Did You Know? Is Marrying Your Cousin Actually Dangerous?

Can you marry a cousin? We all have you heard stories about genetic defects being passed down through marriages between cousins. Depending on your culture, you might think of cousin marriages as taboo or perfectly normal. But is marrying your cousin actually dangerous? Let’s look at the history of cousin marriages and check out examples of people marrying their first cousins to see how everything turned out.

SUMMARY: - Children from 2 strangers have a 2%–3% risk of congenital disabilities; children of closely related family members (like 2 siblings or 2 first cousins) have a 4%–6% risk. - Queen Victoria carried a gene for hemophilia, a disorder which causes the blood to not clot properly and can lead to excessive bleeding. The most likely reason why she carried that gene is because it was passed down to her by her parents, who were related to each other. - When Prince William and Kate Middleton were married, people dug through their ancestries to see if they were related. Fortunately, you don’t need to worry about them since their closest relation would be as 11th cousins. - Through DNA testing, researchers discovered that King Tut himself suffered from many illnesses and genetic disorders caused by inbreeding. He had a cleft palate, a club foot, and scoliosis. King Tut’s wife was also closely related to him, and together they had 2 stillborn children. - Franklin Roosevelt married his cousin Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1900s. Fortunately for them, they were only fifth cousins once removed. At that degree of separation, the risk of genetic defects is quite small. - The third president of the United States and principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, married his third cousin Martha Wayles. - Charles Darwin is famously known for being a naturalist and biologist who gave us the theory of evolution and the process of natural selection. When Darwin was 29 years old, he began to think of the idea of marrying. He decided to propose to a woman he’d known all his life: his first cousin Emma Wedgwood. - Albert Einstein is another famous scientist who married a cousin. - After World War 2, inbreeding studies were conducted in Japan. They showed that mortality rates in children increased in the first year of life and that inbreeding was associated with a 37.5% increase in the risk of a child developing a handicap.

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courtesy of bright side