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7/1/2025, 8:17:09 PM
>The culture wars are coming for cousin marriage in Britain
>But there is a section of British society where cousin marriages are more common: Muslim communities, particularly Pakistani ones in the north of England. Precise numbers are elusive (no one collects them). But Born in Bradford, a study of about 13,500 families living in the West Yorkshire city between 2007 and 2011, found that 37% of married couples of Pakistani heritage were first cousins, compared with fewer than 1% of white British couples.
>The Born in Bradford study found that—after accounting for other risk factors such as age, obesity and smoking—having a child with a first cousin roughly doubles the chance of a congenital health problem, to 6% versus 3% in the broader population.
>Dr Wright describes Mr Holden’s bid to outlaw cousin marriage as misguided. “Every time this topic and our research is in the media we receive vile racist and Islamophobic emails and messages, so no one should be under any illusion of how this taps into a deep and dark well of racism,” he says. The Muslim Council of Britain similarly dismisses attempts to legislate away a cultural practice. “It isn’t an issue that comes up in our discourse, nor do we feel it an important topic to expend time and energy into,” says Mustafa Al-Dabbagh, its assistant secretary-general.
>A ban would be popular, however. Polling published in May found that 77% of Britons want first-cousin marriage outlawed, rising to 82% among supporters of Reform UK, a nationalist party.
>Cousin marriage is joining burqa-wearing and grooming gangs as a thorny issue—with the extra dimension that marriage can be a route for chain migration.
Grooming gangs have become a thorny issue.
https://archive.is/B96Of
>But there is a section of British society where cousin marriages are more common: Muslim communities, particularly Pakistani ones in the north of England. Precise numbers are elusive (no one collects them). But Born in Bradford, a study of about 13,500 families living in the West Yorkshire city between 2007 and 2011, found that 37% of married couples of Pakistani heritage were first cousins, compared with fewer than 1% of white British couples.
>The Born in Bradford study found that—after accounting for other risk factors such as age, obesity and smoking—having a child with a first cousin roughly doubles the chance of a congenital health problem, to 6% versus 3% in the broader population.
>Dr Wright describes Mr Holden’s bid to outlaw cousin marriage as misguided. “Every time this topic and our research is in the media we receive vile racist and Islamophobic emails and messages, so no one should be under any illusion of how this taps into a deep and dark well of racism,” he says. The Muslim Council of Britain similarly dismisses attempts to legislate away a cultural practice. “It isn’t an issue that comes up in our discourse, nor do we feel it an important topic to expend time and energy into,” says Mustafa Al-Dabbagh, its assistant secretary-general.
>A ban would be popular, however. Polling published in May found that 77% of Britons want first-cousin marriage outlawed, rising to 82% among supporters of Reform UK, a nationalist party.
>Cousin marriage is joining burqa-wearing and grooming gangs as a thorny issue—with the extra dimension that marriage can be a route for chain migration.
Grooming gangs have become a thorny issue.
https://archive.is/B96Of
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