The Case for Banning Cousin Marriage

Abstract

This article presents the universal case for banning cousin marriage regardless of jurisdiction or culture. It is intended both as a resource—the relevant facts and opposing arguments will be set out plainly for reference purposes—and a legal argument which seeks to demonstrate that the weight of evidence concerning this poorly understood practice supports outright prohibition. Accordingly, the article is divided into five parts. The introduction briefly outlines the key controversies within the field of comparative consanguinity law and signposts the way forward. There follows an examination of the modern definition and distribution of cousin marriage to establish its current prevalence and key trends, before an explanation of the consequences resulting from its practice and factors contributing to consanguineous preferences. The article then takes an analytical turn to assess five common arguments against banning cousin marriage proceeding from, respectively, (i) human rights, (ii) prejudice, (iii) custom, (iv) choice, and (v) proportionality. Having factored in the relevant medical, social, historical, and geopolitical evidence throughout, it concludes by arguing the case in favour of a ban with specific proposals as to its justification and recommended scope, substance, and implementation.

1. INTRODUCTION

‘Should I marry my cousin?’, asks the first of two recent BBC documentaries on the subject; ‘Is it really that bad to marry my cousin?’, asks the second.¹ ‘It wouldn’t be something I would be comfortable with. The advantages don’t weigh up for me’, concludes the British-Pakistani presenter of the first programme, ‘but if someone does want to marry their cousin I wouldn’t be against it.’² ‘Send your hot cousin this podcast and ask them out’, concludes the British-Iraqi presenter of the second, ‘it’s okay to date your cousin [and] we need to break down the legal frameworks that reinforce [stigmas].’³ If nothing else, these anxious documentaries highlight the enduring controversies within comparative consanguinity law:

• Should one marry one’s cousin?

• Should others be allowed to marry their cousin?

• Should we abolish stigmas and laws against cousin marriage?

• Is cousin marriage really that bad?

• Can we ban cousin marriage?

• Should we ban cousin marriage?

This article addresses these questions directly and unflinchingly. It also serves as a coda to the author’s earlier work on this subject, namely British Islam and English Law and ‘Comparative consanguinity law: A global study of cousin marriage regulations’, to which readers are directed for more detail and further references.⁴ The present study proceeds by examining the modern definition and distribution of cousin marriage to establish its current prevalence and key trends, before explaining the consequences resulting from its practice and the factors contributing to consanguineous preferences. From there it assesses five common arguments against banning cousin marriage and concludes by arguing the case in favour of an outright ban on all consanguineous marriages, factoring in the relevant medical, social, historical, and geopolitical evidence throughout.

2. THE DEFINITION AND DISTRIBUTION OF COUSIN MARRIAGE

Modern definitions of incest have a fairly consistent core of first- (50 per cent shared DNA) and second-degree (25 per cent shared DNA) relatives, procreation among whom is termed ‘extreme inbreeding’.⁵ As throughout history, cousin marriage remains penumbral to contemporary incest taboos but the umbrella term ‘consanguineous marriage’, meaning ‘a union between two individuals who are related as second cousins or closer’, has achieved universal acceptance for clinical purposes.⁶ This excludes any cultural peculiarities and is based instead upon the percentage of shared DNA. Hereafter, unless stated otherwise, ‘consanguineous marriage’ will be used to denote this exact range of relationships (ie, second cousins and closer) whereas ‘cousin marriage’ will be used more variably to describe particular phenomena (eg, bans on first-cousin marriages which do not extend to cover second cousins). Throughout, the main focus shall be on the three most significant types of cousin marriage: double-first (25 per cent shared DNA); first (12.5 per cent shared DNA); second (3.125 per cent shared DNA).

It is important to note that these percentages are merely predictive averages—the actual percentage of shared DNA will be significantly higher if the cousin couple comes from within a sub-population practicing multi-generational consanguineous marriage. Similarly, a clinically non-consanguineous (technically unrelated non-cousin) couple from such a community will also have higher than average percentage of shared DNA.⁷ To understand the implications one must therefore conduct a three-layer analysis of: the individuals composing the couple; the family unit they create; and the community to which they belong. Before discussing these, however, it is necessary to account for the contemporary distribution of cousin marriage.

At the global level, around 80 per cent of all marriages in history have been consanguineous; at least 8.5 per cent of all new births worldwide are to consanguineous parents; 10 per cent of all humanity practices cousin marriage; and 20 per cent of the world’s population live in communities preferring it.⁸ Cousin marriage predominates across the ‘Middle East, West Asia and North Africa, as well as among emigrants from these communities now residing in North America, Europe and Australia’.⁹ In this regional bloc, around 20–50 per cent of all marriages are consanguineous, and the practice is most prevalent within the historic heartlands of Islam (Arabia and its immediate environs) and the peripheries of the Muslim world furthest from those abutting Europe (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sub-Saharan Africa).¹⁰ For example, it is least common in Morocco (10–19 per cent) and Turkey (20–29 per cent), moderately common in Syria and Iran (30–39 per cent), common in Sudan and Afghanistan (40–49 per cent), very common in Qatar and Saudi Arabia (50–59 per cent), and most common in Pakistan (65 per cent) and Kuwait (68 per cent).¹¹ In some places, these rates may be starting to fall (perhaps in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh); in most they remain static; in others they are rising (Afghanistan and British Pakistani diaspora).¹² Within national and diasporic data, there are further local variations. In some provinces, rates are significantly higher than the national average—various Middle Eastern provinces (80.6 to regional 50 per cent), rural Pakistan (80 to national 65 per cent), Bamyan in Afghanistan (51.2 to national 46.2 per cent), Sylhet in Bangladesh (8.76 to national 6.64 per cent).¹³ Across the world first-cousin marriage is the most commonly preferred degree.¹⁴ By contrast, the average for Western and other non-Muslim countries is typically well under 5 per cent (often under 1 per cent), and although rates for Jewish diasporas tend to correlate roughly with those of their host countries they are significantly lower than those for Muslims.¹⁵

In certain diaspora communities, rates are greater still, most notably among Irish Travellers (between 20 and 40 per cent) and British Pakistanis (between 40 and 60 per cent on average but over 90 per cent in multiple Bradford biraderis), the latter being increasingly likely to marry cousins (prevalence has increased by around 20 per cent within the a single generation and those aged 15–30 years are now almost twice as likely to be the offspring of first cousins than those aged 70–80 years).¹⁶ The most recent press release by Born in Bradford, a multigenerational study of births across the city, seems to contradict this by reporting an overall decline in consanguineous marriages rates among British Pakistanis from 62-64 per cent in 2013 to 46 per cent in 2023, with further subgroup drops from 60 per cent to 36 per cent among UK-born mothers and from 46 per cent to 38 per cent among those with tertiary education.¹⁷ Factors cited to explain this trend include: improved educational attainment, improved genetic literacy, and tougher immigration restrictions on chain migration (namely higher language and income thresholds introduced in 2012).¹⁸ However, the researchers warned of the ‘need to be cautious as we are talking about Bradford and this may not be generalizable to the whole country’.¹⁹ Indeed, these findings require careful contextualization and qualification: the study has still not been published in full and it is an outlier compared with most other reports which indicate that young ‘Pakistanis become more likely to marry their cousins when they move to Britain’ and that ‘there appear to be no such clear indications of a decline in cousin marriage’²⁰; the study was confined to three inner-city wards and does not seem to take into account biraderi-specific variations flagged in another recent study of Bradfordian British Pakistanis (see above); and in any case the reduced rate of 46 per cent not only dwarfs the national average and the <0.05 per cent rate reported for White Bradfordians (only 2 out of 4384 respondents in the same study were first-cousin parents), it also remains well inside the typical 40–60 per cent range reported across other British Pakistani populations in other UK cities (see above). Further, such ‘reformist’ trends are often overrepresented in ethnographic literature because of biases in the techniques and interpretations used.²¹

There are limitations to all these data, however, as they are derived from small-scale ethnographies or deduced from large-scale medical surveys concerning genetic disease data rather than reliable official records (which are nowhere compiled). This means that statistics in this field often conflate data from both non-consanguineous endogamous communities (individuals within certain isolated communities with a small gene pool marrying non-relatives from nearby families) and genuinely consanguineous ones (individuals within a local Muslim diaspora marrying their cousins) so that the former is simply taken as additional evidence of the latter.²² Small multigenerational endogamous group size, rather than cousin marriage, can therefore give rise to misleading averages. Nevertheless, consanguinity is thought to be an underreported phenomenon so the available statistics are likely to underestimate its true prevalence.²³ Thus, while all this has some relevance to policy-making and legal argumentation (see below), it does not alter the central fact that most Muslim populations are highly consanguineous and most non-Muslim ones are not. The next section explains why.

