especially those who cannot or plan to never have children.
And I am as serious as a heart attack, too.

REALLY????

[Jack777]

Hitler was the product of an incestuous marriage and his monorchidism was likely due to it. I am thinking the movie with Burt Reynolds, Deliverance, is the dream of lots of liberals. We will be hearing "squeal like a pig" replaced with pigs squealing if the ACLU and other morally bereft people have it their way.

[Nicholas]

Hitler was the product of an incestuous marriage and his monorchidism was likely due to it. I am thinking the movie with Burt Reynolds, Deliverance, is the dream of lots of liberals. We will be hearing "squeal like a pig" replaced with pigs squealing if the ACLU and other morally bereft people have it their way.

Riiiiight... I think I might need to see this movie...

[guacamole]

Spoken in the subterranean lair of the evil neo-con cabal:

Hrm... Well, we've successfully made them fatter, how can we make them dumber??