Did you know that cousin marriage is legal in Canada?

In most parts of Canada, it is perfectly legal for a 16-year-old girl to marry her first cousin, even if he's much, much older.

Dear Nevermorons,

Anthropologists study taboo. It’s a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.

Traditional societies govern themselves not by written legal codes overseen by an army of lawyers, bureaucrats, judges, and the police, prisons, armies, tax collectors, and propagandists necessary to maintain such a legal system. They govern themselves by custom and taboo, which is encoded in the Mythos of their particular culture.

Incidentally, those of us who grew up in the modern world are also governed by taboo. We just don’t realize it most of the time.

In industrial capitalist “liberal democracies”, in which there are thousands and thousands of laws governing just everything a human being could possibly want to do, there are certain things which are not illegal, but which 99.99% of people would never even consider doing.

Let me give you an example: If you happen to live in any of Canada’s biggest cities, such as Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver, it is perfectly legal for you to marry your first cousin, even if she’s 16 and you’re 94.

Don’t believe me? Check out this convo with Chat GPT:

CQ:

Is it illegal to marry your cousin in Canada?

ChatGPT

As of my last update in January 2022, Canadian marriage laws vary by province and territory. In most parts of Canada, it's legal to marry your cousin, as long as certain conditions are met, such as both parties being of legal age and consenting to the marriage. However, some provinces have restrictions or require genetic counseling if the couple is closely related. It's best to check the specific laws in the province where you plan to marry to ensure compliance.

Me

Is it illegal in any province?

ChatGPT

Yes, in some provinces of Canada, there are restrictions on marrying a cousin. For example, in the province of Nova Scotia, you can't marry a first cousin unless you receive a dispensation from the government. Additionally, some provinces may require genetic counseling for closely related couples before marriage…

You

Is it legal to marry a first cousin in Quebec?

ChatGPT

In Quebec, it is legal to marry a first cousin without any special requirements or restrictions. Quebec's Civil Code does not specifically prohibit marriage between first cousins…

Me

How about Ontario?

ChatGPT

In Ontario, it is legal to marry a first cousin. There are no specific laws in Ontario that prohibit marriage between first cousins…

You

How about B.C.?

ChatGPT

In British Columbia (B.C.), it is legal to marry a first cousin. There are no specific laws in B.C. that prohibit marriage between first cousins…

Me

How about Alberta?

In Alberta, it is legal to marry a first cousin. Alberta's Marriage Act does not prohibit marriage between first cousins.

So, when one considers that the age of consent in Canada in 16, one comes to the startling realization that it is entirely legal in Canada for a 16-year-old girl to marry her cousin, even if he (or she) is much, much older. Isn’t that surprising?

I doubt anyone reading this knows anyone who has married their teenage cousin, which goes to show that that people are still governed by taboo. It might not be illegal to marry your cousin, but it is definitely taboo, and that taboo functions to limit a socially-undesirable behaviour just as effectively as a law would.

WHY IS COUSIN MARRIAGE LEGAL IN CANADA?

Questions like “Why is Cousin Marriage legal in Canada?” are rarely asked, because they would quickly lead to questions that most people would rather not think about.

One easy answer to the question could come from the fact that Canada is a “constitutional monarchy” which is ruled by an inbred royal family.

If you think about it a bit more, however, you might come to the conclusion that a law against cousins marrying would be more trouble than it would be worth. After all, how would such a law be enforced? Send cops into the boonies, round up all the hillbillies, and throw them in jail? How long would you need to keep them in jail? Who would pay for the costs of their incarceration? And what do you do about kids born to parents who are cousins? Take them away and make them wards of the state? That seems like a lot of trouble to go to when they previously had parents willing to take care of them.

In North Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China, cousin marriage is illegal. Should it be illegal in Canada, too?

Before one jumps to conclusions, one would do well to consider the fact that there were hundreds of different indigenous nations throughout Turtle Island. How many of them prohibited first cousins from marrying?

If you look into question, you will be confronted by the reality that marriage customs were governed according to a different set of rules - those of the Clan System.

According to the Clan System, marrying a member of one’s own clan was considered incest, even when two people were not related by blood. Should Europeans be forced to adhere to this system of taboo? If not, then why should indigenous Turtle Islanders be forced to adhere to the customs and taboos of Europeans?

