Iqbal Mohamed, one of the Independent Alliance of five MPs, went viral after his earnest defence of first cousin marriages as Parliament debated a proposal to ban them. Among other things, Mohamed said, these unions “help build up family bonds”. Implicit is the multiculturalist plea for the “equality of cultures”. Since consanguineous marriage is a tradition among particular communities originating from the Middle East and South Asia, it would therefore be harmful, even racist, the subtext goes, to disparage or restrict its free practice.
The arguments for banning them seem more to do with sending a moral message about an ingrained taboo: that society finds the practice revolting and has no place for them. That's fine. Not all cultural practices are equal. Cousin unions are very much intertwined with backward patriarchal practices. They bolster clannism and oppressive communalism and are prone to producing children with recessive diseases, who are handicapped for their whole lives through no fault of their own. Society has an interest in seeing these kinds of marriages reduced as much as possible.
