Yaniv Erlich has a soft spot for genealogy. A data scientist at Columbia University and the chief science of officer of the DNA test company MyHeritage, he describes many things in the context of family. The paper, published Thursday in the journal Science, looks at genetic data from millions of online genealogy profiles.
Unpopular Opinion: Dating Your Distant Cousin Is Fine
Among other things, the researchers were able to determine at what point in history marrying your cousin went out of vogue, and the average degree of relation between married couples today. And scientific geniuses like Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin married their cousins, too. But within a century, that had changed. By , married couples were, on average, more like seventh cousins, according to Erlich.
One common sense explanation for this shift is that when transportation methods improved, bachelors and bachelorettes had access to potential partners they had once been denied by geography.
This makes sense, given that before , most people stayed in place and ended up marrying someone who lived with in a six-mile radius of where they were born. Other factors could be at play, however. Erlich says that, according to his data, many continued to marry their cousins even after the Industrial Revolution dramatically improved mobility. While proximity may be one key to romance, it seems consolidating money or power played an important part in family marriages, too.
Erlich believes it was changing social norms—and the advent of this cousin marriage taboo—that finally pushed people to look beyond their village and their family. Other factors, including the increasing autonomy of women and shrinking family sizes which left fewer cousins to marry could also have been involved.
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Whatever the underlying cause, by the end of the Civil War , many states moved to outlaw cousin marriages. Today, 24 states ban marriage between first cousins, while 20 states allow it. The others allow first cousins to couple up, but only under certain circumstances. And, of course, even in states where it is legal, the practice is taboo.
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Dark blue marks states, like California, where first-cousin marriage is legal. Light blue, like Maine, represents states where cousin marriage is legal with some requirements or exceptions. Light red, like Illinois, is banned with exceptions. Dark red, like Washington state, is a total ban on first-cousin marriage.
According to this article , you might have more genetic material in common with people whom you form relationships than those you are born into:. But genetics are only half of the problem. Humans have evolved to be unattracted to people with whom we are closely reared. Growing up with someone as a relative, especially in close proximity, shuts off the boner part of your brain for them.
Which is also why these plots are unrealistic.
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I could not identify a single second-cousin of mine. But part of it is the realities of modern day families.
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I would never, ever call you boring. Now contrary to what you might be thinking, this is not a post where I encourage everyone to join my Kissing Cousins Are OK protest group. But I do want TV writers to stop with the easy cop out.
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But instead of creating a real problem or actual conflict, they just happened to talk about a random relative living in Boston to break them up. The writers did that even though there were plenty of good reasons to break them up. Emily Chambers is a Staff Contributor for Pajiba.