Why do cousins kiss

Love words? Need even more definitions? Homophones, Homographs, and Homonyms The same, but different. Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice? The awkward case of 'his or her'.

Take the quiz. Our Favorite New Words How many do you know? Spell It Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? This metaphorical term alludes to a distant relative who is well known enough to be greeted with a kiss. Here, although she acknowledges the figurative use of "kissing cousins," Ammer sees the origin of the term as being strictly the well-known distant relative. In the South during the Civil War, kissing cousins were relatives who had the same political views.

That Ammer is correct as to the original meaning though wrong as to the date of origin of the phrase is clear from early Google Books matches for "kissing cousin.

Here I spent a few days of delightful happiness, especially in company with my pretty cousin with the Roman name. But having found out that kissing cousins was no longer fashionable in Virginia, and that it excited my dear aunt's nerves, with one last lingering kiss of the sweet lips, I had my little leather Chinese trunk packed on the head of a diminutive darkey and again embarked upon the James river and Kanawha canal. Pursuing my journey, I make the usual round of visits to uncles and cousins, and even remoter relatives.

Again I am charmed by visits to hospitable kin; and again, I am especially charmed by the Virginia fashion of kissing cousins to the third degree. God bless her! Speaking broadly of the South, I believe that there survives little real bitterness over the Civil War and the destructive and grotesquely named period of "reconstruction.

Marylanders who can trace their ancestry to the early period of colonization are all cousins, the outsider quickly concludes. Most of them actually are 'connections,' and when they aren't, they are ' kissing cousins ,' which generally means that parents and grandparents were lifelong, intimate friends. In none of this usage is there a hint of "kissing cousins" being used to refer to relatives who can kiss without taboo because they are distantly enough related that marriage is legally available to them.

In fact, kissing has never been taboo between close relatives. Is it against the law in New York State for first cousins to marry? If they do, will there be something wrong with their children? New York State law does not forbid marriage between first cousins.

There is a somewhat higher risk that children resulting from such a marriage may be born with a genetically determined defect or disease than would be present in children resulting from a marriage between two individuals who are not related. But this instance involves an eye-catching subhead, not an attempt to define kissing cousins in terms of a level of consanguinity at which marriage is acceptable.

The earliest actual usage I could find of "kissing cousins" in the sense of "blood relatives who are eligible to marry one another" is in Richard Jensen, Illinois: A History :. The churches enhanced their cohesiveness by fostering marriages within the group.

This actually widened the range of eligible spouses from immediate neighbors and " kissing cousins " to unrelated persons. The frontierspeople intermarried freely with natives of other states except Yankees and foreigners, who rarely gave or took brides from their upland southern neighbors in Illinois.

The Library of Congress's Chronicling America database of old newspapers finds a few matches for "kissing cousins" for the period between and , the most interesting of which is " Kissing a Pretty Cousin ," in the [Montpelier] Vermont Watchman and State Journal August 28, :. It is a grave question—has a man a right to kiss the tempting lips of a pretty cousin? The Philosopher of the Richmond Star averreth that he has, on being provoked to do so—and they say, he is the easiest man to be provoked within the limits of the "Old Dominion.

If you sip, it is not because you love, not exactly because you have the right, not upon grounds Platonic, nor with the calm satisfaction that you kiss a favorite sister. It is a sort of hocus-pocus commingling of all, into which each feeling throws its parts, until the concatenation is thrilling, peculiar, exciting, delicious, and "emphatically sleek.

The Major says he hopes this custom will travel fast into the other States, and become extensively fashionable—and the Major is a man of taste. A shortened version of the original remarks of the Virginia authority—identified as "Corporal Streeter"—appears in The [Spartanburg, South Carolina] Spartan September 25, Perhaps the most interesting thing about the OP's question is how widespread the notion is that "kissing cousins" has the meaning "cousins distantly enough related to be eligible to marry each other," despite the absence of support for that meaning in reference works.

In effect, we have a regional Southern American meaning—"related closely enough to justify kissing at greeting"—of long standing going back at least as far as in Virginia that subsequently caught on elsewhere as a phrase with a completely different meaning, without the newer users' having a clear notion of what the phrase originally meant.