Indeed, expecting everyone to adhere to European ideas about morality would bring us back to the general attitude of missionaries during the colonial era.

This is a controversial topic, because there aren’t any indigenous activists going on proclaiming that their traditional cultures involved cousin marriage. But guess what? Unless you know for a fact that a given society had a specific taboo against cousin marriage, they also certainly practiced it. This brings us back to the concepts of Emic and Etic, which are important concepts in anthropology.

Let’s see what Chat GPT has to say about cousin marriage amongst the Inuit:

Me

Did the Inuit traditionally practice cousin marriage?

ChatGPT

Yes, traditional practices of cousin marriage have been documented among some Inuit communities, particularly in certain regions of the Arctic where social and kinship structures differ from those found in Western societies. Inuit societies traditionally had complex kinship systems and marriage practices that varied among different Inuit groups and geographic regions.

Among some Inuit communities, cousin marriage was historically practiced as a means of strengthening social ties, maintaining kinship networks, and preserving wealth and resources within extended family units. Marriages between cousins were often arranged and facilitated by families, with considerations such as kinship alliances, social status, and economic factors playing a significant role.

Cousin marriage among the Inuit served various social and cultural functions, including:

1. Social Cohesion: In small, isolated communities where social networks were essential for survival, cousin marriage helped reinforce social bonds and solidarity within extended family groups.

2. Resource Distribution: Marriages between cousins could facilitate the sharing and redistribution of resources, such as food, shelter, and material goods, within kinship networks.

3. Alliance Building: Cousin marriage was often used to forge alliances between families or clans, strengthening social and political ties and resolving conflicts through intermarriage.

4. Inheritance and Property Rights: Inuit societies traditionally practiced a system of communal land ownership and resource management. Marriages between cousins could help ensure the continuity of land rights and inheritance within extended family units.

It's important to note that practices of cousin marriage varied among different Inuit communities and were subject to cultural norms, geographic factors, and historical developments. With increased contact with Western societies and changes in social structures, traditional marriage practices among the Inuit have evolved over time, and attitudes toward cousin marriage may have shifted in some communities.

Today, while cousin marriage may still occur within some Inuit communities, its prevalence and social significance may have changed due to factors such as urbanization, globalization, and the influence of Western cultural norms. Nonetheless, the historical practice of cousin marriage among the Inuit highlights the diversity of marriage customs and kinship systems found in indigenous societies around the world.

Now, you are unlikely to see Inuit activists broadcasting the fact that the Inuit traditionally practiced cousin marriage, and that some communities continue to practice it to this day. But guess what? It’s true. Should the Inuit be prevented from practicing their culture, which has allowed them to survive for millennia in one of the world’s most inhospitable climates? Or should they be left to their own devices, to continue doing what they’ve been doing since immemorial?

It’s worth pointing out that the Inuit in Canada today have the highest suicide rate in the world, because apparently living in the world’s coldest inhabited climate after your culture has largely been destroyed is extremely depressing. Whodathunkit?

If suicide can be taken as a reliable indicator for human misery, life has objectively gotten much worse for the Inuit since they were forced to adopt the European way of life. So spare me the fairy tales about “civilizing the savages”, will you?

MANY INDIGENOUS CULTURES THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAS TRADITIONALLY PRACTICED COUSIN MARRIAGE, AS DO MANY CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM, AND SOUTH ASIAN GROUPS

Lest people think I’m singling out the Inuit, let me point out that I have already written a defence of of Old Order Mennonites, who traditionally have practiced cousin marriage, as have the Hutterites, the Amish, Quakers, and Dhoukabours.

For another thing, Canada is a very multicultural society, and guess what? Many different cultures practice cousin marriage, including many different Muslim and South Asian cultures. That’s just a fact, and you don’t have to delve too deep to figure it out. It’s simply taboo to point this fact out in public.

Don’t believe me? Spend some time asking Chat GPT about cousin marriage in different societies. I think you’ll be surprised at what you find.

To raise such questions openly might shock some of my readers, but I assure you that such topics are not controversial amongst anthropologists, who have to consider such customs such as cannibalism and female infanticide with an open mind.

