My student Patricia Stringel — who hastens to stress that her interest in this is purely academic — passes along an interesting bit of trivia: In 19 states, including California, New York, and most of New England (so no Beverly Hillbillies jokes, please), first cousins are apparently perfectly free to marry.
While parent-child, sibling-sibling, and uncle/aunt-niece/nephew marriage and sex seem to be pretty broadly condemned in the U.S., there’s much more disagreement on cousin-cousin relationships. Actually, it makes a good deal of sense, but it surprised me: I somehow assumed that cousin-cousin relationships were more broadly banned. (Note: The data is from a site dedicated to legitimizing cousin love, and I haven’t checked it myself. I have no reason, however, to doubt its accuracy, since the site purports to provide helpful information for cousins and presumably wouldn’t try to deceive them. The site also includes statutory language, which is another good sign, though it says it’s only current as of 1999.)
Oh, and the most amusing part is the name of the domain — “cuddleinternational.com,” with the “cuddle” standing for “Cousins United to Defeat Discriminating Laws through Education.”
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