Examining the laws of all the
United States, C. B. Davenport[91] found the following classes excluded
from marriage:
1. Sibs (i.e., full brothers and sisters) in all states, and half sibs
in most states.
2. Parent and child in all states, and parent and grandchild in all
states except Pennsylvania.
3. Child and parent's sibs (i.e., niece and uncle, nephew and aunt).
Prohibited in all but four states.
4. First cousins. Marriages of this type are prohibited in over a third
of the states, and tacitly or specifically permitted in the others.
5. Other blood relatives are occasionally prohibited from marrying.
Thus, second cousins in Oklahoma and a child and his or her parent's
half sibs in Alabama, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas, and other states.
In the closest of blood-relationships the well-nigh universal
restrictions should be retained. But when marriage between cousins--the
commonest form of consanguineous marriage--is examined, it is found to
result frequently well, sometimes ill. There is a widespread belief that
such marriages are dangerous, and in support of this idea, one is
referred to the histories of various isolated communities where
consanguineous marriage is alleged to have led to "an appalling amount
of defect and degeneracy.
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