Stuff You Should Know - Kissing Cousins: A History of Marrying Family

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Despite the overall creepiness of it, marrying family members is way more common than you might think, both historically and today. Ewwww!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life

Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh and there's Chuck and we're doing it today like we're Brothers because this is stuff you should know Okay Okay, but we don't we don't make out that's that was my point. I was tell lighting everyone know that we don't make out

Yeah, I was hoping you were not gonna ask me where this idea came from because I honestly can't remember Oh, I thought you're gonna say you prefer not to say No, I remember Livia helped us with this one and she did great job. This is outstanding But I remember sending the email, but I don't remember what happened just before I sent that email I well all I remember is that that email was frantic and in all caps with a lot of misspellings I had gone to lunch with my super hot cousin. I don't think that anything to do with it cousin Rhonda Well, you know Rhonda, everybody knows Rhonda There is no cousin Rhonda just so everyone knows that was a Josh joke. Mm-hmm. I don't have many cousins. Do you have a lot of cousins?

I don't know Perfect I Was just kind of thinking about this and I just don't have any my dad had one brother and he had three sons One of whom passed away a few years ago the other two. I'm not close to or not even touch with actually My mom's sister never had kids her brother Never had biological kids, but I'm actually closest to my cousin David Do you met in our show in Kansas? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah David was adopted and I'm like tighter with him than anyone sure and then my mom's other brother has two daughters and a son who

Seemed great. I just you know, we're sort of in touch when I was on Facebook But we kind of fell out of touch over the years, but you know, they're good people. Is that Rhonda's family? That's Rhonda, but I'm not one of these families that has like, you know, 20-something cousins Yeah, I seem to remember as a child in Ohio having like a bunch of cousins, but it's not clear as an adult like if they were like You know close friends of my mom's kids or that kind of thing. I know I have one cousin who's like in his 70s It's just all over the place. It's a big mess basically. Gotcha. I'm not going to marry any of them I'm already married and you mean I are verified not cousins Correct, but as we'll see it's not that big of a deal at least with cousins

Depending on where you are absolutely and again, I don't remember what inspired this But I looked into it a little bit before sending it off to Libya and found that generally speaking Around the world through history and now marrying cousins and most of the world is fine Yeah, they're cool with it. They like it and there's good reasons too But if we're talking about so that is I actually saw a distinction here So that is a what would be called a co sanguineus marriage Second cousin or closer, right? Yes, exactly and that sanguine or is like blood, right? So you're saying like it's a related blood or blood relative marriage is essentially what that is

Again, it depends on just how close you're going there people can be cool with it But there is a definite stopping point Almost around the world in every culture and not just the ones around today, but in Throughout history There's basically been a general taboo on you having sexual relations with your nuclear family that siblings parents Sons daughters all that stuff that when you're when you're that close you just should not be touching him improperly Right as Hodgman would say hugging and kissing. Sure. That's his

He that's his stand-in for intercourse. I know it makes me more uncomfortable than if you just said sex That's the thing he says that is not his real life, you know application He'll go no one's ever gotten past first base with Hodgman. Oh, it's so sad So Livia did a pretty smart thing I think with this research and started out with animals because you would you know, if you want to look at our our primate friends and other mammals, it's kind of a fun place to start and generally speaking animals also avoid

interbreeding and it depends on which species as to how Kind of hard line they are about it and how much they try to avoid it and how much they try to avoid it seems to be entirely based on Because you know, they're not one to say like ooh, that's gross. That's creepy Some animals might but most don't but it's entirely based on what's called inbreeding depression Basically, like will it be bad for our species if we do this? Yes, so, you know Anthropologists said well, you know, we're studying animals and animals show Sexual aversion to siblings or parents

So if animals do it and humans are animals like does that just mean that all of these cultural taboos around the world and throughout? history are basically the human version of innate sexual aversion aversion tendencies that any animal would have that it's just the kind of the natural evolution of a this biological imperative to not Reproduce with our parents or siblings. That's right, but what have they found? Well, I mean, that's one very widely Believed theory that that's what it is Other people have said well, I think instead that what it is is humans are smart enough to see that That there is a problem with you know inbreeding as well as we'll see later on

That the the offspring can have, you know problems that other offspring of non-cosaguineous Yeah, marriages wouldn't have so we just observed this over time and made up these laws around it to make it taboo For that reason, that's another theory, right? Which I mean one of the people that put this forth is a gentleman named William Durham and it seems like he's saying like Otherwise we would be doing this Right. I I guess I guess so maybe yeah, okay No, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but it just seems like the theory is basically that like No, when it comes to humans, there is no natural aversion, but we just

