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I, like most of you, would never marry my cousin. I mean, nothing against the guy. He’s pretty cool. I just…you know…find the whole concept to be pretty squicky in general. But wedding your cousin was rather common not too long ago. In fact, there are a whole slew of famous people – intellectuals, even – who married second, third and even first cousins, and lived happily ever after. Or didn’t, in some cases.
1. Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach had 20 children, seven of them with his first wife and second cousin on his father’s side, Maria Barbara Bach. They married in 1707; she died in 1720. Five of Bach’s sons, including two with Maria Barbara, had thriving musical careers of their own. Not much is known about their marriage, but he remarried less than two years after her death.
2. Edgar Allan Poe
It’s no wonder so much of Edgar Allan Poe’s work is macabre: by the time he was two years old, his father had abandoned the family and his mother died of consumption. When he was 20, in 1829, he moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt, brother and cousin Virginia. Despite the fact that Virginia was only seven, he fell in love with her. They were married in 1835 when she had reached the ripe old age of 13 (although the marriage certificate lists her as 21). There were about seven years of relatively good times for their family – Edgar was gaining fame for his writing and wrote some of his best-known pieces during this time period. In 1842, the couple was at a dinner party when Virginia started coughing up blood – it was consumption, the same illness that killed Edgar’s mother. She spent the next five years slowly dying, which contributed to Edgar’s insanity and alcoholism. She succumbed to the disease in 1847 and he mysteriously followed in 1849. The cause of his death is still unknown and much debated.
3. Jerry Lee Lewis
While marrying your 13-year-old cousin may have been somewhat standard in the 1800s, it was certainly not acceptable in 1957, when rock ‘n’ roller Jerry Lee Lewis married his cousin Myra, 13. It understandably caused an uproar and radio stations refused to play his music. It almost ended his career, but he later found a niche in country music. Myra and Jerry Lee had two children, one of which (Steve Allen Lewis) died at the age of three. The other, Phoebe, helps manage Jerry Lee’s career today. He and Myra were divorced in 1970.
Continue reading…
Shouldnt Jerry Lee Lewis have gone o jail for statutory rape?
posted by GTT on 12-10-2007 at 11:14 am
No, Jerry Lee Lewis should not have been arrested for statuatory rape.
It was a common for people to marry very young in rural areas in America at that time. It was also very common for cousins to marry.
Jerry Lee and Myra were married for 14 years and had two children. One of the best comments I ever saw on this situation was from Jerry and Myra’s daughter Phoebe when she was asked about their relationship and what she thought of the whole situation. She basically said that her parents were in love…that they LOVED each other and that she was a product of that love and she was proud of that fact.
posted by laf on 12-10-2007 at 1:20 pm
@ GTT
A lot of states will allow you to marry surprisingly young, as long as you have parental consent. And it’s actually legal for first cousins to marry in 18 states, including California and New York.
posted by gibson8tor on 12-10-2007 at 2:31 pm
Oh, wait, 19 states, I forgot Hawaii.
posted by gibson8tor on 12-10-2007 at 2:32 pm
Interesting that your rank Rudy more prominent that Thomas Jefferson. Agenda?
posted by Jeff on 12-11-2007 at 8:06 am
People today still marry there cousins. Case in point: Rudy Giuliani was once married to his 2nd cousin.
posted by Mel on 12-11-2007 at 8:15 am
Re: comment #5 — I can’t stand when people try to see a political agenda in EVERYTHING. Where does she say the list is in order of prominence?
posted by Tracy on 12-11-2007 at 8:34 am
Some other royals (British, my specialty) right off the top of my head:
William III and Mary II were first cousins.
Edward, the Black Prince (son of Edward III and father of Richard II) and Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent were first cousins, once removed.
Edward I (Hammer of the Scots) and Eleanor of Castile were second cousins, once removed.
Note the annulment of Guliani’s marriage was no doubt justified due to consanguinity, that is “too close to home,” as you say. It was the commonly used tactic for annulling royal marriages in medieval Europe. There were specialists employed by the courts (royal, not judicial) whose purpose it was to scour the genealogies of the principals seeking out potentially consanguine unions. It wasn’t easy. The intermarriages commonly engaged made for many long fingers of relations.
LRod
posted by LRod on 12-11-2007 at 9:57 am
Of course there is an agenda here. I bet the only reason this list idea was conceived was to bring light to the fact that Rudy had been once married to a second cousin.
posted by Michelle on 12-11-2007 at 10:15 am
Ha! I just had a consanguinity lecture last night… what a weird coincidence. If you’re looking for more squicky info check out www.cousincouples.com and play their ‘Who Wants to be a Kissing Cousin?’ game, a Millionaire-type romp through the annals of inbred populations.
