questions some of us thought to ask

joshua keating wrote on his foreign policy blog last week:

Questions you never thought to ask: Is inbreeding bad for democracy?

heh. (~_^)

well, some of us HAVE thought to ask that very question, a couple of people waaaay before i did — going back to 2002 in fact:

- Consanguinity prevents Middle Eastern political development from parapundit.
- Cousin Marriage Conundrum – from steve sailer. steve’s essay was also included in a volume co-edited by steven pinker, The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004.

keating is referring to the woodley and bell paper, Consanguinity as a Major Predictor of Levels of Democracy: A Study of 70 Nations, which was published last year and which i blogged about here (and here and here and here) — and steve sailer also blogged about at the time.

just to refresh everyone’s memory, woodley and bell found a negative correlation (r = –0.632, p < 0.001) between the frequency of consanguineous marriages in the 70 nations at which they looked and the level of democracy in those countries. in other words, the greater the amount of consanguineous marriages in a country, the less democracy it probably has.

keating is not convinced:

“As a counterpoint, Iceland — a country so isolated and sparsely populated that people need an Android app to keep them from hooking up with a close relative — has had a representative parliament since the 10th century and a culture of individualism so strong they write Nobel Prize-winning novels about it. So there.”

two things.

first of all, it should be remembered that woodley and bell specifically looked for success at liberal democracy (fwiw, ymmv). from the paper:

“As conceived here, democracy refers to a system in which there is opportunity for competitive elections and deliberative referendums, with broad public participation encouraged for both (Vanhanen, 2003). Democracy in this instance refers exclusively to the liberal variety where the emphasis is on competitive politics, rather than the classical type in which the focus is on consensus building and statesmanship (Werlin, 2002). Two key characteristics of liberal democratic systems include the presence of institutions that permit citizens to express preferences for alternative policies and leaders, and the existence of institutionalized constraints that prevent the misuse of power by an executive elite (Inglehart, 2003; Lipset, 1959; Marshall & Jaggers, 2010).”

secondly, tenth century icelandic democracy was not an example of liberal democracy — and wasn’t right through to 1262 when the norwegian crown took over the governance of iceland. rather, the icelandic commonwealth was a system based on consensus which i posted about previously here.

early medieval icelanders were represented at their alþingi by regional chieftans known as goðar. nobody elected these goðar — they were the local strongmen from various areas of iceland, and they typically inherited their position, although these chieftainships were sometimes sold. you could, in theory, pick your own goði to whom you swore allegiance, but apparently in practice this rarely ever happened — because a lot of medieval icelanders were kin to their goðar [pdf], and it’s almost always bloody awkward to break it off with family — especially when you can’t easily move to the other side of the island or something.

so these early medieval icelandic “representatives” bore little resemblance to the representatives we have in modern, parliamentary systems (h*ck – maybe that was a good thing!). if you were an early medieval icelander, your alþingi representative was likely your kin, and you were probably stuck with him for life — until his son took over. this was not liberal democracy.

did the early medieval icelanders marry their cousins? i’m not sure. it’s very likely that their immediate ancestors from norway did (like the early medieval swedes probably did), and the medieval icelanders ignored many other of the church’s teachings and regulations on marriage at the time [pdf], so i wouldn’t be surprised if they did. the fact that medieval icelandic society seems to have devolved from one in which kinship was comparatively unimportant to a state where large clans controlled the place also suggests to me that they married their cousins — or at least mated awfully closely (they may not have had to marry very close cousins since they were such a small population to start off with).
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having said all that, when trying to work out why the medieval icelanders — or any other group for that matter — didn’t/don’t have liberal democracy, it’s not really important whether or not they were marrying their cousins at the time in question. well, it is … and it isn’t. (don’t pull your hair out just yet.)

what is important (i think) is whether or not the medieval icelanders — or any group-X — had been marrying their cousins over the long-term. i don’t think that there’s an instantaneous connection between cousin marriage (or other close mating) and failing to manage a functional liberally democratic system. what i think that there is are longer term evolutionary processes connected to inbreeding/outbreeding patterns and the selection for individualism vs. familism or clannism. and if you have clannism, liberal democracy will just not work.

woodley and bell acquired their consanguinity data from consang.net. here’s a map of those data:

what stands out right away is that consanguinity rates are very high in the arab world, the middle east, north africa, and places like pakistan and afghanistan, while rates are really low in the u.s. and scandinavia. that seems to fit the cousin-marriage-doesn’t-promote-democracy theory. but the cousin marriage rates in china are very low — same range as england and western europe. why don’t the chinese manage to have a liberal democracy then?

what you have to understand is that this map is a snapshot. it is a moment in time (mostly the twentieth century). it doesn’t tell us much about the history of cousin marriage in any of these societies — whether any of it’s been short-term or long-term — and without knowing that, we can’t even start to guess at any effects the mating patterns (and related family types) might’ve had on the evolution of behaviors in these populations, including those related to clannishness.

once you know, for instance, that up until very recently, the chinese actually preferred cousin marriage, then you can — i think — begin to understand why they’re clannish (or, at least, extended family-ish). and why, therefore, liberal democracy doesn’t work there — or didn’t arise there in the first place either.

rinse and repeat for all the other locales on the map.
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see also Cousin Marriage and Democracy @marginal revolution.

previously: liberal democracy vs. consensus building and democracy and endogamous mating practices and “hard-won democracy”

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linkfest – 04/28/13

Questions you never thought to ask: Is inbreeding bad for democracy? – i thought to ask. so did a few other people (way before me!): steve sailer, stanley kurtz, parapundit. see also Cousin Marriage and Democracy. and, of course, see also woodley and bell. and see Question of the Day @breviosity. previously: consanguinity and democracy.