Under the circumstances, it's hard to say how well established the "marriageable" sense of "kissing cousins" is. That meaning, though unconfirmed by reference works, shows signs of being fairly widespread today—as we see from the fact that the poster and several answerers here including at least one from the U. South seem to share it. There is no mention of it being an American term. All the examples given are British and date between and Speaking personally, I have never heard anyone use it.

I'm from a huge-ish family in Michigan, USA, and I've only ever heard the phrase "kissing cousins" used to refer to cousins distantly-enough related to be able to have a romantic relationship without assaulting the sensibilities of the community, typically in the range of 3rd cousins, or farther removed. The "kissed in salutation" definition is a. If you look for usage of this phrase, you can clearly find modern examples that use it to mean "closely related" and not "distantly-related".

Frogs and Humans are kissing cousins - Nature, A simple google search will find many more. Clearly, these examples are using the phrase metaphorically in the "close enough relation that you can greet with a kiss" sense, and not in the "distant enough relation that it's okay for them to make babies" sense.

That said, language changes, and sometimes phrases start to take on opposite meanings. When referring to literal cousins who are concerned about whether or not it's okay to make babies together, maybe you should avoid using this phrase. I agree with Mr. I am from a large family in Louisiana. Kissing cousins here means 3rd cousins or greater, meaning those cousins that are able to become intimate or wed.

And I have also have not heard of the term used as relations you can kiss. We pretty much hug and kiss all family members regardless of whether they are grandparents, Aunt, Uncle or cousins, whether closely or distantly related. I'm from Texas, by way of Oklahoma, and my experience with this term is slightly different than most here.

Most of the answers have described it as either close enough that a platonic kiss is proper, or distantly related enough that a romantic kiss is proper.

In my experience, the term has no limits of propriety; two things are "kissing cousins" if they are close in every way you can think of, whether it's socially acceptable for them to be so close in all those ways or not, and that's part of the point of adding the adjective; they don't just have a common ancestor, they share things with each other that perhaps ought not to be.

The expression kissing cousins arose in the American South from the practice of cousins greeting each other with a kiss:. A third cousin is one with which one shares a great great grandparent, so not a particularly close relation. Another writer in the same year, however, suggests that the custom had gone out of of fashion — or perhaps only temporarily:.

But having found out that kissing cousins was no longer fashionable in Virginia, and that it excited my dear aunt's nerves, … — Edward Alfred Pollard, Black Diamonds , , One wonders whether prevailing custom in Virginia or the nervous aunt is more responsible for this particular decline. In at least, the custom was still practiced as a pro forma greeting:. And of course the supreme mythmaker of the American South, Margaret Mitchell, felt compelled to comment on the Southern obsession with degrees of cousinship:.

The ramifications of cousins, double cousins, cousins-in-law and kissing cousins were so intricate and involved that no one but a born Georgian could ever unravel them. Though by the s the expression is rapidly escaping the South — see this NGram — it is still felt as a regionalism, often enclosed in quotation marks:.

Distant relatives and informal cousins, sometimes called "kissing cousins," attached themselves to households. Most of them actually are 'connections ,' and when they aren't, they are 'kissing cousins,' which generally means that parents and grandparents were lifelong, intimate friends. That's why there's no crazy royals, they're all kind of: [drawls] "Hello, hello. What do you do? Oh, you're a plumber. What on earth is that? Comic Books.

In the German comic Wendy , Wendy dates her foster-cousin for most of the story until her aunt decides that she doesn't want to adopt him and his twin sister after all, as they aren't as rich anymore. After that, he breaks up with Wendy to date his previous foster sister Vanessa instead, while implied to still live in her house. It's weird. Sorta justified: due to the limited gene pool of the Inhumans, just about every two-Inhuman marriage involves cousins.

Mark Millar 's post-apocalyptic Wolverine story " Old Man Logan " features a future were Hulk and cousin She-Hulk have bred and produced inbred offspring. This is all due to her being the only woman able to "Take the pace" of Hulk sexually.

Hulk and She-Hulk are both radioactive too, which probably doesn't help There's also some implication that it may not be consensual. For those who don't know the Superman mythos, Lucy and Lois are sisters, which makes Lucy and Jimmy's son the cousin of Lois and Clark's daughter.

Apparently, that doesn't bother Lola or Jimmy Jr, let alone their parents, happily watching them make out. The issue itself makes no mention of them being cousins, with the main obstacle to their happiness being It's Not You, It's My Enemies.