Sort of invented this thing for good reasons, but yeah, but based on observations of you know We tried it at first and it didn't really work out So now we're seeing like we need to make some sort of universal law that can extend through the ages You know because a taboo is a lot more than just a law. It's like It's it's just it's a law plus, you know, I'm saying there's like a there's a real like There's there's this guy named Jonathan hate. He used to be with you University of Virginia I don't know if he is still or not, but he was studying moral intuition and one of the ways that he studied that is he would present Study participants with this little

Scenario where I think it was Julie and Jack maybe Our brother and sister they're traveling together in the south of France They're in a cabin one day and they decided to feel like a penthouse letter. Oh buckle up, buddy Um, they decide just to just to have a new experience that neither one has ever had and probably never will have again to have sex Okay, even though they're blood brother and sister. Okay. Okay, so he puts a spin on this. He says Julie is on the pill Jack wore a condom They both decided that they wanted to see how interesting this would be and that it wasn't going to harm anybody

there was no chance of producing offspring and they kept this as a secret to themselves that Actually brought them closer together as brother and sister to have this shared secret. They never did it again. Is that okay? And to a person people respond with no, that's not okay And Jonathan height would say or hate would say why not and people couldn't Couldn't put their finger on it. They just knew it was wrong because yeah, and there's been a lot of questions about that It's like, you know, what study group are you talking about? What does that really show? But it's a really kind of an interesting demonstration that totally. Yeah, we have this really distinct feeling

Basically across the board at least, you know in most cultures in most societies that that is wrong There's something very wrong with it. Even if we can't overtly say what's wrong with it Even if there are wine coolers involved Yeah, that's funny. You say that because I just saw a Seinfeld episode where George tries to come on to his cousin Upset his parents and his cousin is drinking wine coolers in the back of the van right before they're about to do That's really funny. Yeah, totally weird and it very much dates Seinfeld and myself. I guess for sure Although all those like new Fangled alcoholic beverages. Those are all just sort of the new wine cooler. Aren't they exactly? Yeah, all right

So we should talk about the Westermark effect. This is pretty interesting It is there was a late 19th century Sociologist from Finland named Edward Vestermark, I guess I should have said the Vestermark effect and there was a hypothesis that makes a lot of sense that basically said two kids that are raised together Won't be sexually attracted to each other as they you know when they get older and then that was expanded to that also includes like parents in the house and Studies have backed this up and then later it was even expanded further to be like you don't have to even be related if you were raised together Then you're not gonna be attracted to each other later

Right and so that really supports the idea that our cultural taboos against incest is a is it's from a biological imperative Right that there's some part of growing up and reaching adolescents where some mechanism is triggered along the way or it's like I don't I'm not attracted to you. You're my sibling kind of thing and there's plenty of studies that back this up actually there's I Think more often than not the studies tend to back it up Although there have been studies that kind of showed the opposite, but there's so few and far between that it seems like the Vestermark effect is possibly a real thing and it extends beyond

blood relatives so that kids who are raised together that might not even be blood siblings but are raised in the same house or say like on a Kibbutz they found that it's it's also apparent as well. They will have that same Vestermark effect too Right, but they also found that it only because I was gonna make a joke about like Willis and Kimberley mm-hmm, but it wouldn't apply because it seems to only be a thing if they were Cohabitating before they were six years old

Which would not be the case with Willis and Kimberly. No and explains everything they could They could fall in love there is also This thing called well, I don't even think it has a name actually But just sort of like the the backward version of the Vestermark effect, which is and I've heard I feel like I've heard real life stories about this unless it's just been in TV shows and movies is when Kind of like separated at birth situations where they meet each other later and have a very strong

Physical attraction to one another. Yeah, so they're but then they find out their cousins and or or maybe even siblings or first cousins And then it's like oh in the movie version, but then they eventually find out That of course it was just a big mistake and they are really in love and it's okay. Hooray. They can hug and kiss finally Right, which I was gonna say the Royal Tannenbombs, but they were they were actually raised together So that kind of flies in the face of Vestermark. I think they were actual. Oh, no She was adopted. Yeah, that's right. So there actually is a term for this It's called genetic sexual attraction and it's not just in movies, dude There's this really interesting government handout. You can go search the Cumbria