A Dose of Clannishness and What’s So Bad About Clanocracy? – @breviosity!

Where do those tensions come from? – “When the Milgram experiment was done with Jordanian assistants, they were just as willing as Americans to inflict pain under orders (62.5%). But they were more willing than Americans [1.4%] to inflict pain when no orders were given, with 12.5% of them delivering shocks right up to the top end of the scale (Shanab & Yahya, 1978).” – great post from peter frost!

Modern Europe’s Genetic History Starts in Stone Age – “Scientists create the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe.” – original research article. see also mtDNA haplogroup H and the origin of Europeans (Brotherton et al. 2013) from dienekes.

As women live longer and have fewer children, they are becoming taller and slimmer, study finds – “‘This is a reminder that declines in mortality rates do not necessarily mean that evolution stops, but that it changes.’”

Birth Defects, FBD Marriages – from anatoly.

HBD Fundamentals – from jayman!

Why the Tropics are an evolutionary hotbed – “Ant family tree shows tropical New World hosts fast speciation while also keeping older lineages alive.”

Study: People Who Believe in God Are More Responsive to Treatment of Depression – “It may be that ‘the tendency to have faith in conventional social constructs’ can be generalized both to religion and the medical establishment.”

Beauty isn’t skin deep – @mangan’s.

Social psychology fraud: Just tell professors what they want to hear – from steve sailer.

Book Review: Quiet – The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (2012) by Susan Cain – from staffan. and a classic: Caring for Your Introvert. (just shush already! (~_^) )

Ethnic origins of Forbes world billionaires (2013) – @race/history/evolution notes.

Computer scientists suggest new spin on origins of evolvability – “‘[E]volvable species accumulate over time even without selective pressure.’” – in their computer simulations.

Culture — Not Just a Human Thing – vervet monkeys got culture. also Parrots Barter With Nuts.

Humans Evolved Flexible, Lopsided Brains – some of us more lopsided than others. (~_^)

When Do Babies Become Conscious? – “New research shows that babies display glimmers of consciousness and memory as early as 5 months old.”

Fish win fights on strength of personality – “When predicting the outcome of a fight, the big guy doesn’t always win suggests new research on fish.”

Feeding our gut bacteria meat may enhance heart disease risks – “Antibiotics or vegetarian diets block production of a risk-associated chemical.”

On Hold: Genes That Pause Pregnancy Discovered

Giza Secret Revealed: How 10,000 Pyramid Builders Got Fed – “This meat-rich diet, along with the availability of medical care (the skeletons of some workers show healed bones), would have been an additional lure for ancient Egyptians to work on the pyramids…. ‘They probably got a much better diet than they got in their village….’”

Earliest Mayan monuments unearthed in Guatemala. see also Ancient Maya discovery sheds new light on the origins of civilization.

bonus: Levels of Commitment to the Dark Enlightenment – @habitable worlds. also What are characteristics of the Dark Enlightenment? @occam’s razor.

bonus bonus: How Cuban Villagers Learned They Descended From Sierra Leone Slaves – “The amazing story of the traditional songs and dances, passed down over hundreds of years, that have tied a small Caribbean ethnic group to a remote African tribe.” – cool story!

bonus bonus bonus: Revealed: The Indian village with just 6,000 inhabitants … but more than 100 pairs of twins – another town of twins!

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Can Animals Be Mentally Ill?

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: not a news story, but here’s the definition of stubborn – Last Two Speakers of Dying Language Refuse to Talk to Each Other

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Thanks to rare alpine bacteria, researchers identify one of alcohol’s key gateways to the brain – “Discovery is a step on the road to eventually developing drugs that could disrupt the interaction between alcohol and the brain.” – cool! wait. they want to disrupt the effect of alcohol on the brain?! hey!

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where do clans come from?

in “Family Structure, Institutions, and Growth: The Origins and Implications of Western Corporations,” stanford economist avner greif wrote [pgs. 308-09]:

“There is a vast amount of literature that considers the importance of the family as an institution. Little attention, however, has been given to the impact of the family structure and its dynamics on institutions. This limits our ability to understand distinct institutional developments — and hence growth — in the past and present. This paper supports this argument by highlighting the importance of the European family structure in one of the most fundamental institutional changes in history and reflects on its growth-related implications.

“What constituted this change was the emergence of the economic and political corporations in late medieval Europe. Corporations are defined as consistent with their historical meaning: intentionally created, voluntary, interest-based, and self-governed permanent associations. Guilds, fraternities, universities, communes, and city-states are some of the corporations that have historically dominated Europe; businesses and professional associations, business corporations, universities, consumer groups, counties, republics, and democracies are examples of corporations in modern societies….

“In tracing the origins of the European corporations, we focus on their complementarity with the nuclear family. We present the reasons for the decline of kinship groups in medieval Europe and why the resulting nuclear family structure, along with other factors, led to corporations. European economic growth in the late medieval period was based on an unprecedented institutional complex of corporations and nuclear families, which, interestingly, still characterizes the West. More generally, European history suggests that this complex was conducive to long-term growth, although we know little about why this was the case or why it is difficult to transplant this complex to other societies….