They do live Happily Ever After in the end. In that one, Kara tries to find Supes a girlfriend. After many failed attempts, we get a scene where it's obvious they are really attracted to each other, which seems to make it perfectly clear that the law is the only thing stopping them from pursuing a relationship maybe they minded a lot less in the '60s? Eventually, Kara fixes Supes up with a girl that is nigh identical to herself, but older, and they hit it off.

Unfortunately, it turns out yellow sun is her Kryptonite, and he can't leave Earth unprotected, so they must part. Also, from the same source as Lex Luthor stealing forty cakes note That's as many as four tens. And That's Terrible! In Silver Age story Action Comics , Clark has Kara disguise herself as a superheroine from another dimension, and she and Supes proceed to have make-outs in front of Lois , all to fool some dim alien invasion. She was explicitly underage at the time, too.

At least Kara was already an adult woman at the time. In Supergirl : Candor , Kara is mind-controlled by evil telepath Saturn Queen into getting engaged to Ultraman, an evil Alternate Universe counterpart of Superman, but genetically it makes no difference. Superboy is repeatedly shown to be attracted to his cousins, Supergirl and Power Girl - the former was revealed by his Black Lantern self, and the latter in a brief moment when he was trapped in a tight space with Cir-El and mumbled a complaint of, "Why couldn't I have been trapped in her with Power Girl?

The fact that he has a definite thing for blue-eyed blondes such as Cassie Sandsmark and Lori Luthor also his cousin , before he found out just who the latter was, suggests that he Has a Type. The ultimate desire of Marvel Comics superhero Namora has been shown to be her cousin Namor. Namor's late wife Dorma was also his cousin. MAD 's Monroe was once visited by his punky Scottish cousin, and they made out a few times.

She decided she didn't want to see him anymore because he was freaky with his "finger-skateboards", but as he said, at least he got to "make oot" that summer. In the arc where she returns to her homeworld and takes up the reins, she's shown resisting the idea of marrying him, but since he shows a number of her traits—lots of courage, love of fighting and freedom, disdain for tradition for tradition's sake and even being a fighter pilot like her—she warms up to him. It's never shown whether they actually get married at some point.

And their being cousins never seemed to bother Plourr, it was only the "arranged marriage to an aristocrat she hadn't seen in 20 years" part that was a problem. In the Douwe Dabbert story Florin the Loafer , count Justus van Bottericke attempts to force his cousin Gwendoline to marry him, because if she does not, he will lose the rights to his title. In Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comics , Knuckles the Echidna and his girlfriend Julie-Su are actually distant cousins, but neither one is aware of it, and it's not directly acknowledged anywhere in the series.

Helene and Franz from a story by Wilhelm Busch. Despite him being a Catholic priest. Comic Strips. Norman Drabble once ran into his girlfriend at a family wedding. After spending some time having fun with her, he asks why she's there. It turns out they're both related to the bride. A few strips later, it was revealed that they weren't blood relatives, but Norman didn't tell his girlfriend that immediately.

Fairy Tales. Several of Madame d'Aulnoy 's Fairy Tale couples are first cousins — a natural consequence of their both having to have Royal Blood and reflecting the royal families of their day.

Also, Belle-Etoile and her husband Cheri are double first cousins—their fathers are brothers and their mothers are sisters. The two have another cousin, Azire, who is in love with Parcin Parcinet.

Subverted, however, in that the two do not get married at the end. La Force's The Good Woman features two cousin couples. The main couple, Lirette and Finfin, are first cousins.

The Beta Couple , Mirtis Lirette's older sister and Finfin's unnamed younger brother, are also first cousins. In the first written version of Beauty and the Beast , Beauty and the Beast turn out to be first cousins: his mother and her biological father are siblings. Their fathers are first cousins. Rosanella features a second cousin couple. Rosanella's father and Mirliflor's father are first cousins.

The protagonists, Houarn Pogamm and Bellah Postik, are first cousins through their mothers. Ourson by the Comtesse de Segur: the protagonist Ourson and his love interest Violette are first cousins. The main couple, Philonice and Anaxandre, are first cousins. Ali, the middle son, ends up marrying her. Averted with the protagonist Ahmed the sultan's youngest son and his wife Paribanou, who are not relatives.