Cumbria City Council Genetic sexual attraction and it'll bring up a PDF that they give to people who have been adopted Who are going to reunite with family members that says hey, we really want to tell you about this Really strange experience that you might have where you find you are powerfully Attracted to your biological mom who you're just meeting your biological sister or brother Yeah, and that yes, it's very weird and it's going to make you feel weird But don't follow it through to its, you know, seemingly logical conclusion of having sex with them because you're going to ruin your lives You're gonna put a strain on this new relationship and it's not really you're not really sexually attracted

We think we think that it's just such a powerful Like connection that you're saying yeah, that as an adult you accidentally Mis-translated into a sexual attraction because that's the only thing it could possibly explain it just does not compute Right, but it's really really interesting and it does seem to be a real thing that you have to like take in into account when you reunite with a biological family member Where's Cumbria and why Cumbria? I'm just gonna leave that it is in the UK. Oh, okay. I'm pretty sure does it matter? They've got a great handout. No, I just wondered if it was

This is an especially problem like a problem there, especially or doesn't it seem like Yeah, definitely. Maybe it is just a Cumbria problem. I don't know I got the impression that it was you know genetic or biological Well, no, I mean that it happened there a lot so they're like, I guess we need a pamphlet now, right? It's a it's a well done pamphlet, too. Or maybe they have a I'll never mind I'm just gonna drop that one. I think that's best. In fact, maybe we should just take a break I think that's best as well, and I'm gonna think about what I almost did Hey everybody when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb?

And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse And the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel So, yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host. Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Okay, see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this Situation if you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this I promise you oh god seriously

I swear, and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband Michael um hey, that's me Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one kids relationships life in general can get messy you may be thinking this is the story of my life Oh, just stop now if so tell everybody yeah Everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye-bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm Mangeh Shatikler and to be honest

I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in India It's like smoking you might not smoke, but you're gonna get second-hand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you it got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams Canceled marriages k-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crashing down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father

And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer I think your ideas are gonna change too Listen to skyline drive and the I heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts All right, so I guess if we want to that was a pretty good setup I think I Think if we want to go back in time It gets pretty interesting because depending on where you are in the history of humans and where you are on planet Earth

It's sort of gone from People didn't really do it. Some people did some people frowned upon it or Generally, nobody really frowned upon it for a little while. I guess you could even almost classify it as a fad in some cases But if you look at religion certainly throughout time, there are all kinds of Interfamily sexual unions from Zeus and Hera who were siblings? all over Muslim and Jewish and Christian traditions, you know, there's an explanation due

When Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel and then sort of look around at each other Go, well, wait a minute. We're supposed to populate the earth, right? So Various religions have explained that away as there were also twin daughters born and That's how the earth was originally populated and maybe Cain even slew Abel Because I guess he got he got the hot one, right? I want myth mythy Yeah, it sounds like a money python sketch or something like it really does There's this classic princess beauty and then like the in fact, I think that was a money python sketch

Probably I don't know the one but I'm guessing yeah So the thing is is that they have found most historians tend to agree that even though like deities or you know Ancient figures and in religious texts were involved in incest that among common everyday people They were not it was not a widespread phenomenon. It was almost relegated to the elite And by almost I mean it absolutely was it's not like if you were an elite family You were definitely engaged in incest no matter what culture or what period you're in but you are far more likely in in history

to If you were an elite to have an incestuous relationship, then if you were just an everyday shmoe cutting stones to build a pyramid Yeah, and you know, it's it's the same as what we'll you know, we'll talk about royals later on It was a way to keep it all in the family and keep that power consolidated And We'll see evidence of Economic reasons for doing that as well as just sort of being the elite ruling class And in fact in some cases with the elite ruling class

They touted it as like sort of like we are this special that we are Almost required to do this. I mean not just above the law above the taboos. Yeah, like that is yes They are definitely creating an elite status for themselves and it does like it's definitely been shown scientifically documented now that all all of these kind of folklore and Histories and religious texts are being proven like two-tone commons parents have been shown to have been brother and sister Based on histories We're pretty sure Cleopatra married both of her brothers at different times and that her parents were probably brother and sister

So it definitely did happen just to what extent is is unclear That's right And I think there was one exception as far as the commoners go and that was during the Roman Egyptian period first a third century CE where I Guess that might have been a fad thing because the census shows that there were a lot of common people that were in You know sibling marriages basically Yeah, but we don't know what everybody thought of that But if it was that widespread, I guess people weren't that down on it, you know, right?