If the thought of cousins marrying makes your brain explode, you’re not cut out for anthropology. One cannot hope to understand another culture if one assumes that one’s own culture is automatically right about everything.

I’M NOT ADVOCATING FOR COUSIN MARRIAGE, I’M ADVOCATING FOR THE CLAN SYSTEM

Okay, okay, so some of you at this point are probably thinking “So does this Crow guy really just wanna fuck his cousin, or what?”

If anyone thinks that what I’m doing is advocating for cousin marriage, I assure that is not where I am going with this. What I really want to do is to advocate for the clan system, which was customary across most of Turtle Island until the European invasion.

One of my main takeaways from studying anthropology so far is that we need to realize that political systems in stateless societies do come down to kinship structures. Traditional societies did not have governments with bureaucracies, but they did have ways of regulating human behaviour. In other words, the government of traditional societies was the extended family. From a young age, children were taught about what was and what was not permitted. And in every society, kinship structures are governed by custom and taboo.

Anarchist societies are governed not by laws, but by customs and taboo. This is an idea that people need to wrap their minds around.

I think that a lot of people have difficulty imagining life without the state, because they imagine that a world without a state would lack a social safety net. This is inaccurate. Traditional societies DID have social safety nets, as well as specialist providers of healthcare, education, security, and conflict resolution. Before the invention of taxation, people simply took care of each other, because that’s what they had to do. That’s what evolution prepared us to do over the course of millions of years. Human beings are naturally very good at taking care of their family members. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be 8 billion people on planet Earth.

When people have to figure things out, that’s what they do. When they don’t have to figure things out, most people don’t. It’s as simple as that.

One of the the things that EVERY SOCIETY MUST HAVE is what’s called a “redistributive function”… whereby the fruits of the labour of the most productive members of society are redistributed to those who cannot provide for themselves, such as widows, orphans, elders, and the disabled. Normally, this redistributive function would have been very connected to kinship structures, and the social status of “big men” would have been derived from their ability to provide for a larger-than-normal number of dependents.

The basic idea isn’t hard to understand. Even today, the responsibility for caring for elders or children falls upon family members. We appear to be genetically programmed to provide such care.

In the absence of the state, the base unit of politics becomes the extended family. And alliances between extended families in time are often created by marriages between them. This is the basis of the clan system, and it works to maintain peace and harmony between neighbouring groups.

The basis of peace should be the deliberate fostering of goodwill and mutuality amongst people of different kin groups, who might speak different languages, practice different customs, inhabit different territories, and even have conflicting material interests.

The clan system is designed to encourage exogamy, which fosters a spirit of solidarity amongst people who otherwise might be rivals.

So there you have it - I’m not advocating for incest, which is by definition excessive endogamy, but the precise opposite - exogamy, which are marriage customs meant to encourage marriage outside one’s immediate kinship group.

It seems to me that this has been key to the maintenance of social peace throughout history, but it seems like no one is advocating for it these days, possibly because statists continue to imagine political solutions as a matter of reforming states. For anarchists, however, states ARE the problem. But few people seem able to recognize that there are more primal political structures than states… And the base unit of society is the family.

If we’re talking about creating an anarchist society, we need to be talking about kinship structures, customs, and taboos. Specifically, we should be talking about things like marriage, child-rearing, healthcare, eldercare, and the redistributive functions of traditional societies.

Many people regard “anarchy” as a synonym of “every man for himself”, but in reality, stateless societies do have social safety nets. And one of the most important expectations that all traditional societies have is a clear expectation that all people are expected to provide for their family members.

This, I believe, is a human universal, and it seems difficult to imagine a society where this would not be the case. After all, none of us grow to maturity without a ton of parental care. By the time we have become adults, we owe a debt to society, and we must in turn provide something towards those who cannot provide for themselves. This social obligation, which I call “the obligation to reciprocate” appears to the basis of all human morality.

If you ask me, if we want a society in which people treat each other well, we should foster a Mythos in which all human beings are seen as belonging to one human family, which is quite literally true. All humans on Earth are relatives.

In the words of the great Inuit singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark:

O Siem, we are all family
O Siem, we're all the same
O Siem, the fires of freedom
Dance in the burning flame