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Cousin Marriage (cousin + marriage)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	60%

Selected Abstracts

Consanguineous unions and child health in the State of Qatar

PAEDIATRIC & PERINATAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 5 2006
Abdulbari Bener
Summary The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence and sociodemographic predictors of consanguineous unions in the State of Qatar and to assess the association between consanguinity, fertility and child health. A representative sample of 1800 Qatari women aged ,15 years was approached for the study. Of these, 1515 (84.2%) women agreed to participate. The consanguineous marriage rate was 54.0% with estimated population confidence limits of 52.3,55.7%. First cousin unions were the most common form of cousin marriage. The level of parental consanguinity (both in the respondent's parents and her parents-in-law) was quite high. In a multivariable analysis, both education of the respondent and her husband as well as parental consanguinity were found to be strong predictors of consanguineous unions in the index generation. Although fertility was high in both groups, the mean number of pregnancies was somewhat higher in respondents with first cousin unions. Concomitantly they also had a slighter higher rate of livebirths than women in non-consanguineous unions. The occurrence of asthma, mental retardation, epilepsy and diabetes was significantly more common in offspring of all consanguineous than non-consanguineous couples. [source]

Relatives as spouses: Preferences and opportunities for kin marriage in a Western society

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2009
Hilde Bras
This article investigates the determinants of kin marriage on the basis of a large-scale database covering a major rural part of The Netherlands during the period 1840,1922. We studied three types of kin marriage: first cousin marriage, deceased spouse's sibling marriage, and sibling set exchange marriage. Almost 2% of all marriages were between first cousins, 0.85% concerned the sibling of a former spouse, while 4.14% were sibling set exchange marriages. While the first two types generally declined across the study period, sibling set exchange marriage reached a high point of almost 5% between 1890 and 1900. We found evidence for three mechanisms explaining the choice for relatives as spouses, centering both on preferences and on opportunities for kin marriage. Among the higher and middle strata and among farmers, kin marriages were commonly practiced and played an important role in the process of social class formation in the late nineteenth century. An increased choice for cousin marriage as a means of enculturation was observed among orthodox Protestants in the Bible Belt area of The Netherlands. Finally, all studied types of kin marriage took place more often in the relatively isolated, inland provinces of The Netherlands. Sibling set exchange marriages were a consequence of the enlarged supply of same-generation kin as a result of the demographic transition. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Changing the subject , about cousin marriage, among other things,

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 4 2008
Adam Kuper
The original sin of anthropology was to divide the world into civilized and savage. The social systems of all those other peoples supposedly rested upon a foundation of blood relationships. Anthropologists therefore became at once the experts on the primitive and on kinship. In the 1970s Western kinship systems began to undergo radical change. Simultaneously, the old orthodoxies about kinship crumbled in anthropology. Young ethnographers generally lost interest in the topic. Kinship systems have nevertheless not gone away, out there in the world. But to understand them we must first abandon the opposition between the modern and the traditional, the West and the Rest. Résumé Le péché originel de l'anthropologie fut de diviser le monde en « civilisé » et « sauvage », en partant du principe que les systèmes sociaux des autres reposaient sur des fondations constituées par les liens du sang. Les anthropologues devinrent ainsi à la fois les experts des primitifs et de la parenté. Dans les années 1970, les systèmes de parenté occidentaux ont amorcé des changements radicaux. Dans le même temps, les vieilles orthodoxies anthropologiques relatives à la parenté ont commencéà s'effriter, et les jeunes ethnographes se sont pour la plupart désintéressés du sujet. Les systèmes de parenté n'ont pas disparu pour autant dans le monde mais il faut, pour les comprendre, renoncer d'abord à l'opposition entre modernité et tradition, entre l'Occident et le reste du monde. [source]

Inbreeding Coefficients for X-linked and Autosomal Genes in Consanguineous Marriages in Spanish Populations: The Case of Guipúzcoa (Basque Country)

ANNALS OF HUMAN GENETICS, Issue 2 2009
R. Calderón
Summary Inbreeding patterns over the past two centuries have been studied more extensively in Spain and Italy than anywhere else in Europe. Consanguinity studies in mainland Spain have shown that populations settled along the Cantabrian cornice share inbreeding patterns that distinguish them from other populations further south. A visual representation of spatial variations of two key inbreeding variables is presented here for the first time via contour maps. This paper also analyzes time trends of mean inbreeding coefficients for X-linked (Fx) and autosomal genes (F) (1862,1995) together with variations in Fx/F ratios in Guipúzcoa, the most autochthonous Spanish Basque province. Because close cousin marriages are a mark of identity of the study population, we evaluated the contribution of uncle-niece/aunt-nephew (M12) and first cousin (M22) marriages to Fx and F values and compared the frequencies of M12 and M22 pedigree subtypes and their corresponding Fx/F ratios to those found in other Spanish populations. The mean Fx and F inbreeding levels in Guipúzcoa for the 134-year period analyzed were 1.51 × 10,3 and 1.04 × 10,3, respectively, and the Fx/F ratio was seen to be very stable over time. Our findings show that major similarities exist for close consanguineous marriage subtypes between Basque and non-Basque Spanish populations, despite significant geographic variability in terms of first cousin pedigrees. The distortion seems to be caused by Guipúzcoa. The Fx/F ratios for first cousins in Spanish populations were higher than expected (1.25), with values ranging from 1.34 to 1.48. The findings of the present study may be useful for advancing knowledge on the effects of the interaction between biology and culture and for exploring associations between mating patterns and the prevalence of certain diseases. [source]