Would it be legal for two brothers or two sisters to marry each other, since obviously no children would result? Two same sex cousins? Mother and daughter?
I understand this will probably vary from one region to another.
Would it be legal for two brothers or two sisters to marry each other, since obviously no children would result? Two same sex cousins? Mother and daughter?
I understand this will probably vary from one region to another.
In Belgium, anyone of age can enter a contract of statutory cohabitation (including siblings). Similar to a marriage contract but without protections in case of death. That's a serious hole in an otherwise good alternative to marriage.
In the UK, it's currently illegal. But various authorities are pressing for it to be introduced because of the lack of security if one partner dies. The biggest issue is Inheritance Tax. If two elderly sisters, for example, own a property and one dies, because they're not protected from Inheritance Tax, it's common for the survivor to be evicted to pay the tax. If they were married in some sense, there would be no inheritance tax to pay.
Naturally the government doesn't fancy that - Inheritance Tax is a nice little earner for them.
AJ
Siblings can marry in Luxembourg also.
That is because under Napoleon, both of those countries and France had their incest laws thrown out. However, in recent Decades France did outlaw marriage once again, and reinstated the incest laws if one of the individuals is an adult and the other a minor.
Would it be legal for two brothers or two sisters to marry each other, since obviously no children would result? Two same sex cousins? Mother and daughter?
So far in the US, no. Rhode Island allows consensual incest if both partners are above 16 years old, but still prohibits marriage. But welcome to 50 different laws, as this is all set at the state level and not the federal.
When I lived in Alabama, one of the locals told me that it was legal to marry your first cousin there at 16.
But if she was only 15, you had to go to Mississippi to get married.
And while a great many nations have legalized (or at least de-criminalized) incest, only 2 that I know of allow marriage.
Wasn't the fear of birth defects in incest only applied to multi-generational cases of incest and not the one and done?
Wasn't the fear of birth defects in incest only applied to multi-generational cases of incest and not the one and done?
Incest/inbreeding does not cause genetic mutations. Nor does it, technically, in itself cause birth defects.
What it does do is amplify recessive traits (good or bad).
If a given bloodline was already known to carry a recessive gene that causes birth defects, incest in that particular bloodline, even a single generation would be a bad idea.
It is my understanding, that if the bloodline in question contains no known recessive genetic defects, the risk of birth defects in a first generation pairing is only very slightly (statistically negligible) higher than the risk for a random general population pairing with zero consanguinity.