Nettleship: The Marriage of Kin 



259 



at first in connection with the cult of 

 asceticism and ceHbacy, later because 

 it was able by the sale of indulgences to 

 make money by allowing consanguine- 

 ous couples to break the Canonical 

 rules for a consideration. That this 

 was so is confirmed by the subsequent 

 extension of the prohibitions to various 

 affinities, or even accidental associa- 

 tions, between persons not related at 

 all by blood. 



Thus — to quote from Huth's "Mar- 

 riage of Near Kin" (p. 122), (1887) 

 — the council of Trent in the middle of 

 the sixteenth century issued the mon- 

 strous declaration "that the person 

 baptized, his parents, god-parents, and 

 the priest who baptized him were as 

 much inter-related as though they were 

 relatives by blood to each other," so 

 that, as the author continues, "no 

 tolerably near relative of the priest 

 could marry either the godrelations or 

 relations of any child that priest had 

 baptized;" and there is much more to 

 the same effect. Without enquiring 

 too closely as to whether such absurd 

 regulations were always carried out 

 we may, I think, safely agree with Mr. 

 Huth when he says that "the prohibited 

 degrees were far too useful to abolish." 



GENETIC CONSEQUENCES 



Of course other causes have been and 

 are still at work in both encouraging 

 and discouraging consanguineous mar- 

 riages. Any such influences as may 

 possibly depend upon supposed social 

 inconveniences or inexpediencies arising 

 from these marriages are outside my 

 purview. I think the most operative 

 cause of such hostility to these unions 

 as still exists is the confusion, already 

 referred to, between inheritance of a 

 defect from two slightly tainted, but 

 apparently normal parents and the 

 supposed creation of an entirely new 

 thing by union between those of related 

 blood. Such confusion is only too 

 natural, and all of us have, I daresay, 

 fallen into the pit at times — certainly 

 I have done so formerly. For instance, 

 if amongst the children of a pair of 

 seemingly normal cousins there should 

 be some bom deaf and diimb the 

 calamity cannot be hidden from the 



friends, and, as casual enquiries about 

 cause are seldom carried further back 

 than the parental generation, as most 

 of us have a fatal facility for stopping 

 at the first plausible excuse, no surprise 

 need be felt if the cousinship, as such, 

 is blamed; although had enquiry been 

 possible or been permitted, cases of 

 the same malady would very likely 

 have been discovered in ancestors or 

 collaterals. 



That consanguinity of parents re- 

 peated through many generations is 

 compatible with the maintenance of a 

 high standard of health and vigor 

 (mental and bodily) is demonstrated 

 by well-known instances. 



Near the mouth of the river Loire, 

 on the Atlantic coast of France, is the 

 small Commune of Batz, situated on a 

 peninsula that is almost shut off from 

 the mainland by a salt-marsh, so that 

 the inhabitants have (or had prior to 

 1864 when the investigation now referred 

 to was made) very little communication 

 with the people of the mainland. The 

 principal occupation is salt-making; 

 and the inhabitants live an extremely 

 simple life and crime is almost unknown. 

 They have intermarried amongst them- 

 selves for, as it is put, "countless" 

 generations. In 1864 M. Voisin, inter- 

 ested in the effects of consanguineous 

 marriage, spent a month in personally 

 examining the facts on the spot. 

 Amongst the total population of the 

 Commune, at that date 3,300, he 

 found forty-six marriages that he 

 counted as consanguineous. He made 

 no attempt to tabulate the marriages 

 of very distant cousins but states that the 

 great majority of the marriages were 

 of that kind, i. e., he found but few 

 married couples who were not related 

 by blood in some degree. 



COUSIN-MARRIAGES FERTILE 



To begin with, the fertility of the 

 forty-six marriages detailed as con- 

 sanguineous was dccidedl}^ higher than 

 the average fertility for the whole of 

 France. Next, he failed to find amongst 

 the entire population (3,300) a single 

 case of any of the various diseases and 

 defects that are always named as being 

 supposed to result from consanguinity 



