Third cousin couples have the most children and grandchildren

Marriage between closely related cousins is a heavy taboo in many cultures and its critics often cite the higher risk of genetic diseases associated with inbreeding. That risk is certainly apparent for very close relatives, but a new study from Iceland shows that very distant relatives don’t have it easy either. In the long run, they have just as few children and grandchildren as closely related ones.

Shuffling the genetic deck

Sex chromosomes aside, every person has two copies of each gene, one inherited from their father and one by their mother. Not every gene will be in correct working order, but there’s a good chance that a faulty copy will be offset by a functional one from the other parent.

However, if two parents are closely related, there’s a higher-than-average chance that they will already share some of the same genes and a similarly increased chance that their child will receive two defective copies. That can be very bad news indeed and in cases where important genes are affected, the results can include miscarriage, birth defects or early death.

Sex, then, is a shuffling of their genetic deck and theoretically the more closely related the partners are, the greater the chance that their child will be dealt a dud hand. And yet, some studies have found that some closely related couples actually do better than distant relatives in terms of the number of children they manage to raise. This trend is certainly unexpected and the big question is whether it is the result of biology or money.