“The conquest of the Western Roman Empire by Germanic tribes during the medieval period probably strengthened the importance of kinship groups in Europe. Yet the actions of the church caused the nuclear family — consisting of a husband and wife, children, and sometimes a handful of close relatives — to dominate Europe by the late medieval period.

“The medieval church instituted marriage laws and practices that undermined kinship groups…. The church … restricted marriages among individuals of the same blood (consanguineous marriages), which had historically provided one means of creating and maintaining kinship groups….

“European family structures did not evolve monotonically toward the nuclear family, nor was their evolution geographically or socially uniform (Greif, 2006, chap. 8).** By the late medieval period, however, the nuclear family was dominant. Even among the Germanic tribes, by the eighth century the term ‘family’ denoted one’s immediate family and, shortly afterwards, tribes were no longer institutionally relevant. Thirteenth-century English court rolls reflect that even cousins were as likely to be in the presence of nonkin as with each other. The practices the church advocated (e.g., monogamy) are still the norm in Europe. Consanguineous marriages in contemporary Europe account for less than 1 percent of the total number of marriages, in contrast to Muslim and Middle Eastern countries where such marriages account for between 20 and 50 percent per country (Alan H. Bittles, 1994). Among the anthropologically defined 356 contemporary societies of Euro-Asia and Africa, there is a large and significant negative correlation between the spread of Christianity (for at least 500 years) and the absence of clans and lineages; the level of commercialization, class stratification, and state formation are insignificantly correlated (Andrey V. Korotayev, 2003).”
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the presence (or absence) of clans in societies is somehow connected to the mating patterns of societies. in fact, it seems to be that a whole range of kinship-based societal types is somehow connected to a whole range of mating patterns: the “closer” the mating patterns in a society, the more “clannish” it tends to be — the more distant the mating patterns, the less “clannish.”

so we see a spectrum of “clannish” societies ranging from the very individualistic western societies characterized by nuclear families and, crucially, very little inbreeding (cousin marriage, for instance) to very tribal arab or bedouin societies characterized by nested networks of extended families and clans and large tribal organizations and having very high levels of inbreeding (specifically a form of very close cousin marriage which increases the degree of inbreeding). falling somewhere in between these two extremes are groups like the chinese whose society is built mostly around the extended familiy but in some regions of china also clans — or the medieval scots (especially the highland scots) whose society for centuries was built around the clan (h*ck, they even coined the term!). these “in-betweener” groups are, or were, characterized by mid-levels of inbreeding (typically avoiding the very close cousin marriage form of the arabs).

furthermore, not only do the degrees of extended family-ness/clannish-ness/tribal-ness in societies seem to be connected to the degrees of inbreeding in those societies, the degrees of “clannism” also seem to be connected to the degree of inbreeding — the more inbreeding, the less civicness, the less democracy, the more corruption, and so on.

it’s not clear what exactly the mechanism(s) behind this inbreeding-leads-to-clannishness pattern is, but since mating patterns are involved, and mating is a very biological process, it seems likely (to me anyway) that the explanation is something biological — i.e. some sort or sorts of evolutionary process/es — like natural selection — resulting in different/different degrees of behavioral traits related to “clannism” in different populations with inbreeding acting as a sort of accelerant for those processes.

clans and clannism, then, are not things that peoples “fall back on” in the absence of a state as mark weiner suggests in The Rule of the Clan [kindle locations 106-108]:

“[I]n the absence of the state, or when states are weak, the individual becomes engulfed within the collective groups on which people must rely to advance their goals and vindicate their interests. Without the authority of the state, a host of discrete communal associations rush to fill the vacuum of power. And for most of human history, the primary such group has been the extended family, the clan.”

rather, people’s attachments to their extended families/clans/tribes — and, more importantly, their tendencies towards clannish behaviors — are likely innate behaviors. and those behaviors likely vary, on average, between populations since (long-term) mating patterns have varied — and, indeed, still vary — between populations.

such innate behaviors cannot be changed overnight — certainly not within a generation or even two (evolution does take some amount of time — but not, necessarily, extremely long amounts of time either) — and definitely not by simply changing a few laws here and there in the hopes of encouraging individualism. as avner greif grasped, although probably not fully because he’s likely missed the underlying biology of what he’s noticed, family structures need to be altered in order to effect changes to larger societal structures (again, all via tweaks to innate behavioral tendencies). and, again, that can’t be done overnight — as greif pointed out, the process in europe began in the early medieval period (with the church’s bans on cousin marriages) and didn’t really start to take hold until the late medieval period — i.e. a 500 year (or, conservatively, a ca. 25 generation) timeline.
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see also: Cousin Marriage Conundrum by steve sailer and Why Europe? by michael mitterauer (in particular chapter 3) and Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade by avner greif.

**see “mating patterns in europe series” in left-hand column below ↓ for further details.

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linkfest – 02/25/13

Natural selection acts to maintain diversity between Out of Africa and sub-Saharan African populations in genes related to neurological processes and brain development – aapa abstract @race/history/evolution notes.

Hispanic Genomic Diversity, Part I: European, African, and Amerindian Admixtures and the Taíno ‘Extinction’ Controversy – “This post deals with the variance in European, African, and Amerindian/Taíno admixture in five of the twenty Hispanic subgroups….” – from nelson!

Misguided Nostalgia for Our Paleo Past – “Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending even suggest that human evolution as a whole has, on the contrary, accelerated over the last several thousand years, and they also believe that relatively isolated groups of people, such as Africans and North Americans, are subject to differing selection. That leads to the somewhat uncomfortable suggestion that such groups might be evolving in different directions—a controversial notion to say the least.” – i dunno why that suggestion should be uncomfortable, but i guess it is. -?- see also steve sailer.