3. THE CONSEQUENCES AND CAUSES OF COUSIN MARRIAGE

Consanguineous relationships confer survival advantages under harsh conditions. During prehistoric population bottlenecks when the gruelling tasks of ‘basic survival’ were the main preoccupation of daily life, ‘extensive inbreeding was well-nigh inevitable’.²⁴ Low life expectancy and high mortality rates across every pre-industrial era—1 in 100 mothers died during childbirth; 1 in 2 children did not live past 15 years to complete puberty; most adults were likely to die by 33 years of infection, starvation, or violence—made rapid reproduction the overriding imperative.²⁵ Unsurprisingly, then, consanguineous marriage remains linked to higher fertility rates, reduced birth intervals, and earlier-starting and longer-lasting reproductive spans; it is also significantly more common among populations living in resource-scarce rural environments with labour-intensive irrigation systems, within or near conflict zones, and deprived areas with low levels of industrial prosperity.²⁶ Cousin marriage, in other words, is biologically beneficial for the continuation of our species when times are hard and the surroundings inhospitable. However, these advantages do not carry forward into modern living conditions within highly industrial societies where genetic and degenerative diseases are one of the most severe threats to public health.²⁷

The dangers of inbreeding have been appreciated, if not understood, by humans throughout pre- and recorded history. Today these risks are explicable in granular scientific detail yet their magnitude is often misleadingly deflated in public health information concerning first-cousin marriage. Shorn of any context, the child of an unrelated couple has a 2–3 per cent risk of inheriting a serious genetic disorder and the child of one-time first cousins a 4–6 per cent risk—the risk approximately doubles and is roughly equal to the risk faced by children of older mothers aged over 34 years.²⁸ However, these commonly-cited figures do not take into account the significantly greater risks faced by cousin-parents from endogamous communities with multi-generational cousin-parents of their own, whose offspring each have a greater than 10 per cent chance of inheriting a serious disorder—three or more times the standard risk.²⁹ These risks intensify, and otherwise rare diseases cluster, with each new generation of the endogamous group because of their greater number of shared ancestors.³⁰ The relevant recessive disorders—such as Tay-Sachs, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, beta thalassaemia—require lifelong intensive treatment and often result in premature death.³¹ There are further negative health implications: increased susceptibility to various cancers and infectious pathogens such as hepatitis; greater frequencies of birth defects including facial clefts and cardiovascular conditions; increased risks of various psychoses such as mood disorders, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s; higher infant mortality rates; and depressed I.Q. scores on an individual and national level.³² Remarkably, a new study of US genealogical records dating back 150 years found a ‘three-year reduction in offspring life expectancy’ for first-cousin couples that remained ‘strikingly stable across time, despite large changes in life expectancy and economic environment.’³³ In short, the adverse biological consequences of cousin marriage are legion, severe, and long-lasting.

Professor Alan Bittles, an eminent consanguinity expert with a good deal of sympathy towards the practice, concluded his 2015 Galton Lecture by noting that ‘the balance has changed’ with the onset of industrialization such that the biological disadvantages to cousin marriage now outweigh any remaining advantages.³⁴ It is not hard to see why when examining the implications for public health delivery. For example, BBC Two’s Newsnight found that while British Pakistanis accounted for 3.4 per cent of all births nationwide in 2005, their children accounted for 30 per cent of recessive gene disorders.³⁵ Further, consanguineous marriage has been cited as a significant cause of: 20 per cent of infant deaths in Birmingham³⁶; 20 per cent of child deaths in the east London borough of Redbridge³⁷; and 53 per cent of all South Asian infant deaths from genetic disorders in Bradford.³⁸

A raft of new inquiries and studies are underway in these cities to collect further information with the intention of reducing these rates via improved education and ‘genetic counselling’.³⁹ However, these efforts are likely to be complicated by (1) journalistic misinformation, (2) attitudes within consanguineous communities, and (3) counterproductive scholarship and official pronouncements (discussed later). Re (1), the second BBC programme quoted at the start of this article is a stark example of irresponsible journalism in this field. For example, it makes incorrect claims such as ‘cousin marriage used to be pretty common [across Europe and America]’; deploys anecdotal evidence in support of arguments (‘My uncle is married to his cousin, and all five kids are extremely intelligent’); and makes misleading claims such as ‘with modern science, cousin marriage is probably safer than ever’ and ‘the risk ISN’T that much higher than the general population’.⁴⁰ Similarly, The Economist recently ran an editorial titled ‘Cousin marriage is probably fine in most cases’ which suggested that all existing bans should be ‘stricken from the books’; yet, as Professor Joseph Henrich points out, the author/s simply ignored the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.⁴¹ It is deeply regrettable that a respected national broadcaster and magazine should publish material that trivializes and obfuscates the dangers for the very audiences that need to give them serious consideration. This matters because, re (2), some cousin-couples duly took steps to manage or avoid the risks once informed yet others were variously:

• Conspiratorial—opposed any evidence presented to them as an expression of ‘anti-Muslim sentiment’;

• Defensive—refused to acknowledge evidence due to folk stigma attendant on genetic illness;

• Dismissive—disregarded scientific evidence in favour of folkloric superstition and quackery;

• Fatalistic—resigned themselves to ‘Allah’s will’ if offspring presented with a genetic disorder;

• Indifferent—uninterested in and/or unconcerned by the evidence presented;

• Calculating—decided that the scientific evidence was outweighed by the social, cultural and religious considerations.⁴²

All of the above were evident in a professional conduct case recently brought before the UK’s Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), in which the defendant teacher was struck off in part for asserting that ‘a baby over 30 was worse than a cousin marriage and that the child will most likely have disabilities’.⁴³ That such misinformation should surface as a source of discord within a Birmingham school is an indictment of public education and journalism on this topic. In sum, these commonplace attitudes raise serious questions about the efficacy of non-legislative approaches targeted at reasonable individuals, but they also begin to illuminate the collective dimension of this issue. As mentioned earlier, cousin marriage must also be analysed as the reproductive mechanism of a distinct group unit: the clan.

The prevalence of cousin marriage matters because it is ‘the cornerstone of the perpetuation of the [Pakistani] biraderi’, Bangladeshi brath-thitho and other varieties of clan.⁴⁴ The clan is the most enduring form of human organization and our species’ default social setting. They permit ‘all societies a glimpse of their origins’ but to understand them ‘we must put our preconceptions to one side. We must imagine ourselves into a world where action [is] governed by norms reflecting exclusively the claims of the family, its memories, rituals and roles, rather than the claims of individual conscience.’⁴⁵ The clan itself simultaneously fulfils ‘every function and exercises every power the Western mind now compartmentalizes: familial, political, cultural, economic, defensive, diplomatic, educational, religious, ethical, etiquette, lifestyle, disciplinary, adjudicational, administrative, executive. They are each and all of these things at once, an entity in which individual and collective are undifferentiated and inseverable.’⁴⁶ Their ultimate purpose is to ensure the survival of the kin group against adversity by promoting solidarity and securing assets across time and space, making it especially resistant to state control.⁴⁷ They possess emergent qualities, which is to say their members display behaviours that cannot be fully explained by individual choice alone—they are manifestations of the clan’s internal norms and are known collectively as ‘clannism’. Clannism is geared towards the protection of material, human and reputational assets. Some aspects are famously pro-social for specific categories of person, such as the lavish hospitality and reliable protection offered to compliant family members and trusted guests across the Middle East, and have enabled consanguineous diasporas to establish themselves across the West through informal institutions such as kameti (British Pakistani savings clubs used to purchase property for immigrating family members) and hawala (inexpensive transnational remittance transfer networks based on close-kin trust).⁴⁸ Most aspects are not.

The harms of clannism are manifold and their severity is felt at every level—individual, local, national, international—right across the world. First, clan members—especially females—are subject to strict honour codes which discourage expressions of individuality and are liable to be subjected to violence or even murdered by relatives if they transgress. Second, outsiders tend to be viewed with suspicion or outright disgust which means they are often exploited mercilessly (as slaves, victims of crime and business interlocutors) and treated inhumanely in times of conflict. Third, clan institutions such as hawala and sharia councils are highly opaque, virtually unaccountable, and known to condone abuses ranging from spousal violence to terror financing. Fourth, the mechanism of cousin marriage precludes social integration for consanguineous communities because it entrenches elite privileges and caste regimentation, encourages social isolation from their host countries, inhibits female/minority participation in politics, and perpetuates instability in their countries of origin. Fifth, cousin marriage imposes severe long-lasting economic costs upon both diaspora host countries—in terms of healthcare burdens and dealing with the complex social detriments of clannism which are often classified as ‘extremism’ – and highly consanguineous countries in terms of hampering institutional development, suppressing female education, discouraging innovative free enquiry, and entrenching rural deprivation. Sixth, clannism incentivizes and facilitates routine and organized criminality ranging from forced marriage to group-based child sex abuse to drug and people trafficking to armed violent crime across Europe. Seventh, clannism is a key driver of every variety of corruption as it mandates nepotism, disdains the rule of law, and undermines the integrity of electoral processes by embedding biraderi networks within parties while encouraging and facilitating voter fraud. Eighth, inter-clan competition promotes unsustainable spending practices (on lavish weddings, for example) and religious fanaticism (as families jostle to demonstrate piety). Ninth, the requirement for young clan members to demonstrate unquestioning loyalty to their elders is a major contributing factor to the rise of violent Islamism because it leaves youths vulnerable to radicals promising excitement, egalitarianism, and empowerment.⁴⁹ In short, while such anti-social behaviours doubtless aid long-term survival under pre-industrial conditions, under modern conditions they are counter-productive to their own purpose of securing the clan’s material, human and reputational assets. The geopolitical implications, whilst unappreciated, are historic.

