Marrying Your Cousin

[LTNgurl]

does catholicism allow marrying a family member such as your cousin or uncle? I dont think we allow this, but in my husbands religion (islam) they do allow this. personally i think that is wrong, but i dont know what the Bible says about this.

thanx in advance!

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
4/28 - St. Peter Chanel

LTNgurl,

Good question. There is something in the Church called "rules of consanguinity" - consanguinity meaning a relative (lit. with the same blood).

Basically, for two people to marry, there must be four degrees of separation. Let's say that Dan wants to marry Katie, his maternal first cousin. The Church says that there are only three degrees of separation between them. The three degrees are:

1.) Dan and his mother.
2.) Dan's mother and Dan's uncle.
3.) Dan's uncle and Katie.

A fourth degree must be present for a marriage to be valid. For instance, Dan could marry his second cousin because a fourth (and a fifth) element is introduced (namely, Dan's grandmother). Hope this helps.

Yours,
Pio Nono

[Adeodatus]

Pio may have been trying to simplify his answer. Basically his answer is right but the reasoning is not.

Let me explain. Current Canon Law forbids marriage [b]up to and including[/b] 4 degrees of consangunity. (Pio says 4 degrees are OK, Canon Law says No---but Pio has a different way of reckoning the degrees).

But Canon Law has a different method of reckoning degrees of consanguinity. If two people who are related, A and B, want to marry, you reckon the degree of consanguinity (i.e. 'relatedness' or 'same-bloodedness') by counting back from A to [b]the common ancestor,[/b] and then down again to B. You count the number of 'generations' or steps.

Imagine a family with matriarch X. X has two kids, Y and Z. Y is the mother of A, and Z is the mother of B. Can A and B (first cousins) marry? Well, count the steps from A to the common ancestor X, and then down to B. A to Y, one, Y to X, two, X to Z, three, Z to B, four. Therefore A and B are within 4 degrees of consanguinity and cannot marry. If B had an offspring C, could C marry A? If you count the steps, they come to 5, so yes, they can marry.

Having said this, Canon Law can dispense people occasionally, for pressing reasons, to marry within 3 degrees of separation, i.e. uncle and niece, or aunt and nephew. Beyond this Canon Law can't legislate, because natural law would forbid marriage of only two degrees separation (brother and sister).

All the degrees of consanguinity we've talked about are in the collateral line, i.e. we're considering A and B marrying where neither A nor B is the ancestor of the other. In the vertical line, you [b]cannot[/b] marry any relative, even if---by some miracle---you're separated by 3 degrees (if dispensed) and both still alive, e.g. man and his great-grandmother or woman and her great-grandfather. No degree of separation can permit such marriages.