Is It Legal to Marry Cousins in Australia

If you grew up in a culture where marriage between cousins is not a common practice, the mere thought of marrying a cousin may be enough to scare you away. But not only is marriage between cousins legal in Australia, but not so long ago it was quite common to marry cousins. I bet your readers who are legally and voluntarily married to a parent — a common thing in many cultures — will feel fantastic when you write about their “scary borderline” connection. There are other factors that could invalidate a marriage, such as if one of the parties is already married or if one of the parties is too young to be married. But assuming none of these other factors exist, then yes, it`s perfectly legal to marry your cousin. So here we go. Buddhism does not prohibit specific sexual practices and only excludes “sexual misconduct” in the Five Commandments. [205] Zoroastrianism allows marriages between cousins. [206] Sikhism largely follows the pattern of prohibiting marriages between the same clans, with many Sikhs choosing to marry off their children to a partner from another village or city just to avoid the risk of consanguinity between them. [207] [unreliable source?] By far, the darkest encounters are with a pair of married cousins with three children, two of whom are severely autistic, and a genetics expert describing the statistical risks associated with marriage between cousins. Hiba, who has a family history of deafness and thalassemia, a blood disorder, opts for genetic testing to help her make her decision. “Under the 1961 Marriage Act, [cousins] can marry,” Beryl Schahinger of Genealogy SA told ABC Radio Adelaide`s Afternoons. For some important examples of cousin marriages in ancient Rome, such as the marriage of Octavian`s daughter to his sister`s son, see the Julio-Claudian family tree.

Marcus Aurelius also married his maternal cousin Faustina the Younger, and they had 13 children. Marriages between cousins were more common in ancient Greece, and marriages between uncle and niece were also allowed. [3] An example is King Leonidas I of Sparta, who married his half-niece Gorgo. A Greek woman who became an epiclerosis or heiress without brothers was obliged to marry her father`s closest male relatives if she was not yet married and had not given birth to a male heir. In the first place, there were either his father`s brothers or their sons, followed by the sons of his father`s sisters. [92] The Middle East has particularly high rates of cousin marriages among regions of the world. In one study, Iraq was estimated at a rate of 33% for cousins who marry. While it may not be acceptable to some, did you know that in many states in Australia it is legal to marry your first cousin? “It was common in European history for cousins to marry. Just look at the royal lines.

These developments led 13 states and territories to ban marriage between cousins in the 1880s. Although at the same time, the eugenics movement did not play a major direct role in the bans. George Louis Arner viewed prohibition in 1908 as a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he believed would eventually be replaced by refined techniques. By the 1920s, the number of bans had doubled. [8] Since then, Kentucky (1943) and Texas have banned marriage to first-degree cousins, and since 1985, Maine has mandated genetic counseling for cousin marriage to minimize the risk of serious harm to the health of their children. The National Conference of State Uniform Law Commissioners unanimously recommended in 1970 that all such laws be repealed, but no state has dropped its ban. [6] [17] [101] Lévi-Strauss postulates that marriage between cousins has the effect of establishing classes that automatically delimit the circle of possible spouses and determining a relationship that could decide whether a potential spouse is desired or excluded. While in other kinship systems one or the other of these aspects dominates, in marriage between cousins they overlap and accumulate their effects. It differs from the prohibitions of incest in that the latter uses a set of negative relationships and says who not to marry, while marriage between cousins uses positive relationships that say who should marry. Most importantly, cousin marriage is the only preferred type of union that can function normally and exclusively, while giving every man and woman the chance to marry a cross cousin. Unlike other systems such as levirate, sororate, or uncle-niece marriage, marriage between crossed cousins is preferred because these others cannot represent the exclusive or even predominant rule of marriage in any group for obvious reasons.

Cross-cousin marriage divides members of the same generation into two roughly equal groups, crossed cousins and “siblings,” which include true siblings and parallel cousins. Therefore, marriage between cousins may be a normal form of marriage in a society, but the other systems mentioned above can only be privileged forms.