After the Fall of Kabul in August 2021, it is now hard to argue with the scholar-diplomat Akbar Ahmed’s summation of the War on Terror as ‘the mediocre leading the confused in pursuit of the dubious’.⁵⁰ The now-standard narrative is that, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, the Western allies squandered their unipolar moment fighting for decades against an abstract noun to little effect with no clear purpose.⁵¹ Ahmed, however, posits a far more interesting interpretation of the conflict. Rather than an attack on Muslims or a civilizational showdown, he argues, it is better understood as a traumatic encounter between peripheral tribal society and the forces of globalization and state centralization.⁵² In some ways this is just a far more violent version of the tensions playing out across the developed world between wealthier, liberal urban centres and poorer conservative provinces.⁵³ The comparatively greater disruption within the Muslim world, however, has triggered a mutation of tribal ethics based upon honour, blood feuds, retribution, lineage, patriarchy, dignity, hospitality, and radical egalitarianism, through which Islam marbles as a common lingua franca.⁵⁴ Whereas these values once served to guarantee the survival, stability and autonomy of Muslim clans, they are now colliding with the very precepts of modernity (individualism, consumerism, gender equality, etc).⁵⁵ The result has been the total ‘breakdown of the tribal universe and everything which it stood for’, along with all the ensuing displaced feelings of fractured identity, emasculation and rage.⁵⁶ This moral and physical carnage has long since acquired a nihilistic momentum of its own, with spiralling violence, couched in terms of honour and justified by religion, directed first at anything Western and then at anyone at all, be they fellow elders, imams or coreligionists.⁵⁷ On this ingenious account, then, consanguineous clans—more than ‘Muslims’ or ‘Islam’—have been the main determinant of 21^st century history thus far.

Unsurprisingly, given the War on Terror proceeded as it has, such abstruse anthropology went unnoticed in Washington and London in the aftermath of 9/11. Nevertheless, numerous Western analysts warned of the geopolitical significance of consanguineous clans both before and during the War. As far back as 1989 David Pryce-Jones predicted that nation-building would be futile in the Middle East, not because the Arabs were somehow unfit for modern democracy, but because the clan loyalties of tribal society preclude close out-group cooperation and hence any imported institutions based upon impersonal common consent cannot long survive.⁵⁸ In 2003, Steve Sailer warned that ‘we are almost utterly innocent of how much the high degree of inbreeding in Iraq could interfere with our nation-building ambitions’.⁵⁹ In 2007, Stanley Kurtz noted that ‘Islamic society has found a way to turn a uniquely intense form of in-marriage to its advantage (if advantage is defined strictly in terms of cultural survival, rather than adaptive change).’⁶⁰ While Western family ties are ‘thin and watery things’, cousin marriage is the Velcro which ‘acts as a social ‘sealing mechanism’ to block cultural interchange’. Hence, ‘if we want to change any of this, it will be impossible to restrict ourselves to the study of religious Islam.’⁶¹ In 2018, Professor Amy Chua decried the ‘calamitous results’ accruing from America’s failure to properly appreciate that the Taliban ‘is not only an Islamist movement but also an ethnic movement… led by Pashtuns’⁶²; had the USA done so the world today may have looked very different and, perhaps, better. Most recently, Victor Davis Hanson’s The Dying Citizen (2022) provides a sobering reminder that ancient ‘Rome gave us the word natio (nation) to reflect the revolutionary idea that the free citizens of a state did not all have to look the same or be born in the same place [or belong to the same tribus (ethnic kinship group)] to enjoy the same rights… There was no word similar to natio in any ancient language… [and] tribal bonds were seen as at odds with the idea of a harmonious and unified nation fused from hundreds of cities and ethnicities.’⁶³ We forget this at our peril, Hanson argues, for whenever tribal allegiances begin to override national loyalty, society is set on the path to implosion as clannism starts to render effective government impossible.⁶⁴ There is, in short, ample evidence attesting to the geopolitical import of cousin marriage; what to do with that information is the subject of the next section.

4. FIVE ARGUMENTS AGAINST BANNING COUSIN MARRIAGE

The foregoing sections sought to provide a concise overview of contemporary cousin marriage. This section will move beyond the descriptive to assess the strength of five key arguments against prohibiting consanguineous marriage.⁶⁵

A. The argument from human rights

This legal argument is best put by two of the most distinguished consanguinity experts, Professor Bittles and Baroness Ruth Deech, who have made similar respective assertions about the incompatibility of cousin marriage bans with international human rights law:

• ‘[B]anning first-cousin unions could be held to be in contravention of international human rights conventions on the right to marry, … would lead to major legal challenges, … and have little chance of legislative success’⁶⁶;

• ‘There can be no question of banning cousin marriage here, despite the genetic pitfalls, because it is a practice undertaken by half the world and a ban would no doubt offend human rights law.’⁶⁷

While this question has received no direct judicial consideration, the relevant law does not support Bittles’ and Deech’s position. In short, the relevant international provisions are all highly qualified rights (ECHR Articles 8, 12, 16) which grant signatory states ‘a wide margin of appreciation’ on contentious issues such as this and the ban is likely to be upheld so long as it is not ‘based simply on tradition’ and can be ‘justified on any logical, rational or practical ground’.⁶⁸ What is more, multiple east European ECHR member states already have outright or partial bans on cousin marriage and recent ECtHR caselaw has confirmed that ‘as a general rule the limitations that affect the ability to enter into marriage [because of issues to do with] consent, consanguinity or prevention of bigamy are likely to be compatible with Article 12’.⁶⁹ Further, many democratic east Asian nations and the majority of US states impose restrictions or outright bans on cousin marriage which have stood the test of time and constitutional litigation.⁷⁰ Thus, while a legal challenge may well be mounted, it would stand little chance of ultimate success. The argument from human rights, in other words, perpetuates an erroneous legal myth and does not withstand scrutiny.

B. The argument from prejudice

This ad hominem argument asserts that, even if cousin marriage bans are compatible with human rights, they are either crude or cynical expressions of prejudice against consanguineous minorities. This is most clearly expressed by Dr Aamra Darr, a medical sociologist at Bradford University who (incorrectly) asserts that consanguineous marriage was ‘once common among the white British population’ and is ‘not a cause of congenital anomalies’ among British Pakistanis; she regards any condemnation or attribution of responsibility to cousin couples as racialized ‘culture blaming… the minority being judged by the majority population.’⁷¹ Similarly, Mona Chalabi, the Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist, likens US cousin marriage bans to ‘Anti-miscegenation laws [which] were supported by the bullshit of eugenics’ and claims that ‘cousin marriage is largely practiced in non-white cultures, and part of the prejudice against it—that “ick”—is just plain racism.’⁷² Scholarly variations are given by Alison Shaw and Aviad Raz who claim that ‘public condemnation [of cousin marriage] is fuelled by both popular prejudice and powerful media constructions’; by Rachel Frommer who writes that ‘perverse prohibitions’ by US states are ‘a lingering discriminatory misstep of the post-Civil War era’; and by Bittles who notes suggestively that ‘the USA stands alongside the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in maintaining [bans].’⁷³

Against this, several points. First, such accusations are historically illiterate: many longstanding US state bans were ‘not primarily attributable to any particular animosity or the contemporaneous rise of anti-miscegenation laws and eugenics… In most cases the arguments favouring restriction extended far beyond genetic health to address pressing social concerns over child marriage, the alleviation of poverty, and the large-scale integration of immigrants from clannish environments.’⁷⁴ Second, as the foremost judicial authority on English election law has observed, accusations of racism have become ‘the common currency of left/right infighting’ and a ‘feature of all these left/right disputes is the ubiquity of the phrase “dogwhistle politics.”’⁷⁵ In other words, ‘racism’ and its synonyms have become so overused and capacious that they can mean anything and be levelled at anyone for any reason whether credible or not.⁷⁶ Thus, irrebuttable imputations of sinister motives, anecdotal assertions that cousin marriage bans are ‘plain racist’, conspiratorial claims that ‘powerful media constructions’ are driving ‘popular prejudice’, and mere condemnation by irrelevant association with authoritarian regimes or historical eugenics programmes, cannot be mistaken for serious arguments against restricting cousin marriage. As Baroness Deech herself has warned, ‘Fear of this type of forcible manipulation is now so strong that it is very difficult to discuss cousin marriage in an unsentimental fashion.’⁷⁷

That pusillanimity masquerading as sensitivity is a defining feature of scholarship in this area is deeply regrettable, for it deters detached inquiry, precludes plain-speaking, and obscures the genuinely surprising historical reality that neither ‘racism’ nor ‘eugenics’ were the main motivations behind many states’ bans. While what was once called ‘eugenics’ certainly factored into these decisions and is now ‘a word that sums up the greatest of evils’, the modern terminology of ‘public health’ is a widely and relatively uncontroversial ground for qualifying, for instance, the rights to respect for family life and to marry.⁷⁸ As to the charge that a ban would have a disproportionate impact on minorities, it is simply worth noting that a generally applicable ban complying with the rule of law would apply equally to all regardless of race or religion, the target being the harmful mechanism that generates an emergent group phenomenon that all ‘liberal societies would quickly become, in a process of evolutionary reversion, if we lost our political will to maintain an effective state dedicated to public purposes.’⁷⁹ Regardless, the ethnicity of those potentially affected, any controversial motives on the part of the government, and the fact that some authoritarian regimes restrict the practice, have no relevance whatever to an assessment of the objective benefits accruing from a ban on cousin marriage. The argument from prejudice, then, is not persuasive either.

