Cousin Marriages and its effects, what Pakistan can do to prevent it moving forward/

 

Consanginous marriages pose a significant threat to Pakistan, particularly women, and are considered unhealthy by scientific research, which makes it wrong in Islamic lenses as Islam prohibits anything unhealthily.

Cousin marriages are extremely common in Pakistan, more than anyone in its region. The effect these marriages have can be genetical as well as making the atmosphere of the country less capable of being progressive as it restricts free choice of spouses.

 

How it affects the society of Pakistan and why it is bad

In Pakistan, these cousin marriages are not about love but rather them having to get married for the sake of it. A girls parent most of the time forces her daughter to get married to their cousins. This mentality is very disastrous for society as a whole and women freedom.

It is promoted and seen as acceptable by uneducated religious zealots who don't know any better because it is not prohibited in Islam, fast food in unhealthy and not prohibited in Islam either, does that mean we should eat fast food all the time.

Now, one-off cousin marriages may be fine in the situation. However, the situation is that most of these marriages are going on for generations.

It’s been proven, though, that marriage among first cousins has an 8% chance of a birth defect and that risk only gets higher if those offspring continue to marry their first cousins, which is the case in Pakistan.

There are a lot of medical problems that come with cousin marriages.

 * **Recessive Genes**: Everyone carries some harmful genes, but they usually don’t cause problems because we have two copies of each gene, one from each parent. If both parents carry the same harmful gene, their child has a higher chance of inheriting two copies of that gene, leading to genetic disorders.

 * **Common in Cousins**: Cousins share more genes than unrelated people, so their children are more likely to inherit the same harmful genes from both parents.

 * **Higher Chance of Birth Defects**:
* Children of closely related parents have a higher risk of being born with physical or developmental problems.

  * **Reduced Genetic Diversity**:
* Less variety in genes can make it harder for future generations to adapt to new diseases or environmental changes. Genetic diversity is like having a varied toolkit; the more tools (genes) you have, the better you can handle different problems.

 * **Health Problems**:
* There can be a higher incidence of illnesses like heart conditions, hearing loss, and certain metabolic disorders.

Scientists say inbreeding is causing an unusually high number of genetic mutations to spread in Pakistan, leading to disabilities in children of consanguineous marriages.

 More info:

https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-cousin-marriages-create-high-risk-of-genetic-disorders/a-60687452

https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l1851

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289608001608

https://www.nature.com/articles/266440a0

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212