Kissin Cousins

According to the latest research by the university of Edinburgh (and actually not so latest research, as I recall being told this decades ago), having a very diverse parental genetic background gives a child a better chance in life.

Kissin Cousins USA ......

 

The outcome of these liaisons are both taller and smarter. The research looked at the DNA of over 350,000 people worldwide and confirmed that the offspring of unrelated parents, were both lankier and more intelligent than the offspring of people who were closely related, such as being first cousins.
Famously, 'Kissin Cousins' were a feature of life for certain mountain folk in the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountains in the USA ..... so much so, that the film 'Deliverance', tarred an entire area with the 'inbred' epitaph. In fact, the US has mixed views on the practice ..... 

 

Now this information might not mean much in the UK, except that we have a whole group of south Asian immigrants, who habitually marry their first cousins, and have done so for countless generations. In some Asian nations, they account for over half of all marriages, and amongst UK Pakistanis, and Indians, 55% of marriages are of this sort ... with some evidence of the damage turning up in the healthcare system.

This long term historical interbreeding with immediate cousins, means that genetically these first cousins are actually very, very, closely related already, much more so than might be the case with white European cousins, first or otherwise, and this brings health consequences.

According to the report, children of first cousins for example, are on average, both shorter and less well educated (with 10 months less formal education), than those from a diverse genetic background. According to some studies the risk of birth defects doubles amongst first cousin marriages, as it rises from roughly 2% in the general population, to 4% for first cousins.

'Homozygosity' Issues In Eastern Kentucky

What this means socially is hard to predict (apart from increased care costs), but anecdotally, I was once told that there are a lot of children with defects born into families in Pakistan, where whole villages are often genetically closely related, but that 'informal' infanticides, poor health prognosis, and or general neglect meant that these children were locked away without registration, and often 'disappeared' before adulthood. 

 

Whether that is true or not (and I had no reason to disbelieve the Pakistani man who told me that) it suggests that problem is known, but ignored in those countries, where infanticide is still rife.. Of course that sort of neglect is not allowed here, well not deliberately, so maybe the coming decades will see the issue of first cousin marriages being raised as a social issue in the UK again.

Another, 2013 study, pointed to the fact that that first cousin marriages account for nearly a third of birth defects in babies of Pakistani origin, and the Government Environment Minister at the time, Phil Woolas, said the genetic problems in the Asian communities caused by this social activity had to be addressed as a ‘matter of public health’. Inbreeding results in increased homozygosity, which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or deleterious traits, and it appears from the report and the ministers comments that the issue is already raising ripples of concerns in the UK but is not being actively tackled.

First cousin marriage was of course illegal in the UK only a few hundred years or so ago, for much the same reasons as highlighted here. However King Henry VIII decreed it legal (for reasons of internal politics), and it has remained so ever since, even if we have shied away from it as a generally unhealthy exercise.

 

Update: This is an issue in the South Asian community world-wide, including Britain so the BBC have a podcast on it. Of course the issue is still being ignored by white ministers who are afraid of inflaming the Asian communities.