C. The argument from custom

This multiculturalist argument parallels the argument from prejudice as it is essentially a ‘plea for the equality of cultures’ which contends that consanguineous communities have the right to respect for their collective integrity and customs.⁸⁰ Given that cousin marriage is an ancient preferred tradition for so many communities around the world, and Middle Eastern/Muslim ones in particular, it would therefore be discriminatory and harmful to disparage or restrict its free practice, perhaps even amounting to ‘a step towards dictatorship’.⁸¹ This is succinctly put by Bhikhu Parekh who argues that any law affecting a diasporic minority ‘needs to be enforced with compassion and sensitivity and to be accompanied by a reformist campaign within the communities involved by their own leaders.’⁸² This principle has since been applied to consanguineous communities by Deech—‘religious and cultural practices are respected by not banning cousin marriage’—and Marieke Teeuw and others who assert that ‘prejudices and misunderstandings about parental consanguinity in public debates, with politicians even considering a ban on cousin marriage, coincide with a strong tradition of consanguineous marriage among its migrant populations.’⁸³ In other words, consanguineous communities must be left to their own devices without external interference.

This argument contains several faulty assumptions. The first stems from modern sociology’s limited vocabulary for different types of groups: since Marx, there has been a tendency to view collective phenomena in terms of broad classes or categories—‘Muslims’, ‘Women’, ‘Asians’—when these have no meaningful cohesion, leadership or rights as such.⁸⁴ Thus, to claim that consanguinity is their custom which the state must respect in order to respect them is to ignore intra-minority individuality and debates, such as those from ‘consanguineous communities’ who do not practice it (the prevalence was nowhere 100 per cent) and the eminent British South Asians arguing publicly against the continued legality of cousin marriage in the UK:

• ‘It is a social practice which does not belong in today’s age… Why should we allow anybody who comes to this country voluntarily to do that? It is not right.’ (Baroness Flather in 2016);⁸⁵

• ‘There is a strong argument for looking at legislating, for the UK Government to consider whether first-cousin unions should be outlawed, like incest is.’ (Nazir Afzal OBE in 2021);⁸⁶

• ‘It’s time to end cousin marriage in the UK.’ (Matthew Syed in 2023).⁸⁷

It is also to discount the experience and reasoning of Muslim-majority states which have prohibited cousin marriage outright (notably Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) or are attempting to discourage this entrenched custom via mandatory genetic screening (notably Saudi Arabia and Pakistan).⁸⁸ It is also to discount recent research which has shown that ‘strong kin networks are detrimental for democratic participatory institutions’ and ‘civicness as proxied by political participation’; so, far from being a ‘step towards dictatorship’, bans on consanguineous marriage constitute ‘a building block not only for participatory institutions but also for economic development more generally’.⁸⁹ Thus, to accede to multiculturalist demands to respect established custom for its own sake is to abandon any aspiration to govern a nation in its own best interests and in the interests of its individual citizens as such. Unlike the nebulous ‘cultural community’, the nation is a coherent entity possessed of agency and rights just as each of its individual citizens is possessed of the same. Every conceivable custom is conceivably changeable and conceivably controversial, and representative democracy under the rule of law would cease to function if difficult decisions are dodged or fudged because they upset some customary practice. The point is best put by the late Brian Barry as regards law reform: ‘How could anybody seriously imagine that citing the mere fact of a tradition or custom could ever function as a self-contained justificatory move?’⁹⁰ There are certainly legitimate debates to be had over the framing and substance of cousin marriage restrictions, but the logic of the argument from custom does not stand up.

D. The argument from choice

This ethical argument is more straightforward and proceeds from the tenets of liberal individualism. It insists that cousin marriage, clans and clannism are all matters of personal choice which the law must facilitate rather than restrict. Thus, Shaw and Raz warn of the ‘potential for coercion in constraining reproductive choice’, while Bittles is concerned that ‘enforced legislation, however well-meaning, could in time lead us all back along unintended eugenics pathways that are best left in the past’.⁹¹ Rather, ‘families and communities need to be prepared to take responsibility for their own health and well-being’ while ‘individual couples should be allowed to make autonomous decisions that may impinge on their own health and that of their children.’⁹² In short, as Deech explains, consanguineous couples ‘must be made aware of the consequences’ so that they can make informed decisions and act responsibly.⁹³ On this view, then, restrictions on cousin marriage impede individual autonomy and it is not for the state to interfere beyond providing sufficient information and ensuring that any choices are freely made.

This argument has three main flaws. First, it assumes that the medical debate around cousin marriage is the only one that matters and that this is best resolved with soft measures such as improved education and accessible genetic counselling. However, as discussed above, (i) many cousin-couples who were fully informed of the genetic risks opted to run them anyway for a variety of non-medical reasons; and (ii) these measures seem to be an ineffective deterrent as the prevalence rates are either stable or rising in most if not all consanguineous populations. This links to the second major flaw in the argument from choice, which is that it completely ignores the emergent dynamics of the consanguineous clan as a group unit with meaningful agency and institutional norms which limit free agency. The patterns of violent and corrupt behaviours associated with clannism cannot be explained as the aggregated choices of the perpetrators—they are anti-social manifestations of the clan’s protective function as it incentivizes or directs aggression to maintain internal conformity and advance clan interests regardless of the harms inflicted on its own members, external victims and wider society. Third, it assumes that the only people affected—negatively—by a cousin marriage ban would be practicing individuals, families and sub-populations. However, the costs of cousin marriage—avoidable strain on stretched health systems—and the resulting harms of clannism—namely criminality and corruption—injure the whole of society, and in a democracy under the rule of law every citizen (consanguineous or not) has a stake in restricting such harmful practices that impact on them and their nation. For these reasons the argument from choice remains unconvincing.

E. The argument from proportionality

This evaluative argument is the most measured and forceful of all five. It essentially contends that a ban would be disproportionate on the balance of harms: the harms resulting from cousin marriage do not outweigh the harms that would result from restricting it. This is best summarized by Martin Ottenheimer who avers that ‘prohibitions against cousin marriage appear to be counterproductive’ as they ‘symbolise an archaic view of the sociocultural aspects of marriage, reflect mistaken notions about the genetic impact of consanguineal marriage, and work against society’s best interests.’⁹⁴ Expanding on the point about genetic impact, Bittles states that ‘the health risks associated with consanguineous marriage have been exaggerated’ because, while the statistics ‘have meaning in population terms’, they (i) do not translate well down to the individual or family level and (ii) can be inflated by non-genetic factors (socio-economic and environmental factors).⁹⁵ What is more, a ban would be disproportionate because it would be unthinkable to ban other behaviours such as marriages between non-consanguineous endogamous groups with high rates of genetic illnesses (eg, marriages within small local or Jewish populations), bearing children aged over 34 years, or ingesting alcohol while of child-bearing age, all of which incur comparable levels of risk to offspring.⁹⁶

Imposing restrictions on cousin marriage would also negate the sociocultural advantages it confers on disadvantaged populations for whom it plays ‘an important, even critical, role’ in daily life, namely: the maintenance of family wealth (reduced dowries, keeping property within the family); the preservation of cultural and family ties across transnational boundaries (eg, between Pakistan and its British diasporas); forming strategic partnerships within and between clans; greater assurance of spousal compatibility due to prior familiarity; access to clan institutions such as kameti and hawala; and reliable social protection offered by the clan.⁹⁷ As to the negative impact of a ban on the society imposing it, Mark Weiner warns of the diminution of humanity sustained by anyone attempting to ‘eliminate the cultural presence of the clan.’⁹⁸ This may sound ethereal but ‘sentiments matter too’ and it is important to acknowledge the ‘ache for everything that is lost’ wherever clans have been dissolved, from the collective ‘loss of normative coherence’ to the ‘psychological isolation’ experienced by so many Western individuals within weak family structures and the impersonal bureaucratic state.⁹⁹ Moreover, banning cousin marriage would certainly adversely affect ‘the ability of immigrants, refugees and their descendants to obtain family reunification’ in the West and doubtless inflict emotional trauma upon clan members kept apart by consequent changes to immigration rules (as in Denmark).¹⁰⁰ If, as one British immigration lawyer writes, there is already ‘a special place in hell for the drafters of the immigration rules which govern family migration’, then anyone who banned cousin marriage would have lost not just their humanity but any sense of humanitarian altruism as well.¹⁰¹ On this view, then, the only ‘question is not how to eliminate’ consanguineous clans but rather ‘how to manage the impulses’ they embody and incentivize.¹⁰²

Taken in the round, this is a serious but ultimately unpersuasive argument. First, and despite the limitations on the statistical data, supporters of cousin marriage acknowledge that non-consanguineous offspring have a ‘statistically significant health advantage over their consanguineous counterparts’ and any future reduction in consanguinity rates ‘will have a significant impact on the health of future generations.’¹⁰³ Further, comparisons between cousin marriage and other social risk factors—pregnancy after 34 years, drinking alcohol while of childbearing age, non-consanguineous endogamy—are legally tenuous as these types of phenomena are completely unalike from a policy perspective. In non-consanguineous Western nations at least, bans on cousin marriage are a proportionate measure to halt a largely imported problem (90 per cent of first-cousin marriages in the UK are transnational while less than half of British Pakistani marriages to domestic spouses were consanguineous¹⁰⁴) that causes a 10 per cent mortality and disability rate among British Pakistani children.¹⁰⁵ On the other hand, even if the political will existed there would be no rational way of justifying or preventing indigenous middle-aged pregnancies, widespread drinking habits and, for example, Muslim or Jewish citizens marrying unrelated Muslims or Jews. As even Bittles acknowledges, the adverse biological effects heavily outweigh any conceivable social advantages to be gained from consanguineous marriage in any modern industrial society.¹⁰⁶

