Consanguinity and cousin marriage

[Phemie]

First we must recognize there is two books of Canon law.
One belongs to the Latin rite and the other to the eastern rite (byzantine, maronites, chaldean, syriac, syrio-Malabar, Ukrainian, ruthuanian among others.)

In the Latin rite
From the book My Catholic Faith by Most reverend Louis LaRavoire Morrow, S.T.D. Bishop of Krishnagar (…)

I am not going to list all the impediments I am going to mention only in relationship to this topic according to the Latin rite (…)

1. Spiritual affinity. Without dispensation, sponsors in Baptism cannot marry their godchildren.
   A lay person cannot marry the person to whom he administered lay baptism.

That one is no longer in the Code of Canon Law of the Latin Rite.

 

[Vouthon]

Projected shared DNA amongst close relatives:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Vouthon]

From Avner Greif (“Family structure, institutions, and growth – the origin and implications of Western corporatism”):

“The conquest of the Western Roman Empire by Germanic tribes during the medieval period probably strengthen the importance of kinship groups in Europe. Yet, **the actions of the Church caused the nuclear family — constituting of husband and wife, children, and sometimes a handful of close relatives — to dominate Europe by the late medieval period.

“The medieval church instituted marriage laws and practices that undermined large kinship groups**. From as early as the fourth century, it discouraged practices that enlarged the family, such as adoption, polygamy, concubinage, divorce, and remarriage. It severely prohibited marriages among individuals of the same blood (consanguineous marriages), which had constituted a means to create and maintain kinship groups throughout history. The church also curtailed parents’ abilities to retain kinship ties through arranged marriages by prohibiting unions in which the bride didn’t explicitly agree to the union.

“European family structures did not evolve monotonically toward the nuclear family nor was their evolution geographically and socially uniform. However, by the late medieval period the nuclear family was dominate. Even among the Germanic tribes, by the eighth century the term family denoted one’s immediate family, and shortly afterwards tribes were no longer institutionally relevant. Thirteenth-century English court rolls reflect that even cousins were as likely to be in the presence of non-kin as with each other.

“The practices the church advocated, such as monogamy, are still the norm in Europe. Consanguineous marriages in contemporary Europe account for less than one percent of the total number of marriages. In contrast, the percentage of such marriages in Muslim, Middle Eastern countries, where we also have particularly good data, is much higher – between twenty to fifty percent. Among the anthropologically defined 356 contemporary societies of Euro-Asia and Africa, there is a large and significant negative correlation between Christianization (for at least 500 years) and the absence of clans and lineages; the level of commercialization, class stratification, and state formation are insignificant.”

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Hi Vouthon,

Having shared DNA in and of itself isn’t a problem. Having shared mutated dna might be.

I used to work for a foundation for a genetic disease.

Many of us have a number of faulty genes that cause no specific problems on their own.

An example would be being a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis. Someone could live their entire life not knowing they carry that gene. It becomes problematic when two people both carry the gene for cystic fibrosis, and have a child. Then each pregnancy has a 25 percent chance of producing a child with cystic fibrosis, a 50 percent chance of having a child who is a carrier, and a 25 percent chance of having a baby without the faulty gene.

Close relatives might share similar faulty genes.

nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/few-risks-seen-to-the-children-of-1st-cousins.html

 

[1ke]

Why did the Church modify canon law in 1983 to permit marriages between second cousins, whereas before 1917 and since 1215 it had prohibited even third cousins from marrying? Prior to 1215, the use of a far more stringent counting method had raised the prohibited degrees of affinity higher still.

The Commentary on the Code of Canon Law for the 1983 code does not give any explanation.

It notes the history of the various methods of computation, the various degrees and how they have expanded and contracted through the centuries, and what the current law includes.

Again, the commentary gives no reason for the shift that removed the impediment of second cousins. Perhaps JPII did not give one.

You can argue all day about the merits or lack thereof. But, it is within the authority of the Church to change the law. So, you will have to be content with the fact of what is, not what you think should be.

 

[Vouthon]

You can argue all day about the merits or lack thereof. But, it is within the authority of the Church to change the law. So, you will have to be content with the fact of what is, not what you think should be.

Thank you for the information!

I have absolutely no issue with the Church “binding and loosing” in this respect. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enquire as to why a change in ecclesiastical law - in this case a relaxing of strictures - has taken place and the prudence behind the development. The older, far more stringent prohibitions on cousin marriage were important and helpful historically, for a whole host of reasons ranging from the social to the political that I have already alluded to.

If I happen to have a preference in favour of the older law (primarily for genetic reasons of hybrid vigour and inbreeding depression, which I reckon has vindicated the age-old canonical definition of the degrees of consanguinity from 1215), but respect the church’s judgement and authority, as I most certainly do in humble submission, why should that be a problem?

First cousin marriage remains prohibited without dispensation and that’s the most important one anyway, since second, third and fourth cousins are progressively further removed.