A fierce debate rages in Britain over the practice of marrying cousins, which is quite common in some immigrant communities but remains a taboo for most of the native population. Which party wins could have wide-ranging consequences, not just for the British, but for the entire West.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently blocked a vote to ban cousin marriage in Britain and then the National Health Service released guidelines touting the supposed benefits of the incestuous arrangement despite real medical concerns.
After acknowledging that children who are the products of first-cousin marriages are indeed significantly more likely to have genetic defects, the official guidance for midwives said these concerns “must also be weighed against the potential benefits.”
These benefits include both ‘collective social capital’ and ‘financial and social security at individual, family and broader kinship levels’. Finally, there was a government note claiming that critics have placed an ‘unwarranted, narrow emphasis on marriages between close relatives’.
A SOLUTION TO THE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY PROBLEM: MARRIAGE
Let’s put aside the absurdity of balancing legitimate and serious medical concerns against social justice, something we remember when we were told the only acceptable large gatherings during COVID were protests because racism was supposedly also a health risk. There’s something deeper going on here.
Split image of Kier Starmer and a police officer. (Andy Buchanan, pool photo via AP; Reuters)
They may not know it, but these leaders in Britain are pulling a thread that threatens to unravel the fabric of Western culture, which in many ways is built on the very ban they are trying to undo.
Research conducted by Joseph Henrich, Chairman of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, and a team of collaborators, published in the journal “Science” in 2019, convincingly argued that the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on cousin marriages in the Middle Ages was essential to the development of the individualism characteristic of the West.
DAVID MARCUS: SOMALIA POWER WASHING RAISES THE QUESTION MINNESOTA AVOIDS – WHERE IS ASSIMILATION?
The Harvard Gazette summarized Henrich’s hypothesis: “Kind-based institutions reward conformity, tradition, nepotism, and obedience to authority, qualities that help protect assets—such as farms—from outsiders. But once familial barriers crumble, the team predicted that individualistic traits such as independence, creativity, cooperation and honesty with strangers would increase.”
Indeed, when the team looked at 24 personality traits linked to individualism, they found much higher rates in societies that disdain cousin marriage.
They also found, somewhat hilariously, that UN diplomats from countries with cousin marriages were more likely to get New York City parking tickets and less likely to pay them, presumably because they feel little responsibility to people outside their tribe.
The evil of collectivism is only just warming up. ‘ROBUST INDIVIDUALISM’ BE BETTER READY
The ban on intra-family marriage in the West for over a thousand years forced the spread of wealth, whether genetic, monetary, land, titles, or education; clans and tribes were much less able to operate as mini-societies.
Police officers confront demonstrators during an anti-immigration protest in Rotherham, England, August 4, 2024. (Danny Lawson/PA via AP)
One of the underreported stories of the Minneapolis mayoral election was that Jacob Frey won in part by exploiting internal clan or tribal differences within the Somali community, something completely foreign to anyone in the West.
The fear here is not that those of the Western tradition will adopt the practice in Britain or the US, where several states allow cross-cousin marriages. Apart from the side plots in ‘Arrested Development’ or ‘Godfather III’ it’s not for us. But if it is allowed, it hinders assimilation.
HERITAGE FOUNDATION WARNS AMERICA ‘DANGERALLY CLOSE’ TO FAMILY RAID POINT OF NO RETURN
One of the researchers in the study said, “We’re not saying that less intensive, kin-based settings are better. On the contrary. There are tradeoffs.”
Better is of course a subjective concept and not the proper subject of science, but from the point of view of the Western tradition, and specifically that of the English-speaking world, it is difficult to argue that the individualism that our tradition brought about was anything other than a wild success.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS ADVICE
Whether in Britain or here, those who want to live in the West must adhere to certain norms that make the West what it is, just as you or I would if we moved to China or Dubai. It is not intolerance or chauvinism to protect one’s own culture.
For reasons we do not fully understand or have full access to, the great doctors of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages decided that marrying within one’s own family was contrary to the message of Christ. They had no way of knowing how much this would change the future.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Marriage in the West from then on would be much more focused on uniting disparate clans and families than on ensuring that they remain isolated and ‘pure’. It is essential to the social DNA of the West.
America should be ready for this problem to arise. Often these social issues start in England or Canada before migrating here, and no compromises should be made on this point. It is clear that cousins are not allowed to marry, and of course that should never change.
CLICK HERE TO DAVID MARCUS