In many Arab fairy tales, reflecting common practices, a woman is normally expected to marry her first cousin. One example of such a couple is found in The Story of Dschemil and Dschemila, which comes from Libya. This causes serious complications when she falls in love with another man; some tales have men forced to leave a tribe lest it happen. However, some first cousins graciously concede; this is often resolved by the new bridegroom offering the first cousin his own cousin.

In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction, Maternal Instinct, the Changeling royal family, the House of Roachanov, has a reputation for practicing royal intermarriage, much like the European monarchies of old, ironic as the culture is predominantly of Imperial Japan.

The Phineas and Ferb fandom has a fairly large following for a pair of Original Characters named Marie Flynn daughter of Phineas and Isabella and Thomas Fletcher son of Ferb and Vanessa , with the latter having a crush on the former.

All in all though, Thomarie is pretty cute Ben 10 has a rather large following for Ben and Gwen since the first series. This can be connected to the Bleached Underpants history of the original draft of the show in which Ben and Gwen were not relatives but rather in the same school class.

In their case, Katja is adopted so they're unrelated by blood. Child of the Storm touches on this a couple of times in regards to Harry and Jean Grey, his second cousin on his mother's side, who's about two and a half years older than he is.

The author , who's British and therefore less fazed by such a relationship, included her as someone Harry might end up dating in a poll naturally, he would Take a Third Option. When they meet, the two are immediately drawn to each other and are revealed to have a psychic connection that is theorised to possibly even date back to the womb.

However, on Jean's side, the relationship is entirely platonic she sees him as the little brother that she never had while Harry's attitude is a little more complicated. Emotionally, he wants a big sister type figure. However, he's a straight Hormone-Addled Teenager , and Jean is gorgeous. Ultimately, emotions win, though he doesn't suddenly become blind to Jean's good looks, being rather embarrassed when he sees her in a skimpy bikini. Maddie is another kettle of fish entirely, for all that she's Jean's Separated at Birth twin sister and she has the same mental connection.

When he sees her in a thin, skimpy nightie, he pays rather more attention than he did with Jean, trying not to stare. It's later noted in the sequel that a part of him thinks more than just cousinly thoughts about her. In Game of Thrones , cousin marriages are more commonplace among nobility in Westeros for political reasons. For example, in the show itself, Tywin and Joanna Lannister were first cousins and Ned Stark's parents were first cousins once removed.

Though Jon and Sansa believe they are half-siblings with the same father Ned Stark , the Season 6 finale revealed to the viewers and Bran Stark that a long-believed fan theory of Jon's parentage is true: Jon is the son of Ned's sister Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, making Jon and Sansa cousins. Ned Stark claimed and raised Jon as his illegitimate son alongside his kids with Catelyn to protect Jon from Robert Baratheon, who wanted to kill anyone with Targaryen blood.

Superman story Superman of The Great Confrontation provides some examples: Alan and Kath are twenty-second cousins, so no one objects to their relationship. On the other hand, Adam and Sybilla are first cousins. None of their parents is comfortable with their getting together. In The Berserker's Bride , Hiccup and Snotlout were originally meant to marry Snotlout thinking that she was useless while she thought of him as The Bully , only for her to instead marry Dagur to unite their tribes.

After she visits Berk with Dagur and reveals that she is pregnant, Snotlout tries coming on to her thinking that she's now attractive and even almost tries raping her.

Pretty common in Harry Potter fics involving Fan-Created Offspring , because 12 of the 16 canon characters are Weasleys. Discussed in Brontide , where Harry and Ginny had officially adopted Teddy as their son, and he worries that this would prevent him from pursuing romance with Victoria since she's technically his cousin.

Jerrica's mother Jacqui grew up in the foster care system after her mother died in childbirth. At the end of the story, Jerrica and her sister Kimber find papers that show who fathered Jacqui. It turns out that they share the same grandfather as Eric Raymond. Jerrica had a crush on him when she was younger and Eric, during his Villainous Breakdown , developed a Villainous Crush on Jerrica and tried to rape her.

Kimber and Jerrica are both grossed out by learning their relationship to their now-deceased cousin. Nala is secretly Sarafina and Scar's child, while Scar is Simba's uncle. During the Random Slashy Interludes in Bag Enders , Merry and Pippin often resort to each other when they can't find anyone else, and sometimes include Frodo.

