Is it wrong to be attracted to your first cousin?

Yes. I think it is wrong. But it would be a whole lot more wrong to ever act on you feelings. Avoid this person until the feeling pass.

mood wrote: »

If it's not wrong then why are 1st cousin not allowed marry?

They are, it's perfectly legal.

Nothing inherently wrong about it, very little risk to any offspring. But it's a bit weird. From a parental point of view it's just one step away in the creepy stakes from two of your own children having sex.

Well I don't think it's wrong, exactly. I do think it's very strange and something most "normal" (I use that loosely)* people would also find strange.

But it's not unheard of at all. Apart from the obvious "please don't have kids due to medical issues", I would find it strange but not forbidden.

*Considering that it is your cousin and (s)he is above the legal age (like yourself), stop worrying what other's think. Talk to your cousin and find out what they think. If you both are satisfied with a relationship, go for it. Be prepared to get a lot of looks and a lot questions from family members, though. And again, please don't try for kids (or at the very least please get medical advice first).

Best of luck to you

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Thanks
Taltos

So much misinformation on this thread.

1. It is not even remotely against the law to have a relationship with, have sex with or marry your first cousin.

2. Sexual relationships between first cousins do not in themselves create health issues for any offspring that might occur.

3. There is most certainly no greater risk to the offspring of second cousins.

4. Why people think they do is because when two family members procreate together there is a somewhat increased risk that both parents will be carriers of a recessive gene, inherited from a shared grandparent (or great-grandparent in the case of second cousins). Ie, the Cystic Fibrosis gene is recessive, if I was a carrier but my husband wasn't our children would never get Cystic Fibrosis and would not be likely to carry the gene either. But if I marry my cousin on the same side that the gene was passed from the odds that he also has the gene are much higher than they are if I marry from the general population.

The main reason people think cousin marriages cause huge genetic problems is because in cultures where cousin marriage is common, for example among the European aristocracy and their famous line of haemophiliacs, cousin marriages weren't a once off, were a continuing cycle, with the offspring of cousins, marrying some other cousins who were also the product of some cousins and their children would likely go on to marry cousins. So instead of the recessive gene dying out as the bloodline it came from gets more and more diluted, it instead grows in commonality within that group and the odds of being affected by it increase with each generation. To continue the Cystic Fibrosis example from the last paragraph; And if I married a cousin and he was a carrier then our children are much more likely to be sufferers or carriers. If our children then marry some of our other cousins from the same line then the risk increases again. And when they marry their cousins, who are also the result of that line of cousin marriages, carrying the same gene, the risk increases exponentially. However this can also be true of positive genes such as genetic immunity to certain diseases that most of the general population are at risk of.

So no OP it's no 'wrong' to pursue a relationship with your cousin and in certain cultures it would possibly be encouraged. But in this culture it is seen as very, very odd and extremely taboo. If you and your cousin pursued this relationship would be likely to resemble a metaphorical grenade exploding in your extended family. I know that logically there is little to worry about when it comes to two cousins in a relationship but if two of my family members who were each other's cousins began a relationship it would make me feel incredibly weirded out, because my gut reaction is that it's ick. And there are few people I would like my child to form a romantic/sexual relationship with less than the children of mine or my husband's siblings. And if it would be tough for me to deal with then I can't quite imagine how badly it would go down with people who believe the kind of nonsense about cousin relationships that most people seem to believe.

You would both want to genuinely care very little about the relationships you each have with the rest of your family, about the relationships that your parents have with their siblings and their parents and be very, very sure that your relationship with this cousin is truly worth pursuing before going any further because it's not something that can be undone and could easily effect a lot of people you both care about for the rest of your lives.