Read a genetics book, idiot children!

[dangermousie]

So, I am reading Josephine Angelini's Starcrossed, which is actually a very entertaining YA supernatural novel (short take on plot - demigod clans live and fight among us, and heroine discovers she is member of one, when a different clan shows up and her imperative to murder them all acts up. In the middle of high school.)

I actually even like the heroine and the rest of the characters, including the heroine's love interest, who seems a decent guy. For a decent chunk of the book, heroine and her hunky dude have a problem - they can't be together or WW3 will start and the world will end. Cue emo! OK, fair enough, WW3 would suck.

Then, it turns out, they were wrong and WW3 will not start. Crisis averted and initiate make-outs? Not so fast! For an evil more impenetrable, deadly, scary obstacle faces them and they can never be together - they are first cousins.

How I laughed and laughed and laughed. I get that Cassandra Clare's City series might be giving Ms. Angelini's no peace, or that she just tried to find a general bad taboo but City series involved people who believed they were full siblings and, as far as taboos go, first cousins isn't really one!

I mean, sure, people will think it's slightly icky, on the par with marrying your teacher or someone who's too young/too old for you, but you know what it has in common with the latter examples? It's legal and only slightly gross! First cousin marriage is legal in 1/3 of the states (the book takes place in the US and the characters are Americans) which means, due to full faith and credit clause, it's legal in every state. Recent studies have also indicated that there is no harm to the putative kids, either, unless you've been doing cousin marriage for generations.

So, basically - ahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Instead of buying it as this big doomed and angsty thing, I ended the book laughing my head off. Really? Really? This is your big obstacle? Oh my God, how more idiotic could you get? Just get together, idiotic OTP, before I consider you are utterly mentally deficient.

Comments

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

First cousins? It is illegal in some states, I think. But, genetic-wise, marrying your first cousin (if it isn't really done a lot in your family) doesn't mean you'll have some mutant children. I heard about a student that suggested your percentage of having a disabled child only goes up 2% or so if you marry your first cousin. Not a huge issue, really. And, there have been many famous people (Queen Victoria and Prince Albert come to find) who have married their cousins and have had perfectly normal children. And no one thought it taboo. Not really.

[morwen_peredhil]

I'm not sure I'd refer to all of Victoria and Albert's children as "perfectly normal," due to the hemophilia that affected their son Leopold and of which some of their daughters were carriers, but as that is believed to have begun as a spontaneous mutation in Victoria (for the rare Hemophilia B), it cannot be blamed on the parents being first cousins.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much.

And it's not really illegal - I mean, you can't get a wedding license in state A because they won't issue it to first cousins, so you drive to state B that will, get married there, and then come back to state A who now has to recognize your marriage, so it's all pretty pointless.

[morwen_peredhil]

Ha! Yes. I have a degree in medieval history, a period in which cousins frequently married each other and it just meant getting a dispensation from the church (assuming one was of high enough social class to need to bother with such things), so I've never been able to get on board with all the pearl-clutching about cousin marriage.

Genetically, it's usually not a big deal unless it keeps happening generation after generation. You don't get all Hapsburgy from a single cousin marriage, people!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really don't get it. (Wasn't one of the Hapsburgs more genetically monotone than an offspring of siblings or something?)

[morwen_peredhil]

Yes, that was Charles II of Spain.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember, he barely learned to walk and similar. Eeek.

[jeslina.livejournal.com]

I'm more amazed that it's illegal in 2/3 of the states - sure, it's meaningless in practice, but why keep the law in the books at all?

Josephine Angelini needs to watch more Kdrama, with its various incarnations of icnest and faux-cest, hihi.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's illegal as in 'arrest' more like they won't issue a wedding license. Which is pointless because if you get married in state that recognizes it and move to state that doesn't, state that doesn't will now hold it valid.

[(Anonymous)]

lol...I don't see this as a major plot issue at all. The entire muslim world is allowed to marry their first cousin. That is over a billion people. Just because the west considers it taboo does not mean it is taboo in the rest of the world. PLot seemed interesting for this book but now I think I might give it a skip.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. It's not even some sort of strict taboo in the West either. Bizarre.