Predictable evolution trumps randomness of mutations – “Separate bacteria populations may respond to environmental changes in identical ways.”

Mediterranean Diet Cuts Heart Disease Risk – IN MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLE! – “Heart disease experts said the study was a triumph because it showed that a diet was powerful in reducing heart disease risk, and it did so using the most rigorous methods. Scientists randomly assigned 7,447 people in Spain who were overweight, were smokers, or had diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease to follow the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one.” – *facepalm*

Where Men See White, Women See Ecru – “Neuroscientists prove what we always suspected: the two sexes see the world differently” – i love ecru!

Why Women Talk More Than Men: Language Protein Uncovered – FOXP2 gene. and an objection: The “Language” Gene and Women’s Wagging Tongues.

Bone Marrow Transplants: When Race Is an Issue – via hbd biblography.

“Know Thyself” Is A Lot To Ask

Low mobility associated with inherited ability is no social tragedy – from gregory clark, via jayman.

The sociology of dysgenia – “Eugenics is a great idea, and perhaps it’s not as complex as I make it to be here. But the fact remains that for all we speculate, we know very, very little about it.” – from spandrell. via foseti.

Modern sub-fertility may be a pathologically slow life history, triggered by a supernormal stimulus of modernity – from bruce charlton. see also mangan and malcolm pollack.

The Riddle of the Human Species – multilevel selection argumentation from e.o. wilson. i like the opening paragraphs very much. (^_^)

Can India’s Democracy Defeat Corruption? – “Of course, big corruption scandals are commonplace in the developing world (and the developed world, for that matter). Yet the scale and relative peacefulness of the corruption debate in India may be unprecedented…. And although the Indian political system is imperfect in ways too numerous to list here, the central authorities most of the time do respect free speech and free press. Civil society works. Freedom of association works….”

Study finds maize in diets of people in coastal Peru dates to 5,000 years ago – “Up until now, the prevailing theory was that marine resources, not agriculture and corn, provided the economic engine behind the development of civilization in the Andean region of Peru.”

Fun With HBD: Racial Differences in Women’s Asses – (~_^)

How Christianity stopped Anglo-Saxon England eating horsemeat: Church officials claimed it was ‘pagan’ food

bonus: The Big Question – “Q: What day most changed the course of history?” – i like freeman dyson’s response. (^_^)

bonus bonus: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name – “Bottlenose dolphins call out the specific names of loved ones when they become separated, a study finds. Other than humans, the dolphins are the only animals known to do this….”

bonus bonus bonus: The Meanest Girls at the Watering Hole – behavioral evidence suggests that hierarchy is heriditary in elephants.

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Grey langurs spotted treating a wild dog to a grooming session in India

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: How male alligators have PERMANENTLY erect penises which they keep hidden inside their bodies

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Most zombie ant photographs are upside down

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: The 15th-Century Equivalent of Your Cat Walking on Your Keyboard – meow!

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faheem younus and cousin marriage

*two updates – see below*

dr. faheem younus said he thinks we ought to have a conversation about the bans on cousin marriage in various states in the u.s. he also said he’s looking for a “data driven case to justify a BAN on cousin marriages.”

i’m beginning to wonder if he really means either of those things.

here’s our (short) conversation that we had about the topic on twitter (all of the links i included in these tweets can be found in the previous post):

still waiting for a reply….
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update 02/02: i wanted to double-check that figure i gave for 70% cousin marriages in pakistanis in the u.k. just to make sure i remembered right (i have been known to remember incorrectly before! (~_^) ).

the correct figure is (very close to what i recalled): 67% for pakistanis in bradford [page 10 - opens pdf]. that includes first cousins, first cousins-once-removed, and second cousins.

there’s another figure of 46.9% for pakistanis in birmingham, but that’s just first cousins. the figure would likely be quite a bit higher if first cousins-once-removed and second cousins were included.

no mention of double-first-cousin unions. there’s probably some of them, too.
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another update 02/02: i checked the following article (the one about bradford) — The frequency of consanguineous marriage among British Pakistani [pdf] — to see if there was anything about double-first-cousin marriages. there were none, but there had been some in the grandparent’s generation [pgs. 187-89] — 100 women were randomnly sampled:

“Fifty five of the women interviewed were married to first cousins. All four possible types of cousin marriage occurred, with the frequencies given in table 3 [mostly fzd (20) and then fbd (17) - h.chick]. No double first cousin marriages were reported in this generation. Nine women were married to first cousins once removed, three to second cousins, and three to more distant relatives (one first cousin twice removed, on second cousin once removed, one third cousin). Thirteen were married with the ‘Biraderi’, a term describing the wider family group. Some of these husbands would be distant relatives, some relatives only by marriage, and some simply originating from the same locality and social group. Only 17 women definitely had completely unrelated husbands….

“In this group of [the respondent's] grandparents there was a maximum of 33 first cousin marriages, with more marriages (24) among the Biraderi and more (30) to unrelated partners. [there were also 5 double-first-cousin marriages in that generation per table 2. - h.chick]…

“Table 4 shows that the pattern of inbreeding in the population is not uniform: unrelated couples are more likely to have unrelated parents, while married couples of first cousins more often have closely related parents.