And then in Iran or Persia at the time Zoroastrian Persia from the 5th century BCE to the 11th century CE They had something called ex-Wedota Which basically said this is a really spiritual powerful ritual you can you can engage in On a Friday night with your brother or sister and that they they said that you get a lot of power spiritually from this act and they think possibly it's because you you were having to overcome, you know You're aversion to incest and supposedly you gain some power from that That's right, and it wasn't necessarily like a marriage, right? No, it was like ritual sex

Sure, like Alistair Crowley style exactly in the desert So that's generally like what we've kind of been talking about is sibling stuff And how that's gone through history when it comes like we said at the beginning when it comes to cousins That's really a different story even today in many parts of the world Cousins, I mean not from the beginning of time because it is interesting that they did studies of ancient people and Found DNA evidence and this is just last year in 2021 From almost 1,800 ancient humans going back about 45,000 years or at least as far back as that Only 3% it looked like were even cousin marriage

So it's something that got more popular after ancient humans, which I think is really interesting Yeah, they think it started around the time that history did which is usually where we place, you know A thousand or two years after agriculture and they think that it was a result of agriculture of settling down That you would have a much greater aversion to marrying your cousin in hunter-gatherer societies because there would be much less Genetic diversity, but when you take a bunch of different people and pull them into the same place Yeah, they might be related by marriage or you know, their cousins a couple times removed But because of the increased genetic diversity, there would be far less chance of there being some sort of Genetic mishap from the mating of those cousins. Yeah, and I guess one thing we didn't point out is that

Previous to this when people were Engaging in like the elites and sibling marriage and things like that. They generally avoided Genetic mishaps because as you'll see it's still pretty rare. We'll get to that later But they did things to discourage that kind of stuff Like some of the marriages were celibate and stuff like that and it was really all about Consolidation of power and not like all right and now we'll have 12 kids right exactly with eight heads This one stat kind of alarmed me though, and this is of course just one person's opinion But there's an anthropologist at Rutgers named Robin Fox who estimated that 80% of all marriages in history

May have been second cousin or closer, which that seems really high Yes, but they make a really good case and they say that until we had Segways and trains and stuff like that You when you went courting you probably didn't court much more than about five miles away from home Sure, because you had to walk there and back it usually in a day So within that five mile radius you were much more likely to encounter cousins And so as a result the cover cousin marriage probably was like Taking place at a really high rate. I don't know where they came up with 80%

But it is a it's a pretty interesting hypothesis at least. Yeah, absolutely And we're gonna jump around sort of all over the world to you to see what has happened in other cultures and China is one That's pretty noteworthy and that for a lot of China's in fact most of their history If you were first cousins and you wanted to get married it was generally okay Unless they were they were the kids of two male siblings and they just reckoned because you had the same family name It was a little too weird They think they thought that like Brothers with the same family name were kind of considered more relatives

Then say a brother and a sister with two different last names because the sisters been married off Which is just not true. No, it's not but I mean, it's a cultural thing, you know Yeah, but this also came about in the early 80s with the PRC marriage law banning first cousin marriage and It was about birth defects and it was the same time as sort of their I Don't know what I mean. Do we call it eugenics? They said that they wanted to improve quote the quality of the population. So yeah, I'd say that's eugenics Okay, but it was in lockstep with the one child policy and that's basically when China started getting like super in everyone's business

Yeah, as far as the child rearing goes But what's interesting is that's about a hundred years after America started passing laws on that kind of thing, too Yeah, that's true. So there's another there's a really cool hypothesis by a guy named Joseph Heinrich who's an evolutionary biologist and he traces a really big change back to 506 CE when the Catholic Church The people leading the church basically said hey You cannot marry anyone closer than your third cousin from now on which is interesting because we we consider a co-sanguinist

Relationship second cousins are closer, right? So maybe that's where that comes from But they they are not entirely certain where why they said that but they said that and it was a big time rule and the Catholics started running the show around that time all over Europe so this applied to a lot of people and Heinrich's hypothesis is that that Changed things so much that it led to the modern world basically right with the idea that I guess the family bonds took a hit people were encouraged to be a little more individual Listic, I don't know why I put a big pause in the middle of that and

and basically trust other people such that Societies were able to form because it wasn't like well. I only trust my family, you know they started it really came down to human trust as far as branching out and and Larger groups of non-related people kind of getting along and trusting each other Yeah, because if you only trust and care for and take care of your kin You know a kin network can only be so large So your society can only be so large, but if you remove that kind of kin network stuff Like by saying you need to marry outside of your kin network