Oh and genetically speaking, breeding with your cousin isn’t that big of a deal unless you’ve got something running in your family. The very fact that I can say that and back it up with facts
makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
posted by Lisa on 12-11-2007 at 10:26 am
Its just wrong Nothing may be bad in your family but thats family how are you extending your family if your staying within it? its just plain scarey and wrong.
posted by Chris on 12-11-2007 at 1:47 pm
well, I’ll confess to having the world’s biggest crush on my totally cute 1st cousin- I managed to get over it sometime in my early teens, though.
posted by ann on 12-11-2007 at 4:26 pm
We recently discovered a shocking fact about our family that my great great grandfather married his first cousin one step removed. They had 12 children.
posted by Ed Wrather on 12-11-2007 at 5:23 pm
Ha I went to kingsborough college. That story explains a lot.
posted by mike on 12-11-2007 at 6:24 pm
You forgot Mozart.
lol and I love Darwin, but it is very ironic he married his cousin.
posted by Amelia on 12-11-2007 at 6:45 pm
Marrying cousins is common in many parts of the world, one of the main advantages being that divorce rates are lower, since family intervention and cooperation is more likely, as well as the fact that the money on both sides stays in the family no matter what happens, whereas if you marry out of the family, if a divorce ensues, the ex-wife tends to take a considerable amount OUT of the family and/or vice vesa via the financial court settlement and alimony.
The original idea of making cousin marriages “immoral” was the idea of the state breaking up clans, so as to have better control of the population.
In Iraq, for example, where around 76% of marriages are to first or second cousins, the power of the clan tends to undermine the authority of the state. Clans tend to reject government intervention in the form of courts. They usually take care of their “problems” themselves, and consider police, and judges to be interference with the clan.
In America, the Hatfield and McCoys are a good example of the type of inbred family unit that the state does NOT want.
Breaking up clans, by making cousin marriages immoral was a great way for our society to seek out societal laws, rather than defer to clan law, which made administrating justice much easier.
So to those of you who “throw up in your mouths a little” when thinking of marrying a cousin, you should be throwing up in your mouth a little at the idea that your morals are not your own. Your brain has been stamped by the state.
There is little more chance of birth defects amongst cousins than complete strangers, btw.
To the guy who had a crush on his cousin, and got over it… you should have fucked her.
posted by Allen on 12-11-2007 at 6:59 pm
My grandparents are related (very distantly, and by marriage, but still). I discovered this rather unsettling fact one day when I was looking at an old family photo. I assumed that the photo was of my grandfather’s side of the family, since he was sitting in the first row, but no, my grandmother informed me that it was, in fact, her side of the family. At least they’re not related by blood. That would be weird.
posted by greenstrawberries on 12-11-2007 at 10:14 pm
Did you know that in good ol’ Egypt, when King Tut died, his wife then had to marry his vizer, who was the poor girl’s granddad?
posted by batmanftw on 12-12-2007 at 1:15 am
Aren’t all married couple related by marriage??
posted by meathole on 12-12-2007 at 4:35 am
How about Queen Victoria, that upholder of morals who married her cousin and spread hemophilia around to the royal houses throughout Europe, and in particular contributing to the downfall of the Romanovs in Russia?
posted by Nancy Toby on 12-12-2007 at 11:57 am
You forgot Prince Charles and Princess Diana. They were either 7th cousins once removed or 11th cousins once removed, depending on your research.
posted by Peggy on 12-12-2007 at 1:57 pm
Well, I would never think of marrying one of my cousins, and having kids with a cousin would be totally out of the question. They’re all guys…
posted by Tdave on 12-13-2007 at 4:16 am
Poe’s cousin was adopted.
posted by Brian on 12-14-2007 at 1:50 pm
if you look deep enough into anyones history you’ll find there related somehow by blood to their partner because in the end we are all descendents of the same one or two people (depending on thought of creation).
posted by tlad on 12-15-2007 at 4:35 pm
I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion. What an interesting topic. I am close enough to my first and second cousins to consider them as brothers, but I can see it is my culture to view them in the “brother” light as opposed to eligible bachelors, etc. I would argue with the genetics point, however, especially with regard to first cousins. Given the skipping of generations and possible carriers, the probability of passage of genetic diseases is higher than with genetic disassociates. :)
posted by Paula on 1-31-2008 at 12:43 am
What about George H.W. and Barbara Bush? Aren’t they 1st cousins? That would help to explain George Jr.
posted by Rocky on 2-19-2008 at 4:18 am
Personally, I’ve only met 2 sets of married couples who were first cousins. Both couples had mentally challenged offspring.
posted by Skadiddle on 6-30-2008 at 10:47 am