“The frequency of consanguineous marriage is thought to be falling in most populations as a result of social change and increased mobility…. By contrast, among British Pakistanis the coefficient of inbreeding seems to have increased in a single generaion, from about 0.024 to 0.0375, a figure approaching the highest reported for human populations.“

previously: so … why ban cousin marriages?

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so … why ban cousin marriages?

update 02/01: i’ve tried to leave a couple of (very civil, of course) comments on huffpost — to try to, you know, have a conversation about the bans on cousin marriage in parts of the u.s. — but to no avail. my comments are not allowed through moderation. just thought i’d share.

another update 02/01: on huffpost, somebody calling themselves tylerious linked to this from wikipedia:

“A BBC report discussed Pakistanis in Britain, 55% of whom marry a first cousin. Given the high rate of such marriages, many children come from repeat generations of first-cousin marriages. The report states that these children are 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders, and one in ten children of first-cousin marriages in Birmingham either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability. The BBC also states that Pakistani-Britons, who account for some 3% of all births in the UK, produce ‘just under a third” of all British children with genetic illnesses.’”

that is exactly the point i made in the first section (“disease”) of my original post below, i.e. in regularly inbreeding societies, the risks of genetic defects are higher than what dr. younus quoted. the figures he quoted are for western societies with little inbreeding.
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jayman tweeted about an article written by a dr. faheem younus and published (originally) in the huffington post entitled “Why Ban Cousin Marriages?” dr. younus writes (link added by me):

“[L]et’s be clear. I don’t intent to *promote* cousin marriages. But when 25 US states ban such marriages in a free society, we ought to at least have a conversation about it.”

absolutely! i agree. (see entire blog…. (~_^) )

dr. younus, who is orginally from pakistan btw, goes on to present arguments against what he calls “the ‘Disease-Incest-Einstein’ line of American reasoning” that stands in opposition to cousin marriage — in other words “you don’t have to be an Einstein to know that incestuous relationships lead to diseases in the babies.” he attempts to show how these three objections to cousin marriage — disease (or congenital conditions), incest (the ewwww factor), and that all smart people know it’s a bad thing — are just flat out wrong….
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1) disease. dr. younus says:

“The risk of birth defects in children born to first cousins is increased from a baseline of 3-4 percent to 4-7 percent according to the National Society of Genetic Councilors (NSGC). In this modern age, this risk could be mitigated by mandating — as the State of Maine has done — pre-marital genetic testing. The NSGC, however, considers the risk to be so insignificant that it does not recommend additional testing or screening.”

the above statement demonstrates a gross misunderstanding on dr. younus’ part of the risks of congenital conditions in consanguineous relationships. sure the risk of birth defects in children born to first cousins is pretty low (4-7%) in the united states (and other western countries) where cousin marriage is not the usual practice. but in societies where cousin marriage is the norm (egs. saudia arabia, pakistan, afghanistan, sudan), the risks are much higher. in, for instance, dr. younus’s country of origin, pakistan [pdf]:

“It is estimated that about 10 percent of congenital and genetic disorders worldwide are associated with customary consanguineous marriage; in most of the Middle East, the proportion is 30 percent, and in Pakistan, it is 40 percent.“

the higher (much higher) risks of birth defects from cousin marriages in these other societies are a result of the fact that these populations have been practicing cousin marriage for generations — many, many generations. probably for literally millennia in saudi arabia and nearly as long, if not as long, in south asia.

when you have multiple (upon multiple) generations of inbreeding, cousins from these families will inevitably share many more genes in common on average — including genes related to diseases — than cousins in western societies where there is little inbreeding. the inbreeding coefficient of first cousins is usually reckoned at 6.25%, but this can be twice as high in long-term, regularly inbreeding populations — such as in pakistan.

in addition, as my long-suffering regular readers already know, the type of cousin marriage favored in the arab world and places like pakistan and afghanistan — father’s brother’s daughter (fbd) cousin marriage — leads to even greater inbreeding than other forms of cousin marriage (cross-cousin marriage, for instance) since it promotes a tendency towards double-first-cousin marriages (see previous posts for more on why this is — here and here and here).

all of this amounts to no small set of problems. the saudis and other arab nations have probably spent something like half their oil profits (<<possible hyperbole alert) on studying and trying to come up with solutions to deal with all of the genetic defects connected to consanguineous mating in their populations, and concerns were recently raised about the high rates of genetic defects in the u.k.’s pakistani population, a highly consanguineous group.
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2) incest. dr. younus says:

“As you cross the scientific hurdles, you will be confronted with a mountain of taboo cloaked in words like ‘gross,’ ‘icky,’ ‘yucky. But where do such taboo feelings originate from? Not a single verse in the Torah, Bible or Quran — books revered by three billion followers of the three Abrahamic religions — prohibits cousin marriage, which were common in Jewish, Christian and Islamic history.”

uh … no, actually. cousin or other close marriages have, indeed, been common in jewish and islamic societies, but not so much in christian societies. i should qualify that: not so much in european christian societies.

again this is familiar ground for my regular readers out there — cousin marriage began to be banned by the christian church in europe as early as the 500s. since then, cousin marriage has been banned to various degrees and at various points in time by the roman catholic church, the eastern orthodox church, and even some of the protestant churches — not to mention secular authorities. (for more on this, see my mating patterns in europe series below ↓ in the left-hand column, and jack goody’s The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe and michael mitterauer’s Why Europe?, in particular chapter three).

the avoidance of cousin marriage has been especially strong over the past one thousand to fifteen-hundred years in northern and western europe (with some notable exceptions) — and a bit weaker (or having a later commencement) in eastern and southern europe. (there have also been some pockets of long-standing close marriage practices in northwestern europe — see the auvergnats in france and the border reivers of england whose descendents moved to appalachia for example).

