Consanguineous Marriages

In Arabic societies, there still exist wedding traditions forbidden in other civilized countries such as polygamy and consanguineous marriages. For example, a cousin brother has an absolute right to his cousin sister and she cannot marry another man unless he gives up the right. In such Arabic societies in which men and women grew segregated before their marriages, cousins are the only other sex that they can date. Cousin marriages reinforce the solidarity of kinship and relieve the burden on dower. Men who married his cousin sister he didn`t like because of the pressure from the family can have second wife thanks to the polygamy.

Some are proud of their family who had a great ancestor in history. However, the DNA structures of the ancestors and descendants are completely different. Since brides come from different families each generation, genes are mixed each time and the numbers of the shared genes between the ancestors and offspring are tiny. Ancient countries encouraged intermarriage between cousins in order to keep the sacred royal blood from mixing with that of other ordinary people. Marriages between cousins with similar DNA, however, increase risk in the offspring of fatal hereditary disease incubated in parents. As such genetic defects are recognized, consanguineous marriage traditions have disappeared in the rest of the world but Arab.

Even plants avoid being pollinated within the same entity. Pine trees have male flowers under female flowers to prevent the pollen in the same tree from touching the female flowers. Corns bloom in different times to prevent cross-fertilization. The extent of forbidden consanguineous marriages differs from civilizations. Korea is the very country that extensively forbade such marriages until some time ago. It was only six years ago that the country changed its position to ban the marriages only within third cousins (8 Chon) in line with the ruling that the Constitutional Court declared the ban on the marriages between the same family lineage is unconstitutional. In the ages of Shilla and Corea, however, consanguineous marriages were so prevalent that Corea`s fourth king married his younger sister whose mother was different from his.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein`s younger brother pledged loyalty by making his own daughter marry Hussein`s first son. It seems unfair for us to talk about the marriage tradition of the Arab world from our perspective that even banned marriages within the same family lineage. Now it is said that Hussein`s brother is busy trying to deny his loyalty to Hussein. Consanguineous marriages seemingly have not only genetic defects but also political risks.

hthwang@donga.com