The same balance of harms presents from the social disadvantages accruing from cousin marriage and clannism which were outlined above.¹⁰⁷ Balancing aside, however, it is important to acknowledge that a ban on cousin marriage would undoubtedly abrogate the perceived social advantages it confers and weaken many clan structures to the point of redundancy, including the kameti and hawala. However, there is no reason whatsoever that the legitimate financial activities of clans cannot be carried on by differentiated institutions that can be more effectively regulated, such as the global Islamic finance system flourishing under domestic and international law.¹⁰⁸ As to the social protection provided by clans to their members, this is entirely dependent on unquestioning obedience to elders and comes at an unacceptable cost to personal liberty. Thus, while the majority of consanguineous marriages are not forced marriages, it is striking that cousin marriage is rising among British Pakistanis even though 83 per cent of youths of both sexes would prefer to select a partner themselves, as opposed to a mere 8 per cent who thought their parents should do this.¹⁰⁹ This is suggestive of intense familial pressure upon those who would otherwise be ‘totally against’ what they regard as a ‘weird’ practice.¹¹⁰ What is more, well-meaning attempts by states to alleviate clan-based gender inequality by indirect means, such as by changing inheritance laws to benefit women, have inadvertently increased consanguinity rates as clan elders apply even greater pressure on women to marry relatives to keep property within the family.¹¹¹

Turning to Weiner’s point about a societal loss of humanity, it is certainly doubtful that a ban on cousin marriage and the dissolution of consanguineous clans would reverse the myriad ‘malaises of modernity’.¹¹² However, the slow and occasionally painful passing of this customary way of life would be generative rather than destructive of culture. This much is evident from the dazzling literature produced during or about such periods—from Walter Scott’s Rob Roy (1817) to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander (1991-) series¹¹³—and the emerging negative treatment of clannism by insider novelists: ‘This was a kin thing, a fucking biraderi thing, an OUR mother-fucking thing that I wanted no part of. We were worse than the fucking Mafia when it came to those troublesome family matters.’¹¹⁴

As for the alleged inhumanity of a ban on cousin marriage preventing family reunification, it is worth reiterating that anything short of an open borders policy will have unpleasant consequences for someone. Regardless, charity is neither the sole nor the main responsibility of government and these unfortunate consequences are necessary to the maintenance of national sovereignty and the exercise of the legitimate right to control the movement of people, as Lord Hope explains:¹¹⁵

The world has become larger and more volatile. There is an ever-increasing need to exercise a strict control over the number of people who can be allowed to enter and remain in this country. The UK is simply not big enough to accommodate all those who, for a variety of reasons, would wish to live and work here.¹¹⁶

This regulatory task is often treated as a crude numbers game so immigration rules tend to be intentionally difficult and expensive to navigate.¹¹⁷ Attempts by, for example, the UK Government to appear ‘tough on immigration’ without directly addressing the most problematic issues (ie, transnational cousin marriage) have led to such a proliferation of regulations (eg, complex income requirements) that ‘Britain will soon have quite possibly the most restrictive spouse visa regime in the developed world’.¹¹⁸ To some extent this is understandable given that immigration policy requires a certain degree of opacity to avert geopolitical repercussions. For the most part, however, it is better and more intellectually honest to impose rational restrictions based on well-evidenced policy objectives so that potential applicants are clear about whether and why they will be ineligible to settle. A straightforward ban on cousin marriage satisfies these requirements and while it may earn its drafters a place in hell, it would likely make Western family immigration rules much less hellish to negotiate. For all these reasons, then, the argument from proportionality fails to persuade. Having thus rejected each of the main arguments against prohibiting cousin marriage, the positive case in favour of a ban must now be made in closing.

5. CONCLUSION—THE CASE FOR BANNING COUSIN MARRIAGE

The case for prohibiting cousin marriage must elucidate the proposed ban’s: (i) justification and scope, and (ii) anticipated benefits and impact. Each shall be taken in turn.

A. Justification and scope

To adopt the apposite phrasing of ECHR Article 8(2), the proposed ban on consanguineous marriage would be necessary to secure the interests of national security, public safety and economic well-being, for the prevention of disorder or crime, and for the protection of health or morals and the rights and freedoms of others (how it achieves all this in practice will be discussed below). The ban itself should simply follow the universal clinical definition of consanguineous marriage, such that any consanguineal unions up to and including second cousins are added to the nation’s prohibited degrees of relationship. For the purposes of simplicity and transparency, such an explicit and direct ban is preferable to an indirect approach, such as Denmark’s ‘rule of supposition of forced marriage’ which establishes an (inaccurate) presumption that cousin marriages are forced marriages.¹¹⁹ While this has proved highly successful at reducing imported consanguinity, it does so at the cost of intellectual honesty and needlessly litigable regulations.¹²⁰

Further, to overcome the limitations of derivative health and ethnographic statistics, more reliable granular data on domestic cousin marriage should be gathered by the state itself. This could easily be done by adding relevant questions about both endogamous and consanguineous marriage to national census questionnaires, particularly for the purposes of targeted healthcare provision but also to verify whether recent estimates of the prevalence of extreme consanguinity are indeed ‘too low’.¹²¹ Marriage celebrants should be placed under a legal duty to enquire into and report on consanguinity issues that would render the marriage void, and new guidelines should be issued to prosecutors instructing them to add incest to indictments in cases involving sexual intercourse between close family members in order to further expose and deter this practice. It is probably unnecessary to classify cousin relationships as criminally incestuous, for large consanguineous diasporas already exist within many Western nations and the core problem is one of continuing mass-importation: civil legislation against second-cousin unions and closer will render these marriages void in domestic law and trigger dual domicile doctrines which operate to ensure that any marriage conducted abroad between someone domiciled in that country and his/her cousin would also be void for immigration purposes.¹²²

In addition to the ban it would be necessary to foil common attempts to ‘overcome barriers to the movement of people’.¹²³ For example, the former British High Commissioner to Pakistan, Sir Adam Thomson KCMG, warned that ‘fraud and forgery were very strong industries in Pakistan’, such that it is ‘a world leader in the visa fraud business which is why we have to check very scrupulously every single application, every single passport, every single document’.¹²⁴ Other embassies and Pakistani law firms have confirmed as much.¹²⁵ Appropriate countermeasures would include, for example, the addition to national immigration rules of a stringent requirement for non-US or non-European Economic Area (EEA) applicant spouses to prove that they are not within the newly expanded prohibited degrees of relationship regardless of the presence or absence of genetic disease.¹²⁶ This is perhaps less outré than it sounds, for Saudi Arabia has been enforcing mandatory premarital genetic screening since 2004 (seemingly taken seriously by the population as it led to 165,000 voluntary breakups during its first decade in operation)¹²⁷ and in 2017 Pakistan itself passed the Compulsory Blood Test of the Relatives of Thalassemia Patient Bill which requires couples to take a blood test as a preliminary before marriage.¹²⁸ Such provisions are ‘very much cost-effective’, ‘feasible and acceptable’ such that they ‘should be universal’.¹²⁹ In other words, mandatory premarital testing is an accepted practice in highly consanguineous countries and there is no principled reason that it cannot be adopted by diaspora host countries.

B. Anticipated results and impact

Were the above restrictions implemented and enforced, the following first-, second-, and third-order benefits would be expected. As to the immediate impact, it is certain that improved health outcomes would result from the ban and be felt most at the sub-population level among consanguineous diasporas in cities such as Birmingham and Bradford. Significant reductions in child mortality and genetic disorders would be quantifiable within a few years of the ban coming into effect, and subsequent ethnographies would likely record qualitative benefits among formerly consanguineous families who would no longer suffer the ‘devastating impact’ of repeated heartbreak from multiple losses and the often traumatic experience upon moving to the West of receiving a grim diagnosis and prognosis for their children.¹³⁰ This would have knock-on benefits for healthcare provision in the local region as a major strain on healthcare resources began to lift over the course of a generation. None of this would negate the need for continuing high-quality provision for those already affected, nor the need for investment in genetic counselling services for existing/remaining non-consanguineous endogamous communities (eg, for Britain’s small community of under 300,000 Jews, 78 per cent of whom marry other non-related Jews¹³¹), nor the incentive to develop innovative technologies to identify risks such as, for example, the Icelandic dating app that warns users if they are related and optional private testing services for British Jews.¹³² In the round, however, banning cousin marriage would improve public health drastically and have no negative health implications of its own.