since a large percentage of americans are of northwest european extraction, it shouldn’t be surprising that they aren’t fond of the thought of cousin marriage. whether they experience an ewwww response to the thought of cousin marriage for cultural reasons, or perhaps even biological ones, i don’t think it’s unreasonable that they (we) should desire american society — which was founded by northwest europeans after all — to remain one in which cousin marriage is not a regular occurence.
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3) einstein. dr. younus says:

“This is the ultimate argument made in support of banning cousin marriages. It’s so obviously wrong that ‘You don’t have to be an Einstein to figure it out.’ In the evidence driven societies we have a different word to describe such claims: myth. Myths are best broken by data. The fact that 20 percent of global marriages take place between first cousins and most societies, including Europe and Canada, consider cousin marriages to be legal should give us a pause.“

just because a lot of people in the world do something does not necessarily mean that it’s a good idea.

research has shown strong negative correlations between inbreeding rates and national average iqs — in other words, the greater the amount of inbreeding, the lower the average national iq — see here and here. there is also a pretty strong correlation between consanguinity rates and corruption levels (see also here) — the greater the amount of cousin marriage, the greater the amount of corruption in a society. finally, there is a strong negative correlation between cousin marriage and democracy — the more cousin marriage in a society, the less democratic it’s likely to be (see here).

it’s not completely clear, yet, why any of this should be — i have my own theories which you can find by poking around on the blog (if you’re really curious, you could do worse than starting here or here) — but whatever the reasons behind these not-so-optimal connections between cousin marriage and the characteristics of a modern, open, and free society, it doesn’t take an einstein to figure out that the two DO NOT seem to go together.
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see also: Cousin Marriage Conundrum by steve sailer, Veil of Fears by stanley kurtz, and Consanguinity prevents Middle Eastern political development by parapundit.

_{(note: comments do not require an email. kissin’ cousins.)}

liberal democracy vs. consensus building

as we’ve seen, some societies experience a lot more difficulties implementing liberal democracy (or any sort of democracy) than others, and very often the ones that have these difficulties have a history of cousin marriage (see here and here).

liberal democracy (fwiw) is, of course, a relatively modern invention, but it’s not as though democratic tendencies weren’t around before the enlightenment. many societies have, or have had, democratic elements to them even if they are/were not fully functioning democracies, probably mostly because people will have a say in matters. there’s even been talk that the ancient sumerians engaged in a “primitive democracy” so … well … there you go.

in The Tribal Imagination, robin fox described so well what is so ODD about our modern liberal democray. i quoted him once before on liberal democracy, and here i go again [pg. 60 - bolding added by me]:

“Again in England, it was not until 1688, after a bitter civil-religious war and a period of hard totalitarianism, that we were able to set up a system whereby political factions could compete for votes and, most amazingly, the loser would *voluntarily cede power*. This transformation took a long time and hard practice with many missteps.”

to voluntarily cede power. very odd system, indeed!

in digging around for stuff on mating patterns in different societies, i’ve found that i keep coming across an alternate democratic system that seems to pop up again and again in places with more inbreeding than the anglo world, and that is consensus democracy. and if it’s not a democratic system, it’s a system of governing that involves getting/having a consensus in some shape or form. i don’t know if this is an actual general pattern or not — i.e. more consensus building in more inbred societies — it’s just something i’ve noticed lately.

tribal societies, like those in the arab world, definitely seem to operate with consensus building systems [pg. 212 - emphases added by me]:

“Arab society during Muhammad’s day and for more than a century afterward never really developed a stable political order worthy of being called a state. There was no state per se and no administrative structure of government. Arab society remained what it had always been, a tribal society characterized by personal leadership and appointed retainers that drew no distinctions between the social, religious, and military aspects of life. Indeed, there was never a formal army as such. Instead, there was an alliance of powerful tribal chiefs who led their personal retinues in battle. There was no financial system, and what treasury there was came from gifts and booty obtained in raids. Government was essentially an enlarged tribal system of negotiated consensus among powerful tribal chieftans, and it was these warrior chiefs who controlled the Arab populace and the army. Governance was effected indirectly through tribal intermediaries. This system of indirect rule plagued the Muslim Empire until its end. Power ebbed and flowed from the center of authority, but no caliph ever was able to retain control of the tribal and regional armies for very long. Revolts and insurrections rooted in jealousy, political interests, religious apostasy, and blood feuds went on for centuries.”

but i’ve also noticed the concept of “consensus” in other places like in the medieval republic of novgorod which is meant to be one of these examples of early democracy in eastern europe. however, consensus was a big part of novgorod’s democratic system [pg. 47 - link and emphasis added by me]:

“Another source of stability in the region which is grounded in the historic inheritance of Novgorod is the concept of democratic consensus. Although, in Novgorod’s history, consensus was sometimes achieved through violent means (the medieval chronicles depict how recalcitrant minorities within the assembly, or veche, might face physical assault, including being hurled off the principle bridge of the city into the river Volkhov), the idea that elected representatives have an obligation, once in power, to seek consensus for the good of society beyond narrow partisan, ethnic, or geographic interests has been critical in helping to achieve stability…. As former First Deputy Governor Valery Trofimov put it, ‘all of civil society’ — elected officials, academics, entrepreneurs — worked together to forge a policy commonly referred to as ‘politics of the round table.’”

and poland’s era of golden liberty — another example of early democracy in eastern europe — was undone by its consensus building mechanism, the liberum veto [emphasis added by me]:

“The liberum veto (Latin for ‘the free veto’) was a parliamentary device in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It allowed any member of the Sejm (legislature) to force an immediate end to the current session and nullify any legislation that had already been passed at the session by shouting Nie pozwalam! (Polish: ‘I do not allow!’). From the mid-16th to the late 18th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had the liberum veto, a form of unanimity voting rule, in its parliamentary deliberations….

