Arabization and Islamization of Consanguineous Marriages: Is It Right?

Most anthropologists and historians indicate that marriage was, and is still, a natural duty or an individual strategic event that is being practiced since the early existence of modern humans.This practice reflects the socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural, and religious needs of humankind (1).In 2008, Adam Kuper (2) of Brunel University reported what Charles Darwin, the greatest naturalist of the age, stated in 1868 that "the existence of a great law of nature is almost proved; namely, that the crossing of animals and plants which are not closely related to each other is highly beneficial or even necessary, and that interbreeding prolonged during many generations is highly injurious."Kuper added that "Darwin thought this was probably true of human beings."In this context, Claude Levi-Strauss, who was one of the greatest anthropologists of the 20th century, published a study "The elementary structures of kinship," in which he argued that "all the pre-modern societies of the world were on the basis of cross-cousin."However, the argument had an issue and the statement was criticized because Claude Levi-Strauss assumed that social structures progressed from a primitive to a civilized form.The term consanguinity came from the Latin words: con meaning shared and sanguis meaning blood.Thus, "blood relation," derived from the Latin word consanguinitas, is the property of being from the same kinship as another.Thus, consanguineous marriage is a contract between blood relatives who have at least one common ancestor no more remote than a great-great grandparent.The famous people who married their cousins included Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Queen Victoria, Franklin Roosevelt, and so forth (3).