Then you can't support a larger and larger society too and then they think also that led to things like Free market competition that we might not have had that or an emphasis on that kind of thing But like you said individualism that it basically whatever we think of as the West today Traces its roots back to that and it all had to do with not being able to marry members of your king group Which is the opposite of the Josh Clark motto, which is never trust families Another little sidebar here that I thought was interesting was the Some people think that the tradition at a wedding of saying if anyone has any objections to the marriage is sort of a

Evolution of the question. Does anybody know if these two are related? Yeah, I thought that was amazing Yeah, yeah, so Heinrich wrote a book if you're like I need to know more about this. It's called how the West became weird Weird as in Western educated industrialized rich and democratic Right not Austin weird. No, but I think he also says like kind of Austin weird too. Yeah, okay So we talked about you know when people think of like Like incest and royalties or even you know intra family marriage Like you you tend to think of things like the Habsburg jaw and I know we've talked about that before but I don't remember

Did we do like a short stuff on it or something? No, I tried to think of it. I think I'm pretty sure it was a video one of our videos that we did because I remember flashing images of these Humongous underbites Chuck I swear to you we've talked about in the last year Really? Yes, I swear and either that or my sense of time has been so messed up in the last couple years that well I'm just I'm just done basically, right? So the Habsburgs were royals who inbred so much that they had like you said what was known as the Habsburg jaw and

What I said, which was a big time underbite and like I have a bit of a Even bite not quite an underbite And I've always been a little self-conscious about it, but when I saw the Habsburg jaws, I was not Nothing to worry about. Yeah, Charles II of Spain Was described as quote swallowing all he eats whole for his nether jaw stands out so much That his two rows of teeth cannot meet Yeah, that's the Habsburg jaw for you. I'm pretty sure you can chew your food, right? No, no, no, I'm fine. I'm a little more Bruce Springsteen and not quite Habsburg

So the the the much bigger problem that the Habsburg faces that their children had an infant mortality rate of about 18% Yeah, which was high even at the time But it was specific for that family and what they were doing I think you touched on it earlier was they were consolidating power They were making sure that some other family from some other country didn't worm its way into the Habsburgs and take over Germany or Saxony or Austria wherever the Habsburgs were ruling and they they just kept it in the family And so there were some problems genetically

But they were far from the only family to try this and some of the greatest Economic dynasties that the world has ever seen did the same thing for the same reasons too. Yeah, the Dupont's Pierre Samuel Dupont Said in 1810 quote the marriages that I should prefer for our colony would be between the cousins and that way We should be sure of honesty of soul and purity of blood in quote and that was you know, it's not only about Power but I think keeping the money in the family. Yes being wary of strangers coming in because they're rich That kind of thing. So I think it was at least how I read it was a little less like a

Eugenics pure bloodline thing and a little more like we got to keep our own Yes, it was the same thing for the Rothschild the Jewish banking family It basically the exact same thing and so the Dupont's which were founded, I believe in France Dupont's first name was Pierre Samuel back in 1810 the Rothschild I know where I believe in France. I know I believe they were from France and The Habsburgs basically ruled Europe for you know, quite a while centuries, I believe and so in Europe the idea of intra-family marriages and inbreeding between close relations was kind of looked at as like if you were well to do you kind of did that thing

So there wasn't nearly enough as much an aversion to it as there was in the United States Which is why the United States was one of the first countries to really start passing laws against marrying Close relations actually Yeah, 1875 is when things started to kind of I think people just started to Not do it as much culturally in the US and then as far as laws on the books They did even started a little bit before that and what was the very first state Josh Kansas Yeah, the Jayhawks leading the way in incest laws

That's that don't do it in 1858 and by the mid 1920s Most of the states had laws on the books Olivia points out that if you were a western state You were a little more likely to be ahead of the curve because they were newer states And they were just writing their laws for the first time so they kind of you know had to go through everything Right, and this was a time when they everyone in the country. It's just started looking at the laws around marriages basically in a health and safety manner and not so much like we just want to be in your business thing right and it's strange to Think of today and especially as an American, but apparently America has long had a outlier preoccupation with

