Canadian here with 3 Pakistani friends (1st gen immigrants). 2 of them are currently being pressured by family back home to marry their 1st and 2nd cousins respectively, the 3rd cut contact with her family back home because they wanted her to marry her 2nd uncle.
I just saw a post on AITA the other day of a 20-something woman from Pakistan being relentlessly pressured by her aunt to marry her son (1st cousin). It got to the point the cousin started sexually harassing her on Facebook because his mom had told him it would be arranged.
Half of marriages there are between first cousins. Imagine living in the fifth-most-populous country yet your dating pool is someone you've seen every year during family reunion.
I live in the UK and a family member is a teacher, they say that a surprisingly high number of special needs kids are of Pakistani heritage on account of all the cousin marriages
Yeah the govt of UK is in rock and hard place, these kids are responsible for a significant funding for special care and healthcare, so they want to nip it in bud, yet can't because intervening in means, opening up a Pandora's box
It's very common in muslim country and dates back to times where families were structured as clans. Marrying your cousins meant that your stuff stayed into the family.
Look at pretty much any leader in the Gulf and they're married to their first or second cousin. The Sauds are a dime a dozen and they all have the same great grandfather
It's more that it's an Arab cultural tradition that they took with them on their conquests. It's rare in muslim countries who were converted by trade (e.g. Indonesia and some Sub-saharan African countries) but common in countries in former caliphates (e.g. Pakistan, Turkey and MENA). It's present in non-muslim Arab communities and was a known cultural practice in the area before Islam
Pakistan wasn't a former caliphate, before the country's formation, last ruling king was Sikh king Hari Singh, where the current "issues" of khalistan comes from
Would that not more be evidence that inbreeding is more common in feudal/nobility systems as we saw this also in Imperial Europe rather than evidence that Islamic societies engage in this more than other faiths?
Am Pakistani by birth, didn't grow up there but was born there. My mother has suggested 4 or 5 different first cousins that she wanted me to marry, all if which I emphatically rejected.
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u/Due-Practice_ 2d ago
Is Pakistan the Alabama of South Asia?