Here's a helpful chart that can help explain it.
Source: http://www.sanantonio.gov/atty/ethics/ConsanguinityChart.htm
Remember, there's nothing wrong with experimenting with, dating, or even marrying a cousin. Consanguineous relationships and marriages are nothing new. There are some countries and a little over half of US states where the bigotry against marriage equality extends to preventing first cousins from marrying, but there are many places where marrying a first cousin is legal and common. I'm only aware of a few US states where sex between first cousins is technically illegal, so check the laws of your state if you are concerned. It should be searchable on your official state website.
![Non-Monogamy Diagram [I:FV]](http://www.obsidianfields.com/lj/nonmonogamy2.5.1.gif){kind=link}
Thanks for the chart! I think many people need it.
ReplyDeletePersonally i think its sad that we need a chart to tell us whether
Someone can be together or not. Who needs a chart. If you love someone then love them. Period.
agreed. its too important to ignore this.
DeleteImagine the day when you dont need a chart to figure out who you can love
ReplyDeleteIts not fullmarriageequality if you need a chart.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, I got involved in a discussion on one Reddit's sub dedicated to relationships trying to prove that the relationship and marriage of first cousins is not debauchery and crime. We argued for a long time with one rabid redditor, but in the end I asked them this question "Marriages between first cousins are officially allowed among most countries of the world, therefore, they are not "incest" and something contrary to universal morality. Let's say my first cousin and I are married, we pay taxes, we protect the environment, we don't fight with neighbors, we help people, we volunteer at charities. Why should we be cursed and insulted? Why are thieves, drug dealers and murderers who are not in a relationship with relatives treated better than us?" My opponent finally said "You're probably right, but I stand by my beliefs that incest is disgusting."
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what the vast majority of the population of Western countries thinks. And even those who accept same-sex marriage without objection and advocate polygamy.
Mindboggling!
Since my comment is too long, I have divided it into 3 parts.
ReplyDeletePart 1.
How it all started. The legislation of the Roman Empire on "incest" and incestuous marriages.
(Excerpts from "Making the Private Public: Illegitimacy and Incest in Roman Law" by Judith Evans-Grubbs.
https://www.academia.edu/12011828/_Making_the_Private_Public_Illegitimacy_and_Incest_in_Roman_Law_ )
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“Incestuous unions are “unholy” or “sacreligious”: they are nefas, against the divine order of things, and in need of religious expiation (piaculum).) The adjectives nefariae and incestae recur in later legal references to incestuous marriages, whereas such religiously laden language is not used in describing other nonlegal unions.
The Roman definition of incest included unions between parent and child (or grandparent and grandchild), between siblings or half-siblings (even if one was illegitimate; see above); step-parents and step-children, and parents and adopted children.) Marriage between aunt and nephew and between maternal uncle and niece was incestuous under Roman law; marriage to a brother’s daughter had once been also, but in 49 CE the emperor Claudius had the law changed so that he could marry his niece Agrippina. Both Tacitus and Suetonius note that despite Claudius’ encouragement, almost no other Romans responded to the dispensation of the new law, indicating that the emperor had changed the law, but not mores.
These rules applied only to Roman citizens, both in Italy and in the provinces. Indeed, for the Romans their stricter definition of what qualified as incest was something that distinguished them from other peoples, a mark of separation from “the other.”
In the first two centuries of the Empire, those who were not Roman citizens could continue to follow their local marriage practices, which might run counter to Roman ideas of incest. For instance, marriage between siblings or half-siblings was not uncommon in some areas of the eastern Mediterranean under Roman domination. In Roman Egypt, considerable evidence for brother-sister marriage, including between full siblings, can be found in census returns, private correspondence, and even a record of a divorce agreement between two formerly married siblings.
Marriage between half-siblings was legal in the Greek world, and further east in Persia. It is worth noting that the Roman government felt no need to force non-citizens to accept their religious and social taboo on incest – it was only the marriage of Roman citizens with close kin that was a problem. The private lives of non-citizen provincials was not a concern.
Incestuous unions between Roman citizens had none of the legal effects of iustum matrimonium, and the partners were liable under the adultery law of Augustus. Exceptions were made if the participants did not know that what they were doing was wrong and thought they were legally married. Three such cases came to the attention of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus and were recorded by the Severan jurist Papinian. These rulings do not mention any children of the union, and in fact there are few references to the children of incest (as opposed to the alleged incestuous partners) in classical sources outside of mythology. When the partners knew what they were doing was wrong, they would make efforts to prevent having a child. Domitian is said to have forced his niece, with whom he was having an incestuous affair, to have an abortion. If a child was born, the parents would probably do away with it by exposure or infanticide.
Part 2
ReplyDelete…….
The Constitutio Antoniniana (Edict of Caracalla) of 212, granting Roman citizenship to virtually all free inhabitants of the Empire, meant that these restrictions applied throughout the provinces, including Egypt and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean where endogamous marriages were customary. Continued mention of sibling marriage in official declarations in Egypt in the two decades after the Edict suggests that there was a sort of amnesty for those who had married before 212. After that, papyrus documentation of close-kin marriages in Egypt dies out, evidently in response to the requirements of Roman law.
