Was consanginuity in the 4th degree (1st cousins, not removed) really that common?Hi, everyone. I have a random historical question. If consanguinity is a reason for annulment, why is that annulments among royalty (who often married their first cousins) were so rare? Did princes and kings routinely ask for the Pope for a dispensation, hence making a later annulment impossible on the grounds of consanguinity, or was it just both annulments and divorce in the Western world were generally uncommon prior to the 20th century.
I know that a few members of royalty even married their nieces with papal dispensations, but that practice was eventually prohibited by Leo XIII (though only after he had allowed Amadeo I of Spain to marry his niece in 1888). Double cousins also sometimes married, ocassionally resulting in deformities of their children due to hereditary traits or diseases (e.g. Charles II of Spain, who lived in the late 17th century, had an extreme “Habsburg jaw” as the result of inbreeding and could barely talk or eat.)Was consanginuity in the 4th degree (1st cousins, not removed) really that common?
Divorce and annulments may have been rare in the European ruling classes partly because of the political repercussions. The couples were not just married to each other, but also joined politically important families by their unions.
Curiously, it was illegal in England from the publication of the Book of Common Prayer until 1907 to marry your sister-in-law if your wife died. Maybe this had something to do with Henry VIII having married Catherine of Aragon, who had been his brother’s widow, decades before.The marriages in the British monarchy between first cousins not removed (4th degree), look to me as if they all occurred after Henry VIII’s time. Those had nothing to do with the Pope, obviously.
“For converted infidels it is recognized that the Church does not insist upon annulment of marriages beyond this first degree of consanguinity.”Hi, everyone. I have a random historical question. If consanguinity is a reason for annulment, why is that annulments among royalty (who often married their first cousins) were so rare? Did princes and kings routinely ask for the Pope for a dispensation, hence making a later annulment impossible on the grounds of consanguinity, or was it just both annulments and divorce in the Western world were generally uncommon prior to the 20th century.