Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered
Also, this unfortunately encourages a certain level of incest. Not that cousin-marrying is particularly uncommon in the annals of royalty.
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Whether cousin marriage is incest is culturally variable. A lot of cultures have favored it, and not just royalty. If you look at Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, the happy ending is Rose marrying her bookworm cousin—and his rival suitor was a different cousin, not someone unrelated. Those were popular stories for children published in 1875 and 1876, by an immensely popular author; cousin marriage doesn't seem to have been looked at askance back then the way it often is now.
If you want to call it "inbreeding" I'd say that was accurate; as I understand it, there is a modest fitness depression associated with it.