“This rule evolved from the principle of unanimous consent, which derived from the traditions of decision making in the Kingdom of Poland, and developed under the federative character of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Each deputy to a Sejm was elected at a sejmik (the local sejm for a region) and represented the entire region. He thus assumed responsibility to his sejmik for all decisions taken at the Sejm. A decision taken by a majority against the will of a minority (even if only a single sejmik) was considered a violation of the principle of political equality.“

in other words, there had to be consensus.

i might be wrong, but it seems to me that consensus building systems have something to do with the presence of different interest groups — in the case of tribal societies, different tribes — in the case of clannish societies, different clans. i think you might wind up with liberal democracy arising naturally only in places where these interest groups have been removed from the system — like in england where society was “atomized” into bunches of individuals and their nuclear families in the early medieval period.

let’s see — who else likes consensus? oh, yes — some north american native americans in canada, eh! probably have a history of mating endogamously. the sveeedes. late outbreeders. and, my personal favorite, one of those rabble-rousing scots-irishmen, john c. calhoun!:

“The ‘Disquisition on Government’ is a 100-page abstract treatise that comprises Calhoun’s definitive and fully elaborated ideas on government; he worked on it intermittently for six years before it was finished in 1849. It systematically presents his arguments that 1) a numerical majority in any government will typically impose a despotism over a minority unless some way is devised to secure the assent of all classes, sections, and interests and 2) that innate human depravity would debase government in a democracy.

“Calhoun offered the concurrent majority as the key to achieving consensus, a formula by which a minority interest had the option to nullify objectionable legislation passed by a majority interest.”

hmmmm. that “innate human depravity would debase government in a democracy.” how true.

previously: consanguinity and democracy and pathogens and consanguinity and democracy and “hard-won democracy”

_{(note: comments do not require an email. wild man, john c. calhoun.)}

the return of chinese clans

i posted once before about how, since the 1970s/1980s, clans have returned to china with a vengeance. (i suspect that they never really went away, just went underground.) the people’s communes, established during the great leap forward, were supposed to do away with clans. for some reason, that didn’t work.

here from Rural China: Economic And Social Change In The Late Twentieth Century (pg. 258 – emphases and link added by me):

“A clan may consist of up to several thousand people. It is headed by the eldest member of the clan and a group of elder men and provides its members with economic and social protection. An internal clan law regulates clan matters.

“The vacuum created by the erosion of party and administrative structures in villages is gradually filled with traditional values. In many places in south and central China, traditional clan organizations have taken over village administration, and the activities of local functionaries are often bound to clan interests. A survey of five villages in Hubei Province in the early 1990s revealed that 41.8 percent of the individuals interviewed were convinced that village functionaries merely acted in the interests of the clan; 45.9 percent thought that they were only interested in their own profit (including clan interests), and only 12.3 percent thought that the functionaries acted in the best interests of the village inhabitants. The weakening of political control has led to a revival of traditional structures (kinship relations, secret societies, clans) that locally have even started to organize themselves politically. All over China there are reports on the new power of clans and on violent and bloody clan fights concerning forests, irrigation, building lots, and borderlines of fields and lanes. In regions where clan dominate the villages, they have frequently taken over local power in the form of VACs.

“With the establishment of people’s communes in the second half of the 1950s, the traditional clan connections were supposed to be destroyed. With the disbanding of the communes and the return to family economic activities in the 1980s, the role of the family and clan in rural areas increased and the economic function of traditional family structures was revived. As long as the village residents were organized in production brigades, family and clan connections were of no great importance. It was the return to family economic activities, at first in agriculture, that made family relations essential again. Thereafter, mutual aid and support of the production process, the need for capital when starting a business or establishing an enterprise became more and more important. Individuals could not rely on fictitious collectives, but had to rely on family or clan bonds. This process of the growing importance of family groups in the economy stimulated economic dynamism.”
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and from Local Government and Politics in China: Challenges from Below (pgs. 180-181 – emphases added by me):

“Finally, the revival of traditional kinship groups and clans in Chinese villages creates competition with village authorities in China. Kinship groups and clans, which were strong rural political forces in traditional China, were suppressed but were never eradicated during the Mao era and have resurfaced in the reform era. Apart from traditional kinship groups and clans, secret societies, which were common in rural China prior to the Communist era, have also sprung up since the 1990s in the Chinese countryside. A main reason for the resurgence of kinship groups, clans, and secret societies is the peasants’ need to depend on some kind of organization or association for better protection of their interests as the feel they can no longer trust the official village authorities to do so. As a matter of fact, traditional cleavage created by kinship groups and clans have played a prominent role in villagers’ committee elections in rural regions, especially poor and remote rural ones. In some places, ‘undesirable elements’ or even ‘evil forces’ (based largely upon kinship and clan support) have come to power via village elections and have coalesced into a force resistant to carrying out township/town government policies.“
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finally, lots of good stuff from China: The Next Superpower: Dilemmas in Change and Continuity (emphases and links added by me):

pgs. 58-59:

“Clan wars continue to be waged largely out of sight and out of mind in many rural areas, some of them having their origins in events long before the Communists took power, and even from imperial days. In August 1993, for example, in Hunan Province, birthplace of Mao, thousands of villagers fought a pitched battle armed with home-made guns, grenades and explosives that left at least five people dead, 12 seriously wounded and several buildings in ruins. Security forces had to fire tear-gas into the crowd to split up the warring factions. [see footnote 27 below.]