As for the anticipated second-order benefits accruing from the gradual dissolution of consanguineous clans, these would include: greater autonomy and protection for individual clan members; a reduction in forced marriage and honour violence; higher levels of voluntary blood donations; a reduction in clan-related group-based child sexual exploitation; the weakening of clan-based organized/violent crime; a reduction both in financial fraud and compliance costs re money laundering and terror financing regulations; a reduction in corruption in civil society institutions such as schools and charities; a reduction in electoral corruption, voter fraud and honour-based abuse of political candidates; increased political participation by women from formerly consanguineous communities; a reduction in the appeal of Islamist groups among younger clan members; a reduction in the various anti-social behaviours currently classified as ‘extremism’; a reduction in reliance on discriminatory extra-legal institutions such as sharia councils; a reduction in intra-minority elite privileges and caste stratification; and a reduction in antisemitism and out-group hostility towards the wider population; the knock-on reduction in expenditure required to deal with all of the above; and quite possibly a substantial reduction in the various anxieties and misconceptions harboured by indigenous populations about Muslims and non-European migrants.¹³³ In short, the impact would be transformative at every level and a ban based purely on social public policy grounds would be legally defensible in its own right on the same basis as long-standing prohibitions on polygamous marriages. These carry no inherent genetic health risks but are another emergent threat to social stability having been linked to: ‘more mental health problems, social problems and lower academic achievement for children and adolescents’ as well as ‘marital conflict, marital distress, father absence and financial stress’; severe educational, financial and gender inequality; domestic violence and FGM; violent intra-sex competition over, and the commodification of, sparse marriage partners; and ultimately economic underdevelopment, state fragility, organized group violence, social unrest and civil war.¹³⁴

Finally, the historical evidence for third-order geopolitical benefits is overwhelming. The Western world began to reap these in the early Middles Ages as the abolition of consanguineous marriage precipitated the emergence of a distinctive ‘Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD)’ psychology characterized by greater analytical-mindedness, individualism, independence, and extra-familial trust with less conformity, obedience, in-group loyalty, and nepotism.¹³⁵ The geopolitical ramifications of this transformation are self-evident, but suffice to say modern democracy, the rule of law, and high living standards would not have occurred without it.¹³⁶ Tellingly, from the later 19^th century as the USA was beginning its ascent to superpower status, it was the states that banned cousin marriage which tended to become the most prosperous and thereby became—and remain—the greatest contributors to American economic might.¹³⁷ The same story now appears to be playing out within China, which banned cousin marriage in 1980: the provinces where kinship ties have been weakened the most tend to be more economically robust and prosperous.¹³⁸ What is more, migrant diasporas have been found to give their host countries a multi-generational ‘culture transplant’, such that mass immigration from highly (and less prosperous) or less (and more prosperous) consanguineous regions will have very different ‘enduring effects upon a nation’s economic potential.’¹³⁹

Economic trajectories aside, transnational clans represent one of the most under-appreciated threats to democratic governments in the 21st century. This is firstly because consanguineous diasporas are gaining increasing political and electoral influence over Western societies. In the UK, for example, foreign policy towards South Asia is now ‘strongly influenced by a skilful and far-reaching Pakistani lobby’ whose members ‘constitute an important—perhaps even decisive—political constituency in some marginals’; successful British politicians have even taken to campaigning in rural Bangladesh during UK elections to canvass support from transnational clan elders and party leaders with influence over their British diasporas.¹⁴⁰ This a clear and present danger to the integrity of domestic elections in its own right, but the threat is only compounding now that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has learned to co-opt neighbouring clan-based societies via its Belt and Road Initiative by lulling them into a state of economic dependency. For example, Pakistan—a nominal US ally and key member of the Commonwealth of Nations—has effectively become the supplicant partner in a de facto ‘China-Pakistan Axis’ against the West and India, so much so that it actively aids the CCP’s anti-Uighur campaigns by deflecting international criticism and deporting escapees back to China.¹⁴¹ Given this thoroughgoing penetration of Pakistan, and given the Pakistani diaspora’s growing influence over British politics, there is a compelling case for treating cousin marriage not just as a domestic health and social problem, but also as an actual or potential mechanism for foreign electoral interference and thus a critical threat to national security. It remains to be seen whether or not this will play a decisive role in the intensifying struggle against Chinese aggression, but Western defence analysts must seriously consider whether the continuing legality of cousin marriage across the democratic world is worth the geopolitical risks.

Summing up, the cumulative case for banning cousin marriage is compelling and doing so would be compliant with human rights, not unduly prejudicial or inhumane, not outweighed by customary considerations, the opposite of detrimental to individual autonomy, and entirely proportionate to the harms of consanguineous marriage. For their part, scholars should make a concerted effort to convince Western governments to coordinate bans on cousin marriage across their jurisdictions, and encourage strategic partners across the Muslim world to do the same. Such appeals can be made on rational grounds—improving public health, reducing the appeal of Islamism as the only force capable of overcoming corrupt tribal politics, fostering long-term economic growth, etc—as well as to the pure self-interest of ambitious rulers looking to stabilize their regimes and modernize their countries.¹⁴² Legislating against cousin marriage is, after all, a proven method of nation-building capable of turning a volatile rabble of European tribal groupings into a patchwork of enduring nation-states with sophisticated economies, institutions, and ideas capable of dominating the world.

Thus, having given full consideration to the medical, social, and geopolitical context of cousin marriage, we can finally answer the documentary-makers’ questions posed at the beginning of this article:

• Should one marry one’s cousin? No.

• Should others be allowed to marry their cousin? No.

• Should we abolish stigmas and laws against cousin marriage? No.

• Is cousin marriage really that bad? Yes.

• Can we ban cousin marriage? Yes.

• Should we ban cousin marriage? Yes.

Footnotes

1

Hiba Maroof, ‘Should I Marry My Cousin?’ (BBC Three, 7 September 2017) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p056gvhm> accessed 1 April 2024; Mona Chalabi, ‘Is It Really that Bad to Marry My Cousin?’ [‘Am I Normal?’ Ep.4] (TED/BBC Sounds, 30 June 2022) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ch1vn3> accessed 1 April 2024.

2

Jon Sharman, ‘Teenager Decides Whether to Marry Her First Cousin’ (The Independent, 8 July 2017).

3

Chalabi (n 1).

4

Patrick S Nash, British Islam and English Law: A Classical Pluralist Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2022); Patrick S Nash, ‘Comparative Consanguinity Law: A Global Study of Cousin Marriage Regulations’ in Rebecca Probert and Sharon Thompson (eds), Research Handbook on Marriage, Cohabitation and the Law (Edward Elgar 2024) ch 13, 201–13. Note that the footnotes covering much of the listed information within Sections 2 and 3 of this article refer back to these earlier literature reviews where the original sources are recorded at considerable length.

5

Loic Yengo and others, ‘Extreme Inbreeding in a European Ancestry Sample from the Contemporary UK Population’ (2019) 10 Nature Communications 3719.

6

Hanan Hamamy, ‘Consanguineous Marriages’ (2012) 3 Journal of Community Genetics 185; for an historical overview see Nash, ‘Comparative Consanguinity Law’ (n 4).

7

Alan Bittles, Consanguinity in Context (Cambridge University Press 2012) 5–6.

8

Robin Fox quoted in Richard Conniff, ‘Go Ahead, Kiss Your Cousin’ (Discover Magazine, 1 August 2003; accessed 1 April 2024); Ruth Deech, ‘Cousin Marriage’ (2010) Gresham Lectures 1; Ghazi Tadmouri and others, ‘Consanguinity and Reproductive Health among Arabs’ (2009) 6 Reproductive Health 17; Olubunmi Oniya and others, ‘A Review of the Reproductive Consequences of Consanguinity’ (2018) 232 European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology 87.

9

Hamamy (n 6) 185.

10

ibid, Figure One.

11

ibid; Qatar Foundation, ‘Advertorial: Pioneers of Precision Medicine in the Middle East’ (Science, 30 November 2020); Sarosh Iqbal and others, ‘Consanguineous Marriages and Their Association with Women’s Reproductive Health and Fertility Behavior in Pakistan: Secondary Data Analysis from Demographic and Health Surveys, 1990-2018’ (2022) 22 BMC Women’s Health 18; Oniya and others (n 8).

12

Contrast Alan Bittles and Michael Black, ‘Consanguinity, Human Evolution, and Complex Diseases’ (2010) 107 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1779, Fig.1 with Alan Bittles, ‘Consang.Net—Static Global Consanguinity Map’ (2022) < https://www.consang.net/Static-Maps/> accessed 1 April 2024 ; contrast Saeed Anwar and others, ‘Genetic and Reproductive Consequences of Consanguineous Marriage in Bangladesh’ (2020) 15 PLoS One with Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) 262–63; Alan Bittles, ‘Patterns of Consanguineous Marriage across the World and Their Consequences’ (2015) Galton Lecture < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s19Ex_wA1FM> accessed 1 April 2024.

13

Oniya and others (n 8); Tadmouri and others (n 8); Martina Merten, ‘Keeping It in the Family: Consanguineous Marriage and Genetic Disorders, from Islamabad to Bradford’ (2019) British Medical Journal 365; Khyber Saify and others, ‘Consanguineous Marriages in Afghanistan’ (2012) 44 Journal of Biosocial Science 73; Anwar and others (n 12).

14

Tadmouri and others (n 8); Oniya and others (n 8).

15

Raphael Patai and Jennifer P Wing, The Myth of the Jewish Race (Wayne State University Press 1989); Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) ch 8; Deech (n 8); Jonathan Kang and others, ‘Consanguinity Rates Predict Long Runs of Homozygosity in Jewish Populations’ (2016) 82 Human Heredity 87.

16

Alison Healey, ‘Study Urges Genetic Counselling for Cousins Who Marry’ (Irish Times, 1 May 2003); Elena Arciero and others, ‘Fine-scale Population Structure and Demographic History of British Pakistanis’ (2021) 12 Nature Communications 7189; Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4), 262-3; Alan Bittles and Neil Small, ‘Consanguinity, Genetics and Definitions of Kinship in the UK Pakistani Population’ (2016) 48 Journal of Biosocial Science 844; Neil Small and others, ‘Endogamy, Consanguinity and the Health Implications of Changing Marital Choices in the UK Pakistani Community’ (2017) 49 Journal of Biosocial Science 435; Daniel Malawsky and others, ‘Influence of Autozygosity on Common Disease Risk across the Phenotypic Spectrum’ (2023) medRxiv 1–36.

17

Sue Mitchell, ‘Fewer Cousins Marrying in Bradford’s Pakistani Community’ (BBC News, 18 November 2023); BBC Four, ‘Born in Bradford’ (BBC Sounds, 17 November 2023) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001sdsq> accessed 1 April 2024. Note the statistical discrepancy between these articles.