It comes up in Kara of Rokyn when the titular character tells her family about her cousin's teenage crush on a girl nicknamed "Supergirl". When asked if he fell for her, Kara dodges the question. Kara Zor-El said, "Would you believe that Kal once told me that one of the first girls he ever fell for in his life was named Supergirl? Films — Animation. This is later defied in The Lion Guard where it's shown that Nala's dad is a random, unknown lion. Kovu was meant to be Scar's son but then they noticed that'd make Kiara and Kovu cousins once removed.

Of course, this just raises the question of who Kovu's real father is, or why he looks so much like Scar. In Bambi , Faline is referred to as Bambi's cousin in some supplementary material. In the book they are first cousins through their mothers.

Disney made sure to not mention this in the film, making it vague if they're related or not. Referenced in Quest for Camelot by Devon, one half of the two-headed dragon, when the human heroes inquire what exactly they are. Devon: Frankly, we're the reason cousins shouldn't marry. Films — Live-Action. Dames : Lovers Jimmy and Barbara are members of the same extended family.

Mary is amused but uninterested. Colin's response is a jealous loathing of Dickon, the servant boy who helps them in the titular garden, with whom he suspects Mary of falling in love.

Their mothers are stated to be identical twins, thus making this even iffier genetically, since the offspring of identical twins are genetic half-siblings assuming the other parents involved to not also be identical and to be two different people. In the Hallmark adaptation adult Colin portrayed by a very young-looking Colin Firth proposes to Mary at the end and she accepts.

However, in this version, they are not related — Colin's father is an old friend of Mary's parents instead of being Mary's uncle. Michael is against their relationship, but Mary's mother Kay is not. However, Michael's objections are apparently not based on consanguinity, but the danger of Vincent's lifestyle. In the Victorian farce The Wrong Box , Michael tries to resist his attraction to his cousin Julia: note It turns out they were both adopted; her parents were missionaries and were eaten by their congregation.

Michael: We both know what kissing leads to, and if I may be blunt, our children would be idiots. Julia: Why, is there insanity in your family?

Karen: Yeah, but Like, you have your cousins, and then you have your first cousins, and then you have your second cousins Gretchen: No, honey, uh-uh. Karen: That's not right, is it? Gretchen: That is so not right. In The 39 Clues , all Cahills are distantly related The series has fun with this trope. The locals see nothing wrong with cousin marriage.

The transplanted Americans are a lot more sensitive about this sort of thing being from West Virginia, they've heard ALL the "inbred hillbilly" jokes. Louisa May Alcott has two books with examples of this. In Rose in Bloom , the only people that the heroine Rose even considers marrying are three of her seven male cousins: Archie who falls for Rose's lady-in-waiting Phebe , Charlie "the Handsome," and Mackenzie, aka Mac.

Rose's guardian, Uncle Alec, explicitly says that he does not approve of cousins marrying, but that he can't think of a better possible match for her; meanwhile her aunt Clara, Charlie's mother - overheard and tactlessly quoted by yet another cousin - holds that Rose should marry one of them "to keep the money in the family.

As a bonus, Archie's year-old brother Jamie gives Rose a love declaration at some point, which she rejects not because he's her cousin, but because she sees him as Just a Kid. Jane Austen has several examples of this. The elder Mr.

Bertram was concerned about adopting Fanny for this very reason, though his objection was not to incest but to Fanny beng of a much lower status than a baronet's son. Anne Elliot in Persuasion is wooed by her cousin and her older sister wants to marry that same cousin. It's implied that he's actually a few branches away on their family tree, but he still flirts with Anne by saying he hopes her name never changes.

Also, Henrieta Musgrove marries her first cousin Charles Hayter. They planned to elope, but his father stopped them and forced Eliza to marry Colonel Brandon's older brother. In the present, Eliza's namesake daughter and Brandon's ward is commonly believed to be Brandon's natural daughter. Pride and Prejudice : Mr. Collins is a cousin of some sort to the Bennet sisters and comes to their house with the intention of marrying one of them. Lady Catherine de Bourgh wants her nephew to marry her daughter.

In the Babar books, the title character eventually married his cousin, Celeste. The Animated Adaptation changed this particular aspect, making the two unrelated and turning their relationship into Childhood Friend Romance instead. Of course, the books never specify what degree of cousin Celeste is. They start off a Childhood Friends but come mating season as adults and Bambi becomes deeply attracted to his female cousin.