“Inter-regional conflicts are no longer confined to the coast-versus-hinterland syndrome. Rich provinces and cities are pitted against each other even as poor areas pummel one another with stunning ferocity. The reasons are little more than money, resources, and greed. Take the scuffles over the delineation of borders between provinces. Since 1980, more than 10 bloody clashes have taken place between the cadres and residents in Guangxi and Hunan provinces. Fifteen hundred people were allegedly killed or seriously injured in quarrels over land and water rights. Equally venomous battles have been fought between villagers living on the Qinghai-Gansu border over gold-mine rights. Two special work teams sent by the Communist Party and State Council to the area failed to solve the problem….

“Inter-provincial confrontations, of course, go back several centuries. Since 1949, thousands of Chinese have died in more than 1,000 armed conflicts over the imprecise demarcation of frontiers. They have worsened owing to the eclipse of central authority. For most of the new-style ‘economic warlords’, local development bringing tangible benefits such as wealth to close relatives and business associates is more important than heeding Beijing’s call to promote national cohesiveness….“

pg. 227 – footnote 27:

“The Battle of Matian Marketplace, as it has become known, was the latest chapter in a bitter clan feud between Matian villagers surnamed Liu and Jinggang villagers surnamed Li that dated back at least to the 1920s. The Canton Evening News reported that Matian and Jinggang had been at war since 1928, when a Matian landlord ‘massacred 27 innocent Jinggang villagers in the name of eradicating Communism’, launching decades of unceasing disputes of various kinds.”

pg. 123:

“But when Americans and Chinese talk about ‘democracy’, they are not necessarily referring to the same animal. Democracy as it is known in the West is the product of Roman Law, the Magna Carta, the Boston Tea Party, the Fall of the Bastille, the Industrial Revolution, and the intellectual contributions of many great thinkers, such as Rousseau, Locke and Jefferson. The Chinese are coming from an entirely different tradition.

“The great virtues that the Chinese traditionally have valued so highly are tolerance, patience and non-interference in others’ affairs. There is also the strong individualism of the Chinese, which may seem a contradiction when one is taught that it is the ‘group’ not the individual that is important in China. But loyalty to the ‘group’ is still on a family or clan basis, rather than the vaguer concept of nation. Chinese do not particularly like to interfere in what they see as ‘idle affairs’. Public spirit and civic pride are difficult to grow in this type of soil, and that mitigates against the planting of democratic ideals.

“Secondly, the parental concept of government that has evolved over millennia and survives to this day means government of the people, for the people but not by the people. Essentially, the average Chinese simply wants to be left alone to get on with daily life without outside interference from *anyone*. Democracy is the play-thing of intellectuals, and China essentially is still a peasant society which traditionally has shown little interest in voting, paying income tax or helping to run the country.

pg. 127:

“One legacy of the country’s long history is that behavior is based on the rule of man, not the rule of law. A complex body of nationally-enforced law was not considered necessary in traditional society because society had built in powerful forces of self-regulation. Government intervention was rarely needed because social order could normally be maintained through the family or clan, or other associations and occupational groupings. With the whole family liable to be blamed for the wrongdoing of an individual member [reminiscent of the albanians - h.chick], this was a powerful force to keep everyone in line.

pgs. 145-146:

“The revival of ‘feudalistic clans’ which are undermining the authority of the party in the countryside are a growing concern. Clan organizations, which were supposed to have been wiped out in the 1950s, have become the centres of power in counties with low income and education levels, according to internal circulars issued by government security units. ‘Some village cadres have abolished local party committees, with the clan chiefs becoming the de facto administrators,’ one document said. ‘In other rural areas, the election of village committees is under the control of clansmen.’

“While the revival of clans began in the early 1980s, they have become larger and much better organized recently. Rural cadres complain that clan activities have siphoned off badly needed funds for agriculture and education. The security departments cited villages in Hunan as having clan units so powerful they had refused to pay taxes or implement family planning measures. At the same time, since only males can join clans, their revival has fuelled families’ desires for male children in rural areas.“

ah haaaaaaaaaaa!

“One clan in central China boasts more than 30,000 members from three generations. Clan members make regular contributions to Spring Festival celebrations and the maintenance of ancestral shrines, temples and cemetaries. The Education Ministry cited the case of a county in the north-West which had more than 100 clan temples. Enthusiasts there spent more than one million Yuan ($120,500) in 1994 on clan-related activities, more than the area’s budget for schools. In the Hunan Province districts of Dingcheng and Hanshou districts, where there are several prominent clans, fights over territory or committee positions often degenerate into blood battles. ‘Many villages turn to clan organizations instead of the police or courts to settle disputes,’ a rural official in Hubei told a local newspaper.”
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recall that the chinese have been regularly marrying their (mostly maternal) cousins or marrying endogamously since at least the third century b.c. (for more info, see links in mating pattern in asia series in the left-hand column below ↓ — almost at the bottom of the page.)

previously: china today…

_{(note: comments do not require an email. it’s late. i’m tired.)}