Worldwide, more than 10% of marriages are between first or second cousins.

[We Never Know]

I didn't think it was that much.

"A cousin marriage is a marriage where the partners are cousins (i.e. people with common grandparents or people who share other fairly recent ancestors). The practice was common in earlier times, and continues to be common in some societies today, though in some jurisdictions such marriages are prohibited. Worldwide, more than 10% of marriages are between first or second cousins. Cousin marriage is an important topic in anthropology and alliance theory. In some cultures and communities, cousin marriages are considered ideal and are actively encouraged and expected; in others, they are seen as incestuous and are subject to social stigma and taboo. Cousin marriage was historically practised by indigenous cultures in Australia, North America, South America, and Polynesia. Different religions have ranged from prohibiting up to sixth cousins from marrying (some forms of Hinduism and Catholicism) to freely allowing first cousin marriage (Protestantism, Islam and Judaism). In some jurisdictions, cousin marriage is legally prohibited, for example in China , Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea , the Philippines and 24 of the 50 United States. The laws of many jurisdictions set out the degree of consanguinity prohibited among sexual relations and marriage parties."

Cousin Marriage

 

[Stevicus]

Apparently, marriage between first cousins is legal in my state, but only if both are over 65 or one is infertile.

Cousin marriage law in the United States - Wikipedia


Cousin marriage was legal in all states before the Civil War.[168] Anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer argues that marriage prohibitions were introduced to maintain the social order, uphold religious morality, and safeguard the creation of fit offspring.[169] Writers such as Noah Webster (1758–1843) and ministers like Philip Milledoler (1775–1852) and Joshua McIlvaine helped lay the groundwork for such viewpoints well before 1860. This led to a gradual shift in concern from affinal unions, like those between a man and his deceased wife's sister, to consanguineous unions. By the 1870s, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) was writing about "the advantages of marriages between unrelated persons" and the necessity of avoiding "the evils of consanguine marriage", avoidance of which would "increase the vigor of the stock". To many, Morgan included, cousin marriage, and more specifically parallel-cousin marriage was a remnant of a more primitive stage of human social organization.[170] Morgan himself had married his cousin in 1853.[171]

In 1846, Massachusetts Governor George N. Briggs appointed a commission to study mentally handicapped people (termed "idiots") in the state. This study implicated cousin marriage as responsible for idiocy. Within the next two decades, numerous reports (e.g., one from the Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylum) appeared with similar conclusions: that cousin marriage sometimes resulted in deafness, blindness, and idiocy. Perhaps most important was the report of physician Samuel Merrifield Bemiss for the American Medical Association, which concluded cousin inbreeding does lead to the "physical and mental deprivation of the offspring". Despite being contradicted by other studies like those of George Darwin and Alan Huth in England and Robert Newman in New York, the report's conclusions were widely accepted.[172]

These developments led to thirteen states and territories passing cousin marriage prohibitions by the 1880s. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play much of a direct role in the bans. George Louis Arner in 1908 considered the ban a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he thought would eventually be replaced by more refined techniques. By the 1920s, the number of bans had doubled.[173] Since that time, Kentucky (1943) and Texas have banned first-cousin marriage and since 1985, Maine has mandated genetic counseling for marrying cousins to minimise risk to any serious health defect to their children. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws unanimously recommended in 1970 that all such laws should be repealed, but no state has dropped its prohibition.[174][175][176]

 

[Sedim Haba]

Some rural areas get very little new blood.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Some rural areas get very little new blood.

Reminds me of a horror flick that I saw only about 10 minutes of.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Among Hindus, probably less that 1%.