Marriage Between Relatives!! Does It Help or Harm??

Doctors are often confronted with this question: "My son loves his cousin — his uncle's daughter on the father's side, or on the mother's. What does medicine think of their marriage? Does it truly diminish their offspring? Does it weaken the constitution of their children? Will their children be inferior to their fellows in mind and character?"

Medicine holds that if the family is sound, the offspring come out healthy and normal; and by soundness we mean here its freedom from hereditary bodily diseases, and from the known mental and moral deficiencies.

But if the family is afflicted with one of the grave deficiencies, whether in the bodies of its members or in their minds, then the marriage of two of its members leads to offspring in whom these deficiencies grow and enlarge.

Here is a man whose mental powers never reached completeness: if his grandson marries his granddaughter, their child will inevitably be deficient in mental powers, exposed to idiocy, abnormality, and madness.

And here is a lady with a powerful gift for music: if her grandson is joined to her granddaughter, their child will come out gifted, perhaps a genius, in his artistic talents.. The clearest example of this is the family of the great musician Bach, which produced 44 musicians; for the traditions of that family required that its sons marry none but its daughters.

Marriage between relatives, then, reinforces the family's traits and confirms them: if they are weak, it makes them weaker; and if they are strong, it adds strength to their splendor.

But how is one to know the merits of one's family and its deficiencies?

Unluckily, man in matters of marriage sees only the virtues, and rarely takes notice of the vices; it is not the habit of lovers to go deep in criticism and scrutiny, and their eyes — most often — are blind, and see no faults! Were marriage free of emotion, and subject to the judgment of reason, marriage between relatives would run in a sound course, free of faults. And it is observed that few among us know five of our forebears with any precision — that is, understand their ways of thinking and the characteristics of their bodies; and we leave the matter of marriage among us to circumstances, which, though they sometimes match two who blend well together, more often join together the bearers of deficiencies that grow ever larger in their successive progeny.

For fear of falling into these deficiencies, many doctors and scientists hold that intermarriage between different families is safer in its outcome, and better in its produce, than marriage within a single family.

The conclusion is that marriage between relatives is commendable if it takes place in a family free of defects and rich in talents; and it does grievous harm if it occurs in a family afflicted with bodily or mental deficiencies...

In this matter it is for parents to guide their children in marrying their relatives, and to point out to them the virtues or the defects in the family — and so prepare for them a happy marriage.