Cousinship

“ If we allow three generations to a century, and calculate that the degree of cousinship is determined by the number of generations less two, since first cousins appear only in the third generation, the first being that of the parents and the second that of the sons and daughters, we find that 30th cousins at the present time would have had a common ancestor about one thousand years ago or approximately at the time of William the Conqueror. ”

“ Some are content with cousinship only—which however breaks down quite sufficient fences; and some are 'dearest friends,' no more, and find that an exceedingly useful centre from which to work onward and outward. ”

“ William's gravity became more and more profound. “Yes, but how can they pretend like that? Don't you think love is a sacred thing, Cousin Lola?”
Fictitious sisterships, brotherships, and cousinships are devices to push things along, well known to seventeen and even more advanced ages. ”

“ In a certain family that I know intimately, a son and a female cousin are as much alike as though they were twin brother and sister; what is the more remarkable is, that they deviate altogether from the type of their brothers and sisters, parents, uncles, and aunts. But, and here is the curious fact, they resemble, even ludicrously, an ancestor whose miniature and portrait in oils are in the possession of the family. I draw out the pedigree. I must premise that the portrait is of a gentleman in forget-me-not blue velvet, and he goes in the family by the name of the Blue Man. ”

“ We have here a phenomenon probably unique in the whole range of anthropology—a people who for generations have married their first cousins and still continue to do so, and among whom the offspring of first cousins were not only more numerous but have greater vitality than the children of persons unrelated. Nay more, the children of concubitants—of first cousins whose parents were brother and sister—have immense advantages over the children of first cousins who were the children of two brothers or two sisters respectively. ”

“ As with us, it is a sociological fact; custom, which has among them far more power than law among us, determines whether a man is of kin to his mother and her relatives alone, or to his father and father's relatives, or whether both sets of relatives are alike of kin to him. In the latter case, where parental kinship prevails, the limits of the kin are often determined by the facts of consanguinity. In the two former cases, where kinship is reckoned through males alone or through females alone, consanguinity has little or nothing to do with kinship, as will be shown more in detail below. ”

“ I shouldn't have let her come along—I had my doubts of the weather, but it was a chance to see the relatives she's got scattered through the group. They're constantly visiting one another; blood means a lot down here where they recognize degrees of consanguinity absurdly farfetched to our minds. First cousins are like brothers, second and third cousins considered members of one's immediate family, and so on through the descendants of remote ancestors. ”

“ She has an old maid and an old gardener, and—don't you know—she's the sort of woman who likes to sit down under a portrait of your great-grandfather, in a dim parlor full of mahogany and rose jars, with her black silk skirts spreading about her, and an Old Blue cup in her hand, and talk family,—how cousin this married a man whose people aren't anybody, and cousin that is outraging precedent by naming her child for her husband's side of the house. ”

“ Thus, either in the case of a man or woman, the father’s brother, or the paternal uncle, is reckoned as the father, and his sons and daughters are reckoned as brothers and sisters.
The sisters of the father, or of any person bearing the title of father, are called aunts. The children of these aunts are cousins. For a man, the kinship of uncle is restricted to the brothers of the mother, and the children of these uncles are cousins. The mother’s sister, or the maternal aunt, is counted as a mother; her children are not nephews and nieces, but sons and daughters. ”

“ Incidentally, it is by no means certain that in reported cases the levirate is limited to the real brother or the multiple sister marriages to own sisters; indeed, in some cases the reverse is stated, cousins or members of the same clan or gens being expressly included. With the dual organization the case is especially clear. The kinship terms then appear simply as status names. I am brother to those who are potential husbands of the same group of women and since all of us males occupy this common status there is correlatively a single term by which all of us are called by our children. ”

“ A sudden light—a gleam of pleasure and astonishment—flashed in the eyes of Ernestine.
"My cousin!—you—are we cousins? Oh, it is impossible!"
"You are my dear cousin. Oh, Ernestine! my sweet little heart, how I shall love you!"
"Good Heaven—how strange! In one day I lose my father and find a kinsman!"
"Now, have I not a right to be your guardian—and Ian, too! And Gabrielle—oh, I must kiss that little fairy! Ian—Ian! Hallo!" I exclaimed, throwing my bonnet into the air; "M'Farquhar—come hither—we are all cousins!" ”

“ The male member of the family inherits, but he does so only as the son of a female member of the family through whom he may justly claim kinship, or, to put it in another form, a man's natural heir is not his son, or his brother's son, or the descendant of a common male ancestor, but his sister's, or his sister's daughter's son, or the descendant of a common female ancestress. ”

“ Fair Cousin, you do but utterly mistake. The matter is done and over; nor shall your ’knowledgment thereof make but little difference. ’Tis neither for our own sake, neither for our cousin of Kent, but for yours, that we would fain sway you unto a better mind. Nor need you count, fair Cousin, that your denial should let by so much as one day our cousin of Kent his bridal with the Lady Lucy. We do you to wit that you stand but in your own light. Your marriage is annulled. ”

“ Dearest cousin, trust to me—wilt thou not? And, dearest, sweetest cousin, love me, and be my beautiful wife. Nay, shake not thy loveliest head. Have I been too hasty in urging my love? I have known thee, and loved thee, for so many years; thou hast, thy beautiful spirit has ever, night and day, been near me, the light of my life; but I have frightened thee by my impetuosity—and thou canst never love me? ”

“ The notion of kinship was carried to degrees of relationship very distant, according to our ideas, and it is quite common to hear one person referring to another as his elder or younger brother or sister, who is, according to our ideas only an eighth or a tenth cousin. In former times the genealogies were considered to be sacred and were used for what may be called religious purposes. ”

“ In short, if the family is a bad one, one below par, then marriage between cousins or between uncle and niece should be forbidden. If the family is a good one, above par, then [229] marriage between relatives of that family should be encouraged. ”

