What Is To Be Done About Cousin Marriage?
Last week, James Price published a piece arguing in favour of the banning of cousin marriage on the premise of its health risks. And yes, cousin marriage raises birth defects and therefore presents a problem. But that is not the sole ground by which these bans are being suggested since birth defects also rise for women having children after 34 years of age (albeit by 1 percentage point instead of 3), hence Bradford NHS trust making the comparison. By the by, the fact that some people have been shocked by that trust's comparison shows how people overestimate the health costs of cousin marriage and/or underestimate the costs of delayed parenthood. But why is there an attempt to ban it then? In addition to the birth defects concern, efforts for a ban are most likely also driven by a desire to help assimilation. In recent times, Henrich’s The WEIRDest People in the World advanced the thesis that Western culture is a product of past stamping out of even distant cousin marriage. Last year, Matthew Syed posited the need for a ban on cousin marriage to ensure assimilation in a pluralistic UK facing increasing questions about social cohesion. Richard Holden MP explicitly appealed to ‘social cohesion’ on these grounds (in addition to women’s freedom and children’s health) as the motivation for his bill.
So, it seems that a large motivation behind this attempt to ban cousin marriage is an endeavour to disincentivise the social ills that cousin marriage may yield (both in terms of rates of birth defects and in terms of increased de facto segregation of different parts of society). Will it work? Marriage increasingly means very little in the UK today. Are people getting married in the hopes of £200 off their tax bill in 365 days given specific circumstances? Are people getting married because of the level of commitment it implies in an environment of no fault divorce? Nay, people largely get married in the UK today because of what it subjectively means to them and because it sends a signal of commitment. And therefore, if one category of marriage is outlawed, the populace will respond with unregistered marriages within their own communities. I have already heard via an old friend of more extreme cases of polygamy practised by some in some communities across different dwellings paid for with housing benefit. In the eyes of the state (if what I heard is true), they are single parents, yet in the eyes of their peers, they are married. Banning cousin marriage would not, as an isolated measure, significantly alleviate the challenges it poses.
There is also a question regarding whether the measure is authoritarian in telling people with whom they can partner up – as argued here by Charles Amos. However, modern society does not penalise people for cohabiting outside of legal marriage, so where is the authoritarian restriction? Moreover, it is perfectly within the remit – and arguably the duties - of the state to give privileges to that which has positive social effects and to avoid giving privileges to that which has negative social effects. The conservative says to give privileges, the libertarian says to penalise/tax less, the progressive says to subsidise. All agree the state should relatively favour that which has positive externalities/social effects over that which does not. Married people invest more, work more (once including labour raising kids), earn more (again, adjusting for kids) and have more children (helping support the next generation of pensions and the like). Marriage is generally a social good. However, cousin marriage – in its effects on social cohesion, the rate of birth defects, and potential role in facilitating curtailment of women’s freedoms – could negate some of the social goods of marriage.
Let us take for granted for a moment that cousin marriage and procreation at minimum reduces the net social goods of marriage and childrearing, as anthropology and biology suggest. This suggests that we should consider withholding the privileges/incentives that we give to the married from those who marry their cousins. However, as I mentioned above, we do not – in the UK today – grant much in the way of privileges to the legally married. Without this, a ban on cousin marriage would be a largely symbolic effort. If we were to seriously incentivise legal marriage, such as with meaningful tax relief and/or a preference for spousal visas over unmarried partner vias, then it would mean something once again. Such a measure would also not be authoritarian - people could partner up with who they wish. But, to receive privileges for it, they ought to be doing it in a way that provides demonstrable social goods.
PS Given the citing of birth defects as a rationale for banning cousin marriage, such reasoning would suggest that we might do well to reduce any incentive for having children once the prospective parents are 35 years of age and over. But that's another, albeit related, debate – and depends on having incentives for procreation first.