It was once common practice, but marrying your cousin has fallen out of fashion in recent times – thankfully, some would say.
However, an anonymous man, who is having a secret love affair with his cousin, has written to The Sun’s advice column, Dear Deidre, saying he’s fallen in love with his first cousin but fears his family won’t approve.
The 25-year-old man revealed he’s been in a secret relationship with his 22-year-old cousin for over a year.
“Now she wants us to marry but my family have no idea about us,” he said. “Our families live near each other but our fathers are brothers who barely speak to one another.”
The pair hit it off at a family wedding last year, having not seen each other since they were 10 and seven years old.
“We drank, we danced and we got along so well,” the man said.
His cousin had a room in the hotel, and before he knew it they were upstairs “We fell onto the bed, where she unbuttoned my shirt and we kissed. The sex was incredible. I’d had one-night stands before but they’d never been like this.”
The pair have been dating in secret now for almost a year, unbeknownst to their family. And while “she doesn’t care what her family say”, the man is worried their relationship will “cause trouble”.
“I love her and want to marry her, but I’m worried about the implications. Cousins can’t be together, can they?”
Although it may not be palatable for some, according to the Australian Marriage Act of 1961, it’s legal to marry your first cousin in most Australian states. You can also marry your niece or nephew or your aunt or uncle.
It’s also legal in the UK for first cousins to marry, however there have been calls to ban the practice. Rules differ in the US, where only half of the country allows inter-family marriages. Most states allow first-cousin marriages only if there will be no offspring from those marriages, while second cousins are legally allowed to marry in every state.
First-cousin marriages were once common around the world, especially among aristocrats and royal families, who wanted to uphold a certain standard of breeding and wealth. Queen Victoria, married her first cousin Prince Albert in 1840 to maintain a royal lineage, and it’s a well-known fact that the reigning Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are third cousins.
One of the biggest concerns for inter-family marriages is that children born from the relationship will suffer defects. Children of non-related couples have a 2-3 per cent risk of birth defects, while that risk increases to 8 per cent when a child is born from first cousins.