I'll boink brother and you can't stop me... (eeeeewness)

[PepperElf]

i think they didn't list that some of the states have additional laws...

if i'm not mistaken, the age of consent in hawaii drops to 14 if the other partner is at a maximum of 5 years older.


and yes it's true that the age of consent in virginia is 18. but that's without parental consent. WITH parental consent it drops to 16.

i know that cos it happened to one of my friends W. W & his ex (EX) shared custody of their daughter. At the time she was 16 or 17, her stepfather (Ex's new hubby EXH) found out that the girl was dating a navy sailor and wanted him arrested for violating the state laws on age of consent.

EXH went as far as to even contact authorities (i think it was either CPS or the cops)... only to be told "You're not her guardian. W gave permission. There are no laws being broken."


then again many states also don't like to advertise things like that...

[tropicsgoddess]

Good God.....

[Zellie Crescent]

I guess there's alot of freaky flowers in that attic. Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Ironclad Alibi]

The Mobius loops are even more economical.

That brings to mind ... I'm My Own Grandpa.

I'm picturing the wedding invites:

"Please join us for the marriage of ______ and _____.

We knew they were destined to be Mrs. and Mr. back when they were still just Brother and Sister!"

Which reminds me of this joke: If a man and woman are divorced in West Virgina, are they still legally brother and sister?

[Fox One]

Reminds me of an episode of...damn, can't remember the show's name, but it was one of those wedding shows. The bride and groom were brother and sister. Squicked me the hell out until they revealed the truth of their siblinghood: When the brother was 17, his parents adopted his not-at-all-blood-related 16-year-old sister into into the same room. I'm honestly not surprised at all sexual tension developed. Not the same situation at all, but I was heavily reminded of that.

[fireheart]

16 is the age of consent in most states in Australia, with the exception of my state and Tasmania, which is 17.

Also a bit but Syriilord, your avatar wouldn't happen to be Sayo from Negima by any chance?

[ADoyle90815]

It's definitely time for industrial strength

[Itsjustpizza]

I don't think there's enough brain bleach in all the world to help me get that out of my mind!Bring on the lobotomizer please!

[Magpie]

This reminds me way too much of an ex-boyfriend a few years back... he took me to meet his family in the mountains in Virginia somewhere (forget where exactly) and his grandma was so happy that he met someone from outside the "holler" - new blood and all that. Her job was to keep track of the genealogy of the holler so that there wasn't too much inbreeding.

Even perfectly legitimate marriages between 2nd cousins can create inbreeding if the population is small enough. Hell, if you've got a really nasty recessive in the family tree, any degree of consanguinity can produce some really rotten fruit. At least that granny had the wits to care.

I've been told that one of the reasons that the ethnic Mennonites (as opposed to Mennonites who converted in the last three-four generations) are so big on knowing who's related to who is because you need to know this to avoid marrying too closely. You could easily have close to a hundred first cousins... But it was everyone's job, not one person who was in charge of this.

Looking at the local birth defect rates for the old-order Mennonites and Amish, marrying second cousins for a hundred and fifty years isn't good for the gene pool. Heck, even if it's slightly less closed you have problems. Less flashy than the genetic disorders with 50 cases worldwide, half of which are in Lancaster county are the cases of many small towns across the Canadian prairies, where each of them has a significantly higher than average incidence of some other condition, such as Tourette's. Or to pick on my family rather than my husband's family, French Canadians are always listed in the group of people who should get genetic counselling before having children. Huge group of people, but it started small enough, and it's been isolated for long enough.

[zombiequeen]

Yikes.
I found out on my wedding day that my husband (yeah, after the wedding) and I are like fourth cousins through marriage. So no blood relation, but still, I lost my appetite.
Luckily, we are not contributing to the gene pool.

I noticed an article a while ago about birth defects in the Amish community near where I live. Apparently they have shorter arms and legs but longer torsos because of inbreeding...It's odd.

[Sheldonrs]

Reminds me of an episode of...damn, can't remember the show's name, but it was one of those wedding shows. The bride and groom were brother and sister. Squicked me the hell out until they revealed the truth of their siblinghood: When the brother was 17, his parents adopted his not-at-all-blood-related 16-year-old sister into into the same room. I'm honestly not surprised at all sexual tension developed. Not the same situation at all, but I was heavily reminded of that.

Reminds me of the Marcia/Greg relations in the Brady Bunch movie.

[telecom_goddess]

Yikes.
I found out on my wedding day that my husband (yeah, after the wedding) and I are like fourth cousins through marriage. So no blood relation, but still, I lost my appetite.
Luckily, we are not contributing to the gene pool.

I noticed an article a while ago about birth defects in the Amish community near where I live. Apparently they have shorter arms and legs but longer torsos because of inbreeding...It's odd.

Even if you were it wouldn't matter. Besides aren't we all related in one form or another from the beginnings of mankind?

[blas]

I always thought it was just a cruel joke about the Amish and Mennonites because they are more simple people than most.

[Magpie]

I always thought it was just a cruel joke about the Amish and Mennonites because they are more simple people than most.

It's not just with the old-order (horse and buggy) types. It happens with the mainstream ones too. When my husband was taken to a specialist (childhood epilepsy), the first question asked when it was discovered that his parents were Mennonite was "how are you related?" (They aren't, at least not less than 5 or 6 generations back). The Mennonites have a history of persecution, so they tend to be somewhat tight-knit communities. (One group was in Russia for well over a hundred years, and still speak German). It's more pronounced with really conservative groups, because they actively avoid contamination. Here's a reference. I apologise if it's not as easy to read as I think it is (skip the abstract, the introduction is easier to follow), and I can't log out of my journal subscription, so I don't actually know if you can see it.

In the general population, it's actually not even that bad to marry a first cousin. The main reason that there's a social taboo against first cousins marrying is that if you do it for too long you run into problems.

ETA: blas, I just realised that you might have meant it was a cruel joke in the sense that it's the universe playing a cruel joke on them. This answer was written assuming the other interpretation, that people claiming that they married closely or had more birth defects were making a cruel joke. (They do tend to marry closely because the communities are smaller, and when there's 10 kids in a family, there aren't going to be a lot of people who aren't second cousins).

[zombiequeen]

Even if you were it wouldn't matter. Besides aren't we all related in one form or another from the beginnings of mankind?

Thanks. I seriously worried about that for a while after I learned it. But, now that I've thought about it, there's no blood relation and because my husband was adopted by his non-biological father, the relation part is kind of null.