Talk:Prohibited degree of kinship

Inbreeding taboo?
consang.net has a series of articles and maps which refute the statement that "inbreeding is taboo in nearly all cultures".

The conclusion is that there are large parts of the world where it is desirable or required to marry within the family. In some areas, the cultural and support advantages of close intermarrying outweigh the genetic problems.

This page should be rewritten for a more nuanced outlook.

I am not adequately expert to provide a solid alternative.

--Ted 18:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. "Nearly." Surely, "some areas" can be found that are exceptions to almost any social generalization. The article neither supports nor condemns inbreeding, and does not say that it is taboo to everybody. If you want to place more variety in the article, edit the thing. 68.103.194.207 08:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Assuming this article is accurate: 1/7 of today's world population is in a consanguineous relationship. Clearly the taboo factor is a cultural one. The article is 4 years old so its likely way over 500M couples now. I'd wager, but can't be bothered to find out, that many cultures don't find it a taboo. Scientifically the risks of 1st cousin marriage appear to be raised, though quite low (see link). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Canhazanonymous (talk • contribs) 09:39, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Calculation of degrees of kinship
The article says, "[T]he Roman Catholic Church's ban on marriage within the fourth degree of relationship (third cousins) lasted from 1550 to 1917[.]"

If third cousins means those who have a common great-great-grandparent, then under current (1983) canon law they are related in the eighth degree of the collateral line.

Were degrees of kinship calculated differently before 1917, or 1983? If so, a comment is needed on the quoted text; if not, a correction is needed.Jm546 14:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Asian Relations
This section is overly broad and collapses an incredible range and diversity of Asian peoples into one group. It is, I would argue, too imprecise to be useful. Content should be changed to refer to specific ethnic/national/religious groups, trying to be as specific as possible. Additionally, if Asian groups are to be noted specifically, why are other groups (eg. African, European, Latin American, etc.) not clarified as well. I would argue that this section needs to be removed or clarified extensively. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.16.117.82 (talk) 15:20, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is mostly too broad to be useful, and also, as far as I know, the last comment about Korean law is actually incorrect, because those proscriptions remain in force. The one useful part, the first one on Korea, I've added to cousin marriage. -Khin2718 (talk) 06:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge with Incest, Cousin marriage
Given the overlap with these two other pages, and also the title's lack of concision and being uneasy to find (see Wikipedia naming conventions), there doesn't seem to be a reason why this page should exist.

I've gone ahead and placed all material relating to cousins in cousin marriage already. However, some of the material relating to uncle-niece marriages and affinal prohibitions can't go there, so I suggest it be moved to incest, specifically the religious views section. (By the way, some of this stuff, like the unnecessarily long quotations of Canon Law, should just be deleted, IMO.) -Khin2718 (talk) 06:38, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Destination of removed sections
I'm removing material on this page and merging it into more specific sections. For the record, here is where each removed section went. Some this might have been paraphrased to make it "mesh" with the other pages.

Catholicism - Sections on cousin marriage went to cousin marriage. Sections on affinity went to Affinity (canon law).

The Eastern Church - First sentence thrown out. No sources, and does it mean in the civil-law degree counting method or canon-law? Last sentence moved to Affinity (canon law).

Cypriot Orthodox Church - First sentence moved to incest, rest to Affinity (canon law).

Church of England - summarized and moved to cousin marriage.

Asian Cultures - much of this was overgeneralized or wrong. Other stuff to cousin marriage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khin2718 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

January 2010
Copied from Khin2718's talk page

Please do not move a page to a title that is harder to follow or move it unilaterally against naming conventions or consensus, as you did to Prohibited degree of kinship. This includes making page moves while a discussion remains under way. We have some guidelines to help with deciding what title is best for a subject. If you would like to experiment with page titles and moving, please use the test Wikipedia. Thank you. Wine Guy  Talk  04:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Moving unilaterally is generally allowed. I'm not aware of any rules about renaming during a deletion discussion. But since you apparently know of some, please do point them out. Anyway, the parentheses are somewhat immaterial to me. If they are that important to you, I won't object. Khin2718 (talk) 07:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Worldwide coverage
This article seems to be only about Western societies and not any other ones. I'm not an expert but the focus here is far too narrow. Alázhlis (talk) 04:21, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Severe mistakes:
It is NOT a cultural universal, there used to be times in history where that happened, and quite frequently, there being a limited number of partners available. As time advances knowledge, that taboo became placed, but NOT for any other reason except the larger probability of obtaining double recessives in offspring, which increments the chance of an infertil birth (death birth), natural abortion (if they´re lucky within the first weeks & month, if not, at a later stage of development with all that that implies), or post birth biological defects higher.

That has nothing to do with culture, nor with morals, nor with ethics, solely medical biology & survivability in such a form and manner that the offspring remain at least modestly pertinent in their capacity to use two hands, two feets, and parts of their brain.

Used to be that deformities where still born, no matter if they where still born or not, the charge/costs onto society being fastly larger, and that, without social security and amassed conglomerate aid packages. Come to think of it, I suppose that it could very well be that that social security and amassed conglomerate aid packages reduced those stillbirth´s where otherwise they would be stillbirths.

Sure you can handle the ethics of/within morality without going somewhat neurotic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.204.18.169 (talk) 22:23, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

England and Wales
Currently, the article refers to the Marriage Act (1949), and says that relationships between men and their close female relatives/women and their close male relatives are legally prohibited. As same-sex relationships have been legalised since 1949, and marriage is now possible between same-sex partners, I suspect (but do not know for sure) that this legislation has been amended to become gender-neutral. If so, this should appear in the article; if not, that should definitely appear in the article. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:12, 15 February 2016 (UTC)