Comments on: On cousin marriage

By: Mary Catelli

Mary Catelli — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 20:30:28 +0000

I note that second cousin marriages do greatly decrease the risk, but you don’t want them forever, either. The Amish do so many that one researcher found that a slew of second cousin marriages, many double second cousin, several triple second cousin, and one quadruple second cousin — and they are having inbreeding problems.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:07:14 +0000

I’m not really a Catholic anymore (though the Church won’t let me change that), but I would agree that the Mass is a thing of beauty and the RCC missed a bet when they dropped the Latin.
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The departure of the ancient tongue is regrettable, but there is so much else wrong: the music which sounds like leftover scores from the Hallmark Channel, the mobs of eucharistic ministers, half-assed homilies, the touchy-feely ‘saying of the peace’, the prayers for last month’s headlines, the tedious ‘announcements’, the commotion after the recessional, everyone in informal garb. Every once in a while you run into a parish which is more dignified, but what I’ve described is about 85% of the late morning services offered. They usually dispense with music at the other services.

By: huxley

huxley — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 03:20:50 +0000

@Gringo: I thought to myself that in two thousand years, the Roman Catholic church has learned how to put on a show. Amen! I'm not really a Catholic anymore (though the Church won't let me change that), but I would agree that the Mass is a thing of beauty and the RCC missed a bet when they dropped the Latin.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:24:05 +0000

An interesting post about why the Catholic Church has been so successful for so long, and what business can learn from it:

I once attended a Christmas Eve Mass in Guatemala. I am not a churchgoer and am also of Protestant background, but I found the church ceremony emotionally uplifting. (I do have an affinity for choral music, which the Roman Catholic ceremony often has in abundance.) I thought to myself that in two thousand years, the Roman Catholic church has learned how to put on a show. The church was fairly new, almost Protestant in its austerity, so the effect would have been even greater had the mass been in a colonial era church.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:13:18 +0000

Be interesting to know, in the European dance of royal cousins, how many impregnations were from…you should excuse the term…”outside”. Perhaps things could have been worse….. Maybe there was a kind of underground…hum…about certain arrangements,

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:53:41 +0000

Don Carlos was not the most stable of princes, and this may be why. Only four great-grandparents!

There was a play “Don Carlos” by Schiller based on his life, and a wonderful opera by Verdi. Both are more faithful to the legend than the actual history. I haven’t read the play, but in the opera Don Carlo is more of a whiny loser with parental issues than a complete psychopath. His father, the king, has him killed (maybe, the end is ambiguous) for disloyalty.

As noted, European royalty was full of cousin marriages, with some not so good results, such as hemophilia via Queen Victoria. It was also not so unusual in prewar generations in smaller demographics such as Jews. Both my wife and I have (I think second) cousin marriages in our trees, but not in our direct line. I remember being puzzled that my mother’s first cousin (by her mother’s sister) had the same last name as my grandmother’s maiden name, until it was explained that her mother had married a cousin.

By: Niketas Choniates

Niketas Choniates — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:15:33 +0000

@Rick67:Probably because I tend to view second cousins as cousins.

The way families work nowadays, with so many divorces or not even being married and so many people moving away from their relatives for work or whatever, a lot of people probably have no idea who their second cousins even are.

By: Rick67

Rick67 — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:50:09 +0000

I can neither confirm nor deny that in my extended family two second cousins got married and had two children. His grandmother (my great aunt) and her grandmother (also mine) were sisters. According to the internet the definition of “second cousins” is you share the same great-grandparents but *not* the same parents (one extremely hopes not) nor grandparents (one hopes not).

Is it illegal? No. Does it carry genetic risk? The internet says no. I confess thinking it was rather weird. Probably because I tend to view second cousins as cousins. What are we? European royalty???

By: Tregonsee314

Tregonsee314 — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:49:08 +0000

In response to Ms Catelli I had an odd happenstance. My wife’s younger sister married a gentleman who is also a descendant of the Kelsey family I mentioned in my other comment (and his name is a variant spelling) that had moved to Maine (then Massachusetts) shortly after the US revolution. He is a 6th (or perhaps 7th?) cousin and my nephew and nieces are also 6th cousins once removed to me and first and 7th cousins to my daughters. 3rd cousin plus relationships are very common across New England with anyone that traces back to any of the founding colonies (Plymouth Boston Salem, New Haven, Saybrook Madison/Hammonasset, Portsmouth) because the original base of survivors from many of those colonies is so small and they traded folks via shipping.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:13:52 +0000

An interesting post about why the Catholic Church has been so successful for so long, and what business can learn from it:

https://xaretinak.substack.com/p/the-firm-that-sold-eternity-why-the