Kinship systems

[Raveen Satkurunathan]

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000 20:28:17 GMT, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:


>3. Scientifically speaking, cross-cousin marriages (and also a woman
>marrying her maternal uncle) are simply not a good idea, especially when
the
>pattern is repeated for a few generations. The whole point of sexual
>reproduction is to increase genetic diversity. Marrying among close
>relatives goes against this evolutionary trend. That something was
>culturally followed by some groups of people at some point of time does not
>mean that the custom should never undergo change.
>
>Vidyasankar


I've heard this many times but is there is any published data on this ?
More links on cross cousin marrieges,

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/marriage/xcuz.html
http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/LOCAL-ONLY/kinship/parallel.html
http://borealis.lib.uconn.edu/archnet/topical/educat/anth220/cousins.htm

Yanamano of South America and a Namibian tribe (i do not recall the name)
are also known for cross cousin marrieges.

Raveen