Should the UK ban marriage between cousins?

The UK government is under pressure to outlaw marriages between cousins following moves in several Scandinavian countries to ban such unions.

The Tory MP Richard Holden has tabled a question for the justice secretary, asking her to assess the potential merits of outlawing consanguineous marriages. Holden said there are "serious concerns" around the health risks of children born to parents who are biological relatives.

Keeping it in the family

A consanguineous marriage is one in which the couple are biologically related as second cousins or closer.

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Marriage between cousins has been legal in Britain "since the Reformation", wrote Justin Marozzi for The Spectator. Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria were among the eminent Britons who married their cousins, a history which includes multiple royal unions.

Attitudes to such relations have varied "throughout Western history", said The Economist. As shown in novels such as "Mansfield Park" and "Wuthering Heights", Georgian and Victorian England was certainly "not too squeamish" about the concept. Historically, and up to the present day in some parts of the world, marriage between cousins has been encouraged as it "secures wealth and reinforces social connections" within a family. There is also an "optimistic assumption" that having existing relatives as in-laws reduces the odds of wider family friction.

Today, an estimated 10 to 15% of newborns worldwide have consanguineous parents, said Deutsche Welle, largely because cousin marriage is "socially embedded" in many regions of the world, including South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

Children at risk

Consanguinity rates within the British Pakistani community are between 40 and 60%, said Patrick Nash, an expert on religious law and director of the Pharos Foundation social science research group. A briefing exploring child deaths in Bradford, Birmingham and the London borough of Redbridge, found that "20-40%" of them may be "due to genetic disorders associated with consanguinity and chromosomal conditions".

But "while the practice persists" among British Pakistanis, said DW, it "appears to be declining". In a study of 13,500 families between 2007 and 2011, the Born in Bradford project found 60% of couples of Pakistani heritage were either first cousins, second cousins or other blood relatives, but a follow-up study between 2016 and 2020 found "sharp decline" – from 60% to 40%. Among couples of Pakistani heritage where both parties were born in the UK, rates of consanguineous marriage were even lower, around 30%.

Those who are in such marriages often "choose to keep quiet", said The Economist, because the "ick" factor "prevails in Western culture", and the "family dynamics can be difficult to explain to others".

Time for change?

Earlier this year, Norway, Sweden and Denmark moved to ban cousin marriage. Uzbekistan also plans to outlaw it. In the United States, Tennessee banned cousin marriage in April, joining 24 other US states which do not allow first cousins to marry.

As to whether the UK should follow suit, a recent debate in Cambridge, considered counter arguments to a ban "in detail", said Marozzi in The Spectator. This includes the "relatively low risk of genetic disorders and diseases", the possibility of "stigmatising minorities" as well as the "fundamental question of personal autonomy".

In a response to Holden's parliamentary question, Alex Davies-Jones, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, said the government would consider the issue. This means they will "lob it into the long grass", Marozzi said. But evidence indicates that the British Pakistani community "is already having the conversation", regardless of the legal status of cousin marriage.