Rates of cousin marriage

[Jassu]

 

Lol why do people insist Pakistani Punjabis and Indian Punjabis are very similar and have similar culture. We don't. Their culture is entirely influenced by Islam. 

 

 

[Jacfsing2]

1 hour ago, Jassu said:

 

Lol why do people insist Pakistani Punjabis and Indian Punjabis are very similar and have similar culture. We don't. Their culture is entirely influenced by Islam. 

 

 

I'm interested in those South Indian states, why they got a high population of incest?

[proudkaur21]

16 minutes ago, Jacfsing2 said:

I'm interested in those South Indian states, why they got a high population of incest?

I heard the Tamils and stuff have this tradition of marrying girls to their uncles and what not lol. I remember reading it somewhere. Btw let them marry cousins. They are only destroying their own society. Might be a win for us lol.

[5aaban]

1 hour ago, Jacfsing2 said:

I'm interested in those South Indian states, why they got a high population of incest?

Marriages between cousins, maternal uncles and nieces are prevalent in some south Indian communities. 

Some theories to explain the practice 

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/marrying-first-cousins-how-practice-evolved-and-declined-kerala-138540

Historian MG Sasibhooshan suggests several possibilities, considering the social situation of ancient times. “Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai (late historian and academic) suggested a theory that such marriages could have evolved in primitive societies when men mostly went to war and found it difficult to find alliances from circles beyond the immediate family. The practice was followed by Hindus and Muslims, by people in Tamil Nadu and even in Sri Lanka,” Sasibhooshan says.

He puts forth another theory: Kerala was made of really small kingdoms once upon a time, each fighting one another and possibly not wishing to have marriage alliances with each other. This possibly limited the choice of finding a partner to immediate family circles.

“Yet another possibility is that in the old days, people would not look for marriage alliances beyond a certain river that functioned as a sort of physical boundary. Take Korapuzha river in Kerala’s northern district of Kozhikode, for example. Families considered it beneath their dignity to form any relationship with members south of the river. But, there were rule-breakers, like VK Krishna Menon’s (late Indian politician and ally to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru) father Krishna Kurup, whose marriage to a woman in the south of Malabar was something of a rebellion back in the 19th century,” Sashibhooshan says.

Why such marriages declined over years

Over the years, the practise of marrying cousins declined drastically, says Sashibooshan. It could perhaps have links to the many studies revealing that marriage between blood relations can cause health problems and genetic disorders in the offspring.

A 2013 story in The Hindu mentions a detailed study involving 11,000 children from consanguineous marriages. The revealed congenital anomalies in 386 such children. This was double the number of children with anomalies born to parents who were not related by blood. Kerala, with its literacy rate increasing through the decades, very possibly took these studies seriously while considering marriages with cousins.

It is still not completely absent and even among newer generations, there are willing cousins marrying each other, as a practice handed down through generations.