18

Mitchell ibid.

19

BBC Sounds (n 17), from 5.45.

20

John Bowen, On British Islam (Princeton University Press 2016) 20; Mohammed Zaheer, ‘Cousin Marriages Could Die Out for British Muslim Pakistanis’ (VICE, 10 September 2019); Alison Shaw, ‘British Pakistani Cousin Marriages and the Negotiation of Reproductive Risk’ in Alison Shaw and Aviad Raz (eds), Cousin Marriages: Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change (Berghahn 2015) 117; Katharine Charsley and others, Marriage, Migration and Integration (Macmillan 2020) 107.

21

Marta Bolognani and Jody Mellor, ‘British Pakistani Women’s Use of the ‘Religion vs. Culture’ Contrast: A Critical Analysis’ (2012) 13 Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal 211.

22

Bittles (n 12).

23

Arciero and others (n 16); Yengo and others (n 5).

24

Lee Goldman, ‘Three Stages of Health Encounters Over 8000 Human Generations and How They Inform Future Public Health’ (2018) 108 American Journal of Public Health 60; Bittles (n 7) 3.

25

Goldman ibid; Max Roser, ‘Mortality in the Past: Every Second Child Died’ (Oxford Martin School, 11 April 2023).

26

See Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) 265.

27

Goldman (n 24).

28

Alison Shaw and Aviad Raz (eds), Cousin Marriages: Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change (Berghahn 2015) 25.

29

Alison Shaw, ‘Cousin Marriages in the UK: What are the Genetic Risks?’ (PET BioNews, 22 June 2008).

30

Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) 267.

31

Deech (n 8); Merten (n 13).

32

See Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4), 267; Razib Khan, ‘Cousin Marriage can Reduce I.Q. A Lot’ (Discover Magazine, 20 July 2012).

33

Sam Hwang and others, ‘Health Effects of Cousin Marriage: Evidence from US Genealogical Records’ (2023) SSRN Electronic Journal 1, 1, 20.

34

Bittles (n 12), from 55 minutes.

35

See Justin Rowlatt, ‘The Risks of Cousin Marriage’ (BBC Newsnight, 16 November 2005); BBC News, ‘Birth Defects Warning Sparks Row’ (BBC News, 10 February 2008); Sue Mitchell, ‘Did My Children Die Because I Married My Cousin?’ (BBC News, 14 December 2018).

36

Birmingham City Council, ‘Scrutiny Inquiry: Infant Mortality’ (2021) Health and Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee 12.

37

The Independent, ‘London Borough Finds One in Five Child Deaths Caused by Parents Being Related’ (The Independent, 17 May 2017).

38

Nazia Parveen, ‘Cousin Marriages Cited as Significant Factor in Bradford Child Deaths’ (The Guardian, 15 February 2019); Mitchell (n 35). 

39

For example, Born in Bradford (2007+) <https://borninbradford.nhs.uk/>; East London Genes and Health (2015) < https://www.genesandhealth.org/>; Birmingham City Council Taskforce (2021+) <https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1015.full> accessed 1 April 2024.

40

Chalabi (n 3). For the corrective, see Nash (n 4).

41

Editorial, ‘Cousin Marriage is Probably Fine in Most Cases’ (The Economist, 15 February 2024); Joseph Henrich, ‘Thread on Cousin Marriage’ (X, 17 February 2024) <https://twitter.com/JoHenrich/status/1758965099061014953> accessed 1 April 2024.

42

Shaw (n 20) 113–27; Deech (n 8); Santi Rozario and Sophie Gilliat-Ray, ‘Genetics, Religion and Identity: A Study of British Bangladeshis 2004-7’ (ESRC Working Paper, 2007) 37, 91; Santi Rozario, ‘Genetics, Religion and Identity among British Bangladeshis: Some Initial Findings’ (2005) 2 Diversity in Health and Social Care 187; Anwar and others (n 12); Mubasshir Ajaz and others ‘UK Pakistani Views on the Adverse Health Risks Associated with Consanguineous Marriages’ (2015) 6 Journal of Community Genetics 331; Arjumand Warsy and others, ‘Is Consanguinity Prevalence Decreasing in Saudis?: A Study in Two Generations’ (2014) 14(2) African Health Sciences 314.

43

Teaching Regulation Agency, Mr Aqib Khan Professional conduct panel meeting outcome: Panel decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education (March 2024) 6. See below for a discussion of the age-related claim.

44

Alison Shaw, Kinship and Continuity: Pakistani Families in Britain (Routledge 2000) 4.

45

Akbar Ahmed, The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam (Brookings Institution Press 2013) 4; Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Penguin 2015) 7.

46

Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) 264.

47

Ikhlaq Din, The New British: The Impact of Culture and Community on Young Pakistanis (Ashgate, 2006) 143; Bowen (n 11) 18–22; James C Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed (Yale, 2009); Akbar Ahmed, Mataloona and Mizh (Oxford University Press 2020).

48

Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) ch 4.

49

For further examples and detailed discussion, see Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) chs 4–8; Philip Wood, ‘Marriage and Social Boundaries among British Pakistanis’ (2018) 20 Diaspora 40.

50

Ahmed (n 45) 327.

51

Terry Jones, Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror: Observations and Denunciations by a Founding Member of Monty Python (Nation Books 2005) 1–2.

52

Ahmed (n 45) 4–5.

53

See generally David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (Penguin 2017) and Matthew Goodwin, Values, Voice and Virtue (Penguin 2021).

54

Ahmed (n 45) 8–34.

55

ibid 343.

56

ibid 345–46.

57

ibid; see also Steven Lyon, Political Kinship in Pakistan: Descent, Marriage, and Government Stability (Lexington Books 2019).

58

David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Revised edn, Ivan R Dee 2009).

59

Steve Sailer, ‘Cousin Marriage Conundrum’ (The American Conservative, 13 January 2013).

60

Stanley Kurtz, ‘Marriage and the Terror War: Part I’ (National Review, 15 February 2007).

61

Stanley Kurtz, ‘Marriage and the Terror War: Part II’ (National Review, 16 February 2007).

62

Amy Chua, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations (Penguin 2019) 60. See also Ben Acheson’s excellent guide to The Pashtun Tribes in Afghanistan (Pen & Sword Military 2023).

63

Victor David Hanson, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization are Destroying the Idea of America (Basic Books 2022) 99–100.

64

ibid 146.

65

Readers can follow the citations and find a more detailed discussion of Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) pt II.

66

Bittles (n 7) 38, 222.

67

Ruth Deech, ‘Reflections on 40 Years of IVF and Its Impact on the Family’ (October 2018) Family Law 1296, 1302.

68

B and L v UK (App no 36536/02) [2006] 1 FLR 35, paras 17, 33.

69

Theodorou and Tsotsorou v Greece (App no 57854/15) [2019] ECHR 611, para 28; Nash, ‘Comparative consanguinity law’ (n 4).

70

Nash ibid; Bittles (n 7) 29–39.

71

Mitchell (n 17); for the corrective, see Nash ibid.

72

Chalabi (n 3); for the corrective, see Nash ibid.

73

Shaw and Raz (n 28) 16; Rachel Frommer, ‘The Unconstitutionality of State Bans on Marriage between First Cousins’ (2021) 83 Cardozo Law Review De Novo 202, 245; Alan Bittles, ‘The Bases of Western Attitudes to Consanguineous Marriage’ (2003) 45 Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 135, 137.

74

Nash, ‘Comparative Consanguinity Law’ (n 4) 207–08; see also Diane Paul and Hamish Spencer, ‘“It’s Ok, We’re Not Cousins by Blood”: The Cousin Marriage Controversy in Historical Perspective’ (2008) 6 PLoS Biology 2627.

75

Erlam & Ors v Rahman & Anor [2015] EWHC 1215 (QB), paras 195–196.

76

Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) 74–76.

77

Deech (n 8) 1.

78

ibid; ECtHR, ‘Guide on Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights’ (ECtHR, August 2022) 7–8.

79

Mark Weiner, Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals about the Future of Individual Freedom (Picador 2013) 169.

80

Maya Jaggi, ‘First Among Equalisers’ (The Guardian, 21 October 2000).

81

Abdul Karim, ‘Letter to the Editor: Banning Cousin Marriage would be a Step Towards Dictatorship’ (The Times, 10 March 2024).

82

Bhikhu Parekh, ‘Minority Practices and Principles of Toleration’ (1996) 30 International Migration Review 251, 270.

83

Deech (n 8) 8; Marieke Teeuw and others, ‘Preconception Care for Consanguineous Couples in the Netherlands’ in Alison Shaw and Aviad Raz (eds), Cousin Marriages: Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change (Berghahn 2015) 214.

84

Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) ch 3.

85

Nigel Morris, ‘Baroness Flather Accused of “Bigotry” Over Her Views on Marriages in Pakistani Community’ (The Independent, 8 July 2015).

86

Jayne Haynes, ‘“Silence Must End” - Call for Action on Baby Deaths of “Related” Couples’ (Birmingham Mail, 9 April 2021).

87

Matthew Syed, ‘Time to End Cousin Marriage in the UK’ (The Times, 9 April 2023) and ‘Political Correctness has Suppressed Debate on Migration We Must Have’ (The Times, 2 March 2024).

