The Western world. You need to keep in mind that inbreeding is the human norm. Europe, at least any part that was under Catholic influence for a few centuries is a massive outlier in its low rates of consanguineous marriage.
Europe, at least any part that was under Catholic influence for a few centuries is a massive outlier in its low rates of consanguineous marriage.
They might not marry close relatives (say, those with common ancestors from 200 years ago), but when it's customary to only marry people from your own town with a population of 1000, this means that lots of your ancestors from 500 years ago are your spouse's ancestors too, so you still share lots of genes.
A thought occurred to me today as I skimmed an article in a rationality forum where the subject of gay marriage cropped up; seeing as the issue has been hotly contested in various public fora and especially the courts, what about poly? After all, many if not all the arguments for gay marriage apply to poly marriage as well.
Questions for LWers who are currently in a such a relationship, or have an opinion to share:
Do polies want to marry each other or do such relationships not lend themselves to permanence above a threshold of partners? Should polies campaign for the right for a civil union anyway? what are the up and down sides of this? etc