Lack of documentation, however, does not mean such unions no longer took place, simply that the participants no longer mentioned their existence in contexts that might draw official attention. Indeed, imperial laws from the late third century and into the Byzantine period show that unions considered incestuous under Roman law did not entirely disappear in the eastern Empire.
A rescript (epistula) of Diocletian and Maximian to an official, Flavius Flavianus, said that those who mistakenly contracted incestuous marriages would receive imperial clementia and not be punished if they broke up their “wicked” or “sacrilegious” marriage (nefarias nuptias). This is in line with the attitude of earlier law toward incestuous marriages undertaken through ignorance; the characterization of such unions as “wicked” recalls Gaius’ description. But it also may signal a more active repugnance toward incest than that found in classical law. Virtually all free people were now Roman citizens, and therefore their marriage practices were of concern: “nefariae nuptiae” would alienate the gods and cause them to remove their support.
Moreover, another rescript of Diocletian and Maximian specifically punished the children of incestuous marriages. Addressed to an imperial official, Honoratus, the rescript prohibited children “who were born from incestuous marriage” (incestum matrimonium) from becoming judges, advocates, or procurators (legal representatives) or from having any “profession” except, if necessary, that of decurion.
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A few years later imperial repugnance toward incestuous marriages found expression in a long and sternly-worded edict against all illegal close-kin unions. The edict, enacted in 295 at Damascus in the names of Diocletian and Maximian along with their Caesars Galerius and Constantius, condemned those acts “which have been done in a wicked and incestuous [or “unchaste”] way by certain people in the past” (quae a quibusdam in praeteritum nefarie incesteque commissa sunt). Forbidden marriages are compared to the matings of “cattle or wild beasts” and must be repressed in order to win the favor of the gods who will see that “all people living under our rule lead a wholly pious and religious and peaceful and chaste life in all respects.” Indulgence is granted to those who entered incestuous marriages in the past out of ignorance or inexperience (i. e. youth), but they are told that “the children they have borne from so wicked a union are not legitimate” and that they are barred from succession to the children “to whom they illicitly gave birth”.
Part 3
ReplyDeleteIt is only after this long rhetorical diatribe that the law gets around to defining which unions are its target: marriage with direct ascendants and descendants (mothers, grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters, etc.), full and half-siblings, stepdaughters and stepmothers, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, and the daughter or granddaughter of one’s sister – in other words, the same kin who had always been off-limits as spouses to Roman citizens. For all its unusual length and harshness, the edict promises clemency for those who forsake forbidden unions within eight months of the law’s enactment. Moreover, it lays down no penalty for the children of such marriages, who may still have been able to inherit from their parents by will. Illegitimate children of incest could still marry and have legitimate children of their own – assuming they did not marry close kin.
Although as an edict this law had universal application in the Empire, it was particularly aimed at provincials in the eastern Mediterranean. Close-kin marriage is known to have occurred not only in Roman Egypt, but also further east in the Euphrates region, at Dura Europos, and Greek and Roman writers often refer to incestuous unions among the Persian royal families. Since the law was enacted at a time when tensions between the Roman Empire and neighboring Persia were high, the emperors may have been reacting not only to “non-Roman” marriage practices, but to concerns about Persian sympathies among eastern provincials. Maintaining Roman marriage law and Roman family mores and suppressing barbaric, “beast-like” marriages would be essential if the Empire were to retain the divine good will that would enable it to defeat its enemies, who not coincidentally engaged in the same unholy practices the law condemns.
That close-kin marriages continued even after the Edict of Caracalla, in Egypt or elsewhere in the Empire, is not surprising; much later legislation of Justinian and his successor Justin reveals the persistence of the custom in Mesopotamia centuries later. What is different is the law’s tone of religious and moral outrage. It can be compared to another Tetrarchic edict, the famous Edict on Maximum Prices known from multiple inscriptions found in the eastern Empire.
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It is also worth noting that our knowledge of Diocletian’s edict on close-kin marriage is due only to its preservation in full in a legal compilation of the fourth or early fifth century, the Lex Dei (“Law of God”), more commonly known today as the Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio (“Comparison of Mosaic and Roman Laws”). This strange work, of Christian (or less likely, Jewish) authorship, was an attempt to prove the compatibility of “God’s law” with Roman law by juxtaposing rules on the same subjects (e. g. homicide, adultery, magic, and false witness) taken from the Old Testament (“Moses says”) and the commentaries of Roman jurists or rulings of Roman emperors.%& For Moses’ contribution on incest the Collator cites a me ́lange of passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy; for Roman law he quotes passages he attributes to the jurists Ulpian, Paul, and Papinian (although they are actually from pseudonymous works), the rescript of Diocletian and Maximian to Flavius Flavianus (mentioned above), and of course the same emperors’ long edict. That the Christian Collator found Roman condemnation of incest particularly congruent with both the strictures of “Moses” and his own views is clear from the final section of his title on incestuous marriages, which rains down a litany of curses upon those who sleep with their own relatives.”