Like close relatives marrying like elsewhere in the world as we'll see it's not a thing But even in parts of Europe, it's all it's a much more modern aversion than it has been in America Like I guess around the world we're known as like we got a real problem with cousin marrying like almost like me thinks They doth protest too much. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you mean 25 states in the US today have banned first cousin marriage only half Seven more have some restrictions and I think Arizona's is love it fairly adorable because they allow it if you're both at least 65 years old or older Or if you can't reproduce so I guess they're like, you know, I guess you really couldn't find anyone else

Or you really really loved each other. Just don't make any babies That's that's the Arizona law. Yeah, absolutely So and again, we're talking co sanguinist marriages in most laws. That means second cousins are closer and Again around the world. This is not considered a problem that cousin marriages Apparently as much as 10% of the global population practice marriages of second cousins are closer and then in some Middle Eastern provinces, it's as high as 80%

Yeah, and it's interesting when you look at this I Guess it was a study. It was they were interviews in Pakistan in 1995 Around this and the reasons that these women gave were they make a lot of sense They they said that a few different things that they were more compatible Not compatible compatible With family than strangers, which makes sense. Yeah

That their in-laws were kinder to the brides if they were from the same family and that Within if you had a I guess a co sanguinist marriage, you were less focused on physical appearance and looks. Yeah that's that was the the Pakistani surveys Respondents like take on the whole thing that they just didn't consider it like that and then the other thing is they were suspicious of People who wanted to marry outside their family because in a society like that where there was a lot of intra marriage or intra family marriages It was a real red flag when somebody outside of your family was like, hey You want to marry me because it would say that their family found them unfit to be married

So they've got real problems, right? So so yeah, it would you would just not want to marry something like that in that in that sense Shall we take a break? Yeah, let's all right. We'll talk about some more famous examples and then get to the bottom of the health risks right after this Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it Earn so I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb dot c a slash host Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough Or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do You've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh God seriously I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one kids relationships life in general can get messy

You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so tell everybody yeah Everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye Bye-bye listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm Mangeh Shatikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology But from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in India It's like smoking you might not smoke but you're gonna get second-hand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you it got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams cancelled marriages K-pop But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crashing down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are gonna change too Listen to skyline drive and the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

So Chuck before we get started again I want to say something because I came across the Kind of a working definition of incest is way different than the just kind of the general Way that we're using it. I've tried to pepper this with you know Intra marriage or cosanguinist marriage, but incest specifically which most people just think of as like sexual relations between very close family members is supposedly defined as Like it's a dominant version of that

It's it's an abusive version of that where somebody in a position of power like an older brother and older sister or a father or mother Basically molests like one of their family members It's a very specific kind of sexual relations among family members and probably the darkest of all the kinds So that's the true definition. That's what I saw. Oh interesting. Yeah, I always thought that it could also mean consensual Yeah, I think that's what most people think that's why I wanted to share that because that's what I thought too until you know Yesterday when I was running across it. All right Thanks for clearing that out. You're welcome So let's talk about the the elephant in the room, which is the health risks

that's sort of the the unspoken thing people always think about in the back of their head when they hear of Of like, oh, I have family members that married each other and their third cousins And the very first thing that probably pops into someone's head is is like, is this gonna be problematic when they go to have kids and As we will see that doesn't necessarily mean that it will isn't that astounding. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy Like I my entire view of this thing has been completely upended in the last two days because it depends on Well, we'll get into in a second But when most people think of like close relations marrying you just think of children born with abnormalities birth defects

possibly Genetic disorders and all that can happen But the reason it happens isn't because brother and sister, you know had sex and automatically God punished them, you know, right? That's not that's not how it works What it is is the brother and the sister are much more likely to be carriers of a certain recessive gene and And so when you put those two together and produce a an offspring that offspring is almost certainly going to have that genetic disorder or abnormality or whatever and so that that that's just likelier to happen But even among

intra marriages or intra family marriages That's a really rare outcome to be honest Yeah, I mean these genetic disorders that we're talking about which are everything from sickle cell anemia to cerebral palsy I Guess cystic fibrosis some of these things they're rare to begin with so even if you're doubling up your chances It's it's not like it makes it likely. It's still gonna be rare Right, and it's the case where like this is the thing that reveals that recessive gene Mm-hmm, you know because the the brother and the sister don't have this disease. That's why it's recessive, right?

