This Inquirers' Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.
3224.—Marriage of Cousins
Can you prove from the Bible or by scientific reasons that first cousins should not marry, or the same of second cousins, and also of third cousins? What do you consider a second cousin, and what is a third cousin? H. B.
The definition which the Standard Dictionary gives of cousin is as follows: "One collaterally related by descent from a common ancestor, but not a brother or sister. The children of brothers and sisters are first cousins; the children of first cousins are second cousins, etc." "A first cousin once removed is sometimes called a second cousin; a second cousin a third cousin, and so on." Different ones have different ways of expressing it. The laws in this country are not just the same, we believe, as those in England respecting that.
There is nothing in Scripture regarding this. The marriage of first cousins it has not prohibited, so far as we understand. The general reason against such marriages is that too close relationships tend to degeneracy. There have been marriages of that kind that have issued well; no evidences of degeneration have been seen in the offspring at all. But on the other hand there have been cases where the weaknesses or prominent characteristics of individuals have been emphasized greatly, sometimes in physical deformity, sometimes in eccentricities of mind, sometimes in insanity, and sometimes in idiocy. This is also manifest in the interbreeding of cattle and horses. The very best stock-raisers feel that it is necessary to out-breed in order to keep the stock up to their strongest and best condition. There is one community in Northern New York in which there has been interbreeding for generations, and it is probably one of the lowest and most degraded communities to be found in civilized lands. Almost every one of the offspring is either a malicious criminal, a degenerate, an imbecile, or an idiot, or diseased, or abnormal in some way. It is well, it seems to us, that from these object-lessons thinking men and women should learn something. The best scientific reason is the observation of repeated facts, in the application of those facts to conditions; and men have found through observation of years that it is as a general thing not well for those closely related to intermarry.