They end up having twin foals together, but by their birth Bambi has already abandoned them. Skinflick in Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper is a young mafioso in love with his cousin. The narrator is non-judgmental about this.

It's even more complicated becuse Ella was orphaned as a child and raised as Charu's sister. Charu strictly sees Ella as her older sister, but Ella only sees Charu as a cousin. In A Brother's Price , Jerin Whistler and the Princess Rennsellaer find, after downgrading his virginity status to technical levels , that they share great-great-grandmothers making them third cousins. Ren declares that it is distant enough for the relation to be fine and, indeed, that's how it's seen.

In the Bunduki novels by J. Edson , Bunduki and Dawn are adoptive cousins. They end up married. In Lawrence Block's The Burglar in the Library it's revealed that Earlene Cobb is pregnant with her cousin Orris' baby and that she put sugar in the snowblower's gas tank to punish him for showing interest in their cousin Molly.

In Dorothy L. Sayers 's Busman's Honeymoon , Lord Peter Wimsey worries about children because of how his brother's turned out. Harriet points out that his brother married his own cousin; his sister, who married a commoner, has children who are perfectly fine. The Camp Half-Blood Series and its associated spin-off series : Some couples in the franchise, particularly from the Greco-Roman series, are technically this, as their divine parents are part of a really complicated Tangled Family Tree.

For example, the main couple, Percy and Annabeth, are first cousins once removed, since the former's father, Poseidon, is an uncle of the latter's mother, Athena. However, The Last Olympian handwaves this by stating that gods don't have DNA, so it isn't creepy for couples with different divine parents to have a relationship. Couples with the same godly parents, however, are creepy. Other than gods, the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series has Sam being betrothed to Amir, who is explicitly stated to be a relative on the mortal side.

They are both descended from the Real Life 10th-century traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan, but whether there are closer shared ancestors is unknown. Cousin marriage or at least marriage between close families is actually a common practice in the Arab world, not only to strengthen alliances the Arabs being traditionally a clannish society but also to keep inheritance in-family.

Chrestomanci explains that when they decided to marry, it caused their family to make a great fuss. In The Darkangel Trilogy there's a love triangle in which all three participants are cousins. Two of them didn't know they were related at first, but the discovery has no effect at all on their romance either bad or good—it doesn't seem to be relevant to them.

Deryni : According to King Kelson getting a dispensation to marry a first cousin once removed isn't a problem, implying that the Church would be reluctant to allow marriage between a couple more closely related. Deliberate, as the story takes place in equivalent of fourteenth-century Europe.

She refuses, mostly on the grounds that she can't stand him but also on the grounds that he might actually be her half-brother, given that her father and his mother were a little closer than siblings ought to be. He isn't. Lycheas was actually the son of Annias, which was part of why he was pushing the marriage. He damns himself and ends up killing her by accepting the demonic blade Stormbringer to rescue her from her brother Yyrkoon.

In Tanya Huff 's The Enchantment Emporium Gales, a clan of witches usually though not always marry their cousins to keep from diluting the magic inherent in their genes and to keep said magic secret.

Furthermore because there are far more female Gales than male the boys usually "make the rounds" of their age group cousins before settling down. This imbalance between the sexes also leads to a lot of "close" relationships between the Gale girls. One of these, between main character Alysha and her cousin Charlie is particularly focused on in the book. The three still remember these escapades as some of their happiest moments ever.

Also it's mentioned that the girls's parents did seriously consider to have him marry one of the girls, "sighing because there was only one if him". Probably wouldn't have stopped any of them if they did know, though.

He certainly doesn't seem horrified by it when he does find out. In fact he winds up marrying the youngest sister Cordelia. Whether she knows about the family connection or not isn't revealed. In the version, Elizabeth was adopted rather than being related to Victor, but the two were still raised as siblings.

Averted in The Goblin Emperor : Maia, the new emperor, does not know much about the noble families, but when his marriage is discussed he draws attention to the fact that some of the potential brides must be related to him, and says that he would rather not marry a cousin. His secretary promptly excludes any woman closer than the third degree of kinship from the list.

The Wilkes and Hamilton families in Gone with the Wind have the tradition of cousins marrying each other. The text makes it clear that multi-generational inbreeding is the main reason for Melly's frail health and physique.