So they don't know this going in and then all of a sudden they have a kid that has a spurt defect and they you know They maybe do genetic testing and it's unraveled, right? So the thing is that can happen to two non-related people to sure because there's so many Recessive genes out there in the general population, but because there's so many and there's so many people that the chances of two Unrelated people is much less like you said it might be double for people who are related But still in absolute terms, it's not that that much of a risk Numbers-wise, but what you're saying is when you get to two non Like if you're not marrying a family member

You're actually engaging in more of a genetic crapshoot than you are as a Marrying a family member because you could know probably what's likely or to happen if right unless you've done like you said genetic counseling You have no idea how your genes are going to match with somebody else's that again. We have so many genes There's so many different possible mutations and there's so many people in the in the Reproductive pool that the chances are just very low that it's going to produce some sort of genetic disorder Abnormality or something like that. Yeah, and I think historically it's been a lot more common in in Very small rural communities

Where the gene pool period is just a lot smaller, right? And you know, it's just math basically you're just gonna be more at risk. Okay, so I read this this study I read the abstract I have to fess up. I didn't read the whole study But it was from the University of Natural Sciences Lahore in Pakistan and they basically said Which whether cosanguinous or non-cosanguinous marriage, which one is preferable depends on which level you're looking on on the Individual level or on the population level and then on a population level and this is stone cold eugenics speak, right? So I just want to preface it with that but on a population level You're actually better off having your population marry relatives

because There will be a huge upsurge initially in children who are born with You know genetic disorders who might not survive infancy and who won't go on to reproduce The ones who do survive and go on to reproduce will actually be potentially genetically fitter because they're good alleles They're good genes mixed with their sister's good genes and they're producing offsprings with like super genes basically So on a population level, it's great on an individual level. It's not so great Interesting and so they concluded overall on for populations until we learn to treat genetic disorders like through gene therapy or something like that

We should really just keep outlawing cosanguinous marriages, right? Wow. When was that? It was a recent paper I'm not exactly sure but it was in the last ten years for sure Well, should we finish up with just some Bulleted points and factoids. That's how we do Well, I guess we could talk about some famous people who very famously married Very close relatives. Mm-hmm Edgar Edgar Allan Poe did so in 1835. He married I believe a first cousin named Virginia Eliza Clem and Apparently the outrage there was the fact that she was 13 right and he was 27 So even in 1835 that was a pretty a pretty big age gap

And I guess people were creeped out and I guess Poe's walking around super creepy anyway Sure What can I do to creep people out further? Yeah, exactly Jesse James married his first cousin in 1874, which again, it's right on the precipice of when when America started to be like We're not cool with cousin marrying anymore. Oh, yeah, that's right there, isn't it? HG Wells 1891 Yeah, and then Einstein. I didn't know he married his cousin. Did you I did not know that married his cousin Elsa in 1919 and I think both of them it was their second time around marriage wise and You know, I don't think it went went so well. I think he wasn't a great husband apparently

Yeah, so Livia found it all that's an interesting article. That's really depressing and disturbing because it I had no idea But Einstein seems to have been a really terrible husband like cruel even you could say yeah Yeah, so if you really want to just keep liking Einstein and only think of him like that poster with his tongue sticking out Do not read that all that is interesting article on or a lovable shaggy Tim Robbins. Yeah, what was that from? He was in the movie Meg Ryan played his daughter. No, that was Walter Mathau that played Einstein Oh, she got together with she got together with Tim Robbins. That's right Robbins got another good 20 years before he starts playing Einstein. Yeah, or Meg Ryan's dad and I was way confused Bathout he was a great on style man. He was great the most lovable

Did you ever see the couch trip with Dan acroyd him? Sure. I'm big Walter bathout fan. That was a wonderful movie And I think that might be one of his better performances, too. Yeah, he was amazing What what can we go over here some other sort of taboos around the world? These are interesting. I think yeah, I agree. So Different cultures have kind of come up with like taboo plus like really complex stuff to basically say, okay You can marry this person. You can't marry the that person it goes beyond just you can't marry your second cousin or closer and One of the one of the ways that the the Muslim religion has done this is to come up with something called a milk kinship Where if you Breastfeed a child who's unrelated to you at least three to five times then you and that child are considered mahram

Which means you are you cannot marry, right? Even though you're not a blood relative You might not have any blood shared between you because you breastfed you can't marry that that person Right, which seems like duh Because you're raising this, you know kid from a baby, but I don't think we mentioned at the beginning there have been cultures through history where it was a common practice to adopt and raise a baby and Also marry them like you marry the baby and then raise them up to adulthood baby bride

Baby bride. It's it's it's very hard to wrap your head around or baby groom. I saw in at least one culture Yeah Again, it's it's hard to wrap your head around here in 2022, but that's something that happened So this was a big deal in the Muslim culture because you don't have to wear He job if you are mahram. So It's sort of a workaround when you raise this adopted baby It all of a sudden when they get old enough, you don't have to wear that he job around them anymore, right?