“ This implied wealth of pre-historic terms for degrees of kinship can be only understood by us as existing at a time when our ancestors lived together in clans as shepherds and nomads. When with the changing years the more fully developed relations of kinship lost the old inherited terms, how seldom have alien designations attempted to oust the native words, and how seldom with success! ”

“ All this must ‘fall to the distaff’ and go out of the family unless my daughter should marry her cousin, Leonidas Force. He also has recently inherited a considerable estate, joining this, and, like this, with a long sea front. It is not always that young people submit to be guided by their elders in the matter of marriage, but I am happy to say that my boy and girl have very readily taken our views of the case and will follow them. So they will probably be married 26 very early in the new year, and the old ancestral estate will not pass out of the old family name. ”

“ However the coefficient of attraction between persons of the same surname would undoubtedly be well marked in every degree of kinship, and conversely there are few same-name marriages in which some kinship, however remote, does not exist.
The proportion of mixed generation cousin marriages (1-1/2 cousins, 2-1/2 cousins, etc.) is always smaller than the even generation marriages of either the next nearer or more remote degrees. ”

“ Just as, with us, kinship and consanguinity largely coincide, so with primitive peoples are the kinship organisations immense, if one-sided, extensions of blood relationship, at all events in theory. In many parts of the world a totem kin traces its descent to a single male or female ancestor ”

“ Failing a cousin of this sort, he must marry his aunt or his niece, or any near relative. If his father's brother has a daughter, and insists upon him marrying her he cannot refuse; and this whatever may be the woman's age. ”

“ If thou approvest then, thou shalt say to her, I am thy cousin, Pierre;—thy resolved and immovable nun-like cousin; vowed to dwell with thee forever; to serve thee and her, to guard thee and her without end. ”

“ I'll not whisper in the ear of my first cousin, unless he be blear-eyed, or have a hump on his back; and I'll neither go to grove, arbour, nor closet, till I have sent you before me to see that there be nobody there. ”

“ The risk of marrying a cousin, even a first cousin, is greatly diminished, provided there is no decided hereditary taint in the family. And when such hereditary taint does exist, the danger is little more than in marrying into any other family where it is also found. Indeed, a certain German author has urged the propriety of such unions, where the family has traits of mental or physical excellence, as a means of preserving and developing them! ”

“ But what his precise claim to uncleship may be is a genealogical question that has never for a moment troubled their simple unsophisticated little intellects. They hold ingenuously that a rocking-horse apiece upon their birthdays, and a bright new gold half-sovereign on every visit, is quite sufficient guarantee for that naïf and expansive title of kinship. ”

“ For long and long a voice within me said, 'Go and seek thy cousin.' So I sought and found, and we abode together in the woods and fields, and were friends with our dear brothers the beasts, and the fishes, and the birds. There, day by day, my cousin would tell me of the dream that filled his soul and of the holy men who had put the dream there. ”

“ A person who had no children or direct lineal descendants might bequeath his property at pleasure: if he died without a will, first his father, then his brother or brother's children, next his sister or sister's children succeeded: if none such existed, then the cousins by the father's side, next the cousins by the mother's side,—the male line of descent having preference over the female. ”

“ In direct opposition to the Roman law of hereditary claims which established the degree of relationship according to the number of actual descendants, so that father and son were counted as related in the first degree to one another, brothers and sisters as in the second degree, uncle and niece or nephew as in the third, brothers’ or sisters’ children as in the fourth degree, the canon law on hindrances to marriage begins this reckoning after the withdrawal of the common parents, so that brother and sister are related in the first degree, uncle and niece in the second, etc. ”

“ In the little that I have seen of the world, I have observed that cousins—when they happen to be brought together under interesting circumstances—can remember their relationship, and forget their relationship, just as it suits them. “Is your cousin a married lady?” ”

“ Am I right?”
“No,—all my brothers and sisters are dead, and you are to be my cousin Charlie, and I am your cousin Mary, or Polly, as papa used to call me. You may call me which name you like.”
“Cousin Polly, then—I am very glad to see you at Haughton Tower, and I hope you will be happy, but I fear you will find it dull.”
“Don’t be afraid about me, I am never dull when people are kind, and among these beautiful woods, and in this garden with its lovely flowers, how could any one be dull, cousin? ”

“ Duties of Near Relatives.—There are similar duties of charity and piety between other near relatives, for example, between brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren uncles and aunts and their nephews and nieces, and between first cousins. The obligation seems, to some authors, to be a grave one as far as the second degree of kinship, but is light in the other degrees. The relationship and duty to kin by marriage is not so strong. ”

“ I have not seen half the multitude of cousins that I find are to be seen, but so far they are kind and affectionate, and disposed to make me comfortable and happy. I feel just like a child who has left home for the first time ”

“ Of all kinships it is likely that the closest is that of cousin. Between cousins there exist the ties of race, name, and favor—ties thicker than water, and yet not coagulated with the jealous precipitations of brotherhood or the enjoining obligations of the matrimonial yoke. ”

“ Every relationship recognized under the system is thus explained from the nature of the consanguine family, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group. Relationships on the father’s side are followed as near as the parentage of children could be known, probable fathers being treated as actual fathers. Relationships on the mother’s side are determined by the principle of affinity, step-children being regarded as actual children. ”

“ The designations for both kinds of aunt are doubtful. In the speaker’s generation ‘parallel’ male cousins, i.e., the sons of two brothers and of two sisters, are grouped with brothers and distinguished from cross-cousins, as they are in the Dakota system. That a woman calls her father’s sister’s son by the same term as her husband is a fact of some theoretical importance since it suggests the possible occurrence of cross-cousin marriages. ”