88

See Nash ‘Comparative Consanguinity Law’ (n 4); Institute for War and Peace Reporting, ‘Close-Kin Marriages Still Widespread in Uzbekistan’ (IWPR, 14 August 2009) <https://iwpr.net/global-voices/close-kin-marriages-still-widespread-uzbekistan> accessed 1 April 2024; RFE/RL, ‘Tajikistan Moves to Ban Arabic Names, Marriages Between First Cousins’ (RFE/RL, 13 January 2016); Ziad Memish and others, ‘Six-year Outcome of the National Premarital Screening and Genetic Counseling Program for Sickle Cell Disease and β-thalassemia in Saudi Arabia’ (2011) 31 Annals of Saudi Medicine 229; Mariam Sajid, ‘How Cousin Marriages can Wreak Genetic Havoc on Children’ (Genetic Literacy Project, 10 March 2023).

89

Jonathan Schultz, ‘Kin Networks and Institutional Development’ (2022) 132 The Economic Journal 2578, 2578, 2608.

90

Brian Barry, Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism (Polity Press 2001) 253.

91

Shaw and Raz (n 28) 3; Bittles (n 7) 231.

92

Bittles ibid.

93

Deech (n 8) 7, 10.

94

Martin Ottenheimer, Forbidden Relatives: The American Myth of Cousin Marriage (University of Illinois Press 1996) 154.

95

Bittles (n 7) 226–27; Rhianna King, ‘End Stigma of Cousin Marriage: Researcher’ (WAtoday, 27 April 2012).

96

ibid 228–29; Shaw and Raz (n 28) 25.

97

Bittles, ibid 65, 229.

98

Weiner (n 79) 167–69.

99

ibid; Adam Kuper, ‘Changing the Subject: About Cousin Marriage, among Other Things’ (2008) 14 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 717, 731.

100

Anika Liversage and Mikkel Rytter, ‘A Cousin Marriage Equals a Forced Marriage’ in Alison Shaw and Aviad Raz (eds), Cousin Marriages: Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change (Berghahn 2015) 130; Katharine Charsley and others, ‘Kept Apart: Couples and Families Separated by the Immigration System’ (Reunite Families UK, 2020).

101

Ruth Mullen, ‘Family Migration and the Highway through Hell’ (Family Law, 29 August 2019).

102

Weiner (n 79) 169.

103

Bittles (n 7) 213; Bittles and Black (n 12).

104

Katharine Charsley, ‘Vulnerable Brides and Transnational Ghar Damads: Gender, Risk and ‘Adjustment’ among Pakistani Marriage Migrants to Britain’ (2005) 12 Indian Journal of Gender Studies 381, 384; Katharine Charsley, Transnational Pakistani Connections: Marrying ‘Back Home’ (Routledge 2013) 89; Ammara Maqsood, ‘From Pakistan with Love: Islam, Intimacy and Transnational Marriages’ (UK Research and Innovation, ES/L009757/1, 2014-17) <https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FL009757%2F1> accessed 1 April 2024; Alison Shaw, ‘Drivers of Cousin Marriage among British Pakistanis’ (2014) 77 Human Heredity 26.

105

Shaw (n 29).

106

Bittles (n 7) 230.

107

Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4).

108

ibid ch 4.

109

Din (n 47) 142.

110

ibid; Katharine Charsley, ‘“A First Generation in Every Generation”? Spousal Immigration in the Casey Review and Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper’ (Discover Society, 1 May 2018); Charsley and others (n 20) 107; Charsley (n 104) 149–51; Zaheer (n 20).

111

Duman Bahrami-Rad, ‘Keeping It in the Family: Female Inheritance, Inmarriage, and the Status of Women’ (2021) 153 Journal of Development Economics 102714.

112

Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Harvard University Press 2018) ch 1.

113

Weiner (n 79) ch 11.

114

Yunis Alam quoted in Marta Bolognani, Crime and Muslim Britain: Race, Culture and the Politics of Criminology among British Pakistanis (Tauris 2009) 59.

115

For an interesting debate on this point see, respectively: Joseph H Carens, The Ethics of Immigration (Oxford University Press 2015); Liav Orgad, The Cultural Defence of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority Rights (Oxford University Press 2017); David Miller, Strangers in our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration (Harvard University Press 2018).

116

Lord Hope of Craighead, ‘Foreword’ to Eric Fripp, Rowena Moffatt and Ellis Wilford, The Law and Practice of Expulsion and Exclusion from the United Kingdom (Hart 2015) v.

117

Frances Allen and others, The Immigration Law Handbook (11th edn, Oxford University Press 2023).

118

Nigel Forrester, ‘How Pakistan Took Our Freedom to Marry Who We Choose’ (Pimlico Journal, 5 January 2024).

119

Liversage and Rytter (n 100) 130–53; Charsley (n 110).

120

ibid.

121

Yengo and others (n 5).

122

For the English context, see Marriage Act 1949, s 1; Jonathan Hill and Máire Ní Shúilleabháin, Clarkson & Hill’s Conflict of Laws (5th edn, Oxford University Press 2016) 365–66.

123

Geoffrey Care, Migrants and the Courts: A Century of Trial and Error? (Routledge 2013) 48.

124

Quoted in The Express Tribune, ‘Pakistan is World Leader in Visa Fraud Business: British High Commissioner’ (Express Tribune, 27 July 2012); Rob Crilly, ‘British Ambassador says Pakistan is ‘World Leader’ in Visa Application Fraud’ (The Telegraph, 27 July 2012).

125

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, ‘Response to Information Request PAK105021.E’ (IRBC, 14 January 2015) 1 <https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/pages/attachments/2015/04/28/canada_coi_pak105021.e.pdf> accessed 1 April 2024.

126

In the UK, this does not require legislation and can be achieved using the statutory powers of the Secretary of State under the Immigration Act 1971, s 4(1); Gina Clayton and Georgina Firth, Immigration & Asylum Law (Oxford University Press 2018) 30–32.

127

Kristen Brown, ‘Why Saudi Arabia Is Pushing Premarital Genetic Screening’ (Gizmodo, 2 January 2018); BBC News, ‘Saudi Arabia: Genetic Tests Lead to 165,000 Break-ups’ (BBC, 25 March 2015); Ziad Memish and others, ‘Six-year Outcome of the National Premarital Screening and Genetic Counseling Program for Sickle Cell Disease and β-thalassemia in Saudi Arabia’ (2011) 31 Annals of Saudi Medicine 229.

128

Mariam Sajid, ‘How Cousin Marriages can Wreak Genetic Havoc on Children’ (Genetic Literacy Project, 10 March 2023).

129

Arulmani Thiyagarajan and others, ‘Need for a universal thalassemia screening programme in India? A public health perspective’ (2019) 8 Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care 1528.

130

Haynes (n 86); Bittles (n 7) 230.

131

David Graham, ‘Jews in Couples Marriage, Intermarriage, Cohabitation and Divorce in Britain’ (Institute for Jewish Policy Research, July 2016) 2; Jessica Mozersky, ‘‘Marry out?’ Some Surprising Consequences of Genetic Disease Risk among Ashkenazi Jews’ (BioNews, 28 May 2012).

132

Associated Press, ‘Kissing Cousins? Icelandic App Warns If Your Date is a Relative’ (CBC, 18 April 2013); JNETICS Homepage <https://www.jnetics.org/> accessed 1 April 2024.

133

See generally Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4), Part II; Joseph Henrich, The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (Penguin 2020) 241.

134

Nash, ibid 292; The Economist, ‘The Link between Polygamy and War’ (The Economist, 19 December 2017); Cody Ross and others, ‘Greater Wealth Inequality, Less Polygyny: Rethinking the Polygyny Threshold Model’ (2018) 15 Journal of the Royal Society, Interface 20180035; Daniel Seligson and Anne EC McCants, ‘Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment’ (2022) 46 Social Science History 1; Conor Friedersdorf, ‘The Case Against Encouraging Polygamy’ (The Atlantic, 9 July 2015); Jonathan Rauch, ‘No, Polygamy Isn’t the Next Gay Marriage’ (Politico, 30 June 2015).

135

Jonathan Schulz and others, ‘The Church, Intensive Kinship, and Global Psychological Variation’ (2019) 366 Science eaau5141.

136

Henrich (n 133); Michael Woodley and others, ‘Consanguinity as a Major Predictor of Levels of Democracy: A Study of 70 Nations’ (2013) 44 Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 263.

137

Arkadev Ghosh and others, ‘Economic Consequences of Kinship: Evidence from U.S. Bans on Cousin Marriage’ (2023) 138 Quarterly Journal of Economics 2559; Duman Bahrami-Rad and others, ‘Kin-based Institutions and Economic Development’ (Harvard Working Paper, 2022) 5–6.

138

Henrich (n 133) 244–51; Bahrami-Rad, ibid 8; Graham Noblit, ‘The Origin and Evolution of Chinese Lineages’ (SocArXiv, 2023).

139

Garett Jones, The Culture Transplant (Stanford University Press 2023), blurb, 102–05.

140

House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, ‘The UK’s foreign policy approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan: Fourth Report of Session 2010–11’ (House of Commons, HC514, Vol. 1, March 2011) 20, para 13 [Evidence 84 submitted by Professor Shaun Gregory, University of Durham]; Nash, British Islam and English Law (n 4) ch 7.

141

See Andrew Small, The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics (Hurst 2020); Kunwar Shahid, ‘How Pakistan Is Helping China Crack Down on Uyghur Muslims’ (The Diplomat, 28 June 2021).

142

Ed West, ‘How the Catholic Church Created Democracy’ (The Spectator, 24 December 2016).