Right because you're mahram, which is kind of fun to say it is and then there's something called the leverate marriage I had I think it has to do with Levi from the Bible Old Testament stuff But basically it's a law that is found in a bunch of different disparate cultures that says if you are married to a man And that in your husband dies your brother-in-law has to marry you Mm-hmm, and it was it seems to have been a way Not to you know marry off an unmarriable brother a brother-in-law. I should say But instead to take care of women from what I can tell Yeah, I feel like I've seen this not as a requirement, but it's just a plot line in like Old West movies

Like the husband dies and so the widow marries is you know The brother comes into town for the funeral and then they fall in love or something is it Tim Robbins. I don't think so He had really shaggy hair. I know I've seen that before but as far as the required the Old Testament version There was a stipulation where if the brother-in-law said it no, thanks Then the widow I guess an offense takes off his sandals and then spits in his face Mm-hmm, and then his bloodline is forever known as the family of the unsandled Which I guess you would not want to be known as that I guess so I also saw so there's a Culture called the Chukchi from eastern Siberia and they they practice levered marriage

Where you know if you're if your husband dies you marry his brother and this is a way of taking care of women in a place That's like really unforgiving climate-wise And they actually have a backup to that they have wife swapping where very close friends will create a pact and they will Share their wives and then all of the children born are all that groups, you know responsibility There's not like a delineation and that supports women whose husbands don't have a brother So if their husband dies, they're still taken care of by this other husband and his wife and their family Interesting. Yeah, it's pretty smart. I always think of raising Arizona whenever here are the two words wife swap

It's impossible not to you know Me and Dottie are swingers you got anything else. I got nothing else I don't either which means this is the end of our marrying cousin episode Since I talked about marrying cousins one last time that means it's time for listener mail I'm gonna call this adoption language and this is something that Made me feel bad in a good way if that makes sense It's something I never considered as a as a dad who has an adopted kid and I'm really glad that Frank Opened my eyes to this. Hey guys, my wife Katie and I were listening to the Roe v. Wade episode and we have a minor tangential note

We notice that you use the phrase gave up when referencing adoption a few times like gave up their baby for adoption, which is You know, it's a very common thing people say like I say it all the time, too Yeah My wife is a social worker for an adoption agency in the Chicago area and I learned from her that the phrase is really frowned upon in the adoption community as it can have a negative connotation of Quitting on a child when that is not the case and they encourage people to say instead that the mother made an adoption plan for the baby In fact, our agency had a campaign a few years ago called to give up giving up

Hmm, I never thought twice about it until I learned about it from my wife And I think it'd be great for your listeners to know and that is from Frank and Frank. I I Very glad you let me know this because this is something that we've even said in our house and we have tidied that up because When I think about it, that is not the right thing to say. Yeah I mean, yeah, you could see it reflecting on the child Especially when they get old enough to start thinking in those terms, but also on the the parents who?

Who adopted off their child, you know, like like they did something shameful or something like that. Yeah, absolutely Then way to go Frank. So I think it's one of the situations where it's just sort of The way it's always been said and I love it when people point out like no, there's a better way forward Yeah, like when that dude told us to stop using dark ages Same thing yeah If you want to get in touch with us like Frank or the dark ages dude, you can send us an email Wrap it up spank it on the bottom unless it's a second cousin or closer and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.com Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio

For more podcasts my heart radio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band or each week to guide you through life Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure you subscribe to my channel Yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe You can find in major league baseball international banks K-pop groups even the White House But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject something completely Unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed whether you're a skeptic or a believer Give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too listen to skyline drive on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, it's Bobby Bones from the Bobby cast we are Nashville's most listened to music podcast In-depth interviews with your favorite country artists plus the biggest songwriters and producers in Nashville all from the comfort of my own home

So it gets a little more laid-back They're sharing stories behind the biggest songs and country music and personal stories that you will not hear anywhere else So if you love country music, I think you will love this podcast Listen to the Bobby cast on iHeart radio Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts