Well, we can expect the marriage rate in Tennessee to drop.

By chance it might affect someone here…
A new law prevents 1st cousins from marrying.

Tennessee already prevented siblings from marrying.

Funny thing is, you can marry your 1st cousin here in California. That may explain part of the problem.

I'm from Alabama, originally, and the only 1st-cousins, that I know, that got married were from New York City

Oh shit. Now I’m going to have to divorce my wife.

quote:

Originally posted by Tejas421:
Oh shit. Now I’m going to have to divorce my wife.

Look at the bright side. She'll still be family.

The age old joke: I'm in a bar and a guy comes up to me and says "I'd like you to meet my wife and sister." And there's only one woman with him.....

Looks like Tennessee is working on keeping the family tree from looping back on itself. I’ve got family down there, and while none of them are in that situation, it’s interesting to see how these laws change over time. Probably not going to affect too many people, but it’s always a bit surprising when things like this come up.

I kinda doubt the law is aimed at the hillbilly portion of the population.

We had a situation at work a few years back where a 21 year-old hilbilly was working at getting his 16 year-old cousin pregnant in a tent behind the trailer park. We were all disgusted and certain that this was horribly illegal until we looked it up. 16 is the age of consent, and 1st cousins are not covered under the incest statute in Indiana . The only thing we could do was get her for "runaway", which is just a juvenile status offense...so we take her home, probation does nothing, she runs off again and goes back to the tent. Thanks for nothing probation, and the state legislature.

I still remember the county sergeant asking him "don't you know what happens when you make a copy of a copy?" The dude told us that he'd talked to a doctor and there was only a 7% chance their kid would have genetic defects. I'm sure that's only true if the parents aren't defective to start with .

This is the same trailer park where a guy told me a couple of months ago that his dad is also his grandpa...

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
…only a 7% chance their kid would have genetic defects. I'm sure that's only true if the parents aren't defective to start with .

This is the same trailer park where a guy told me a couple of months ago that his dad is also his grandpa...

The ole self pollinating family tree…

Two words. “The Whittakers”.

I always heard the Question "Hey mama, if you and Daddy get divorced, will you still be my sister?"
was not uncommon in some states...

Tennessee?

I heard the population of Tennessee never changes.

As soon as some woman gets pregnant, some man leaves the State of Tennessee.
.

I checked Wikipedia .
Only 26 states outright ban 1st cousins marrying, and 7 have stipulations (e.g. 1 party infertile)
only 9 outright ban sexual relations between 1st cousins, and 1 conditionally bans

I'm going to go take a shower with steel wool now

History nerd stuff: Up until the late 1800s, a very sizeable percentage of marriages in the Western world were between fairly close cousins.

First cousins would've been more unusual than second or third. Most family trees-- had anyone cared much-- would have told you that in rural areas, your dating-and-marriage pool pretty much shared at least one great-great-grandparent with you.

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
Most family trees-- had anyone cared much-- would have told you that in rural areas, your dating-and-marriage pool pretty much shared at least one great-great-grandparent with you.

Still common in some areas.

Iceland, for example. Due to being an insular society on an island with a small and very homogenous population.

There's even an app that Icelanders who plan on hooking up can use to check if they're too closely related.

So is it actually enforced anywhere and how?
Require a DNA test for all marriage license?

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
History nerd stuff: Up until the late 1800s, a very sizeable percentage of marriages in the Western world were between fairly close cousins.

First cousins would've been more unusual than second or third. Most family trees-- had anyone cared much-- would have told you that in rural areas, your dating-and-marriage pool pretty much shared at least one great-great-grandparent with you.

That makes sense. You can meet and connect with people from all over the globe today. A few hundred years ago that wasn't true, and it wouldn't surprise me if there where a whole lot of communities where everyone was related, and you simply couldn't meet anyone that wasn't related somehow.