Purani genes: Almost half Pakistani married women wed to cousins says Gallup

It seems like the trend of Pakistani cousin marriages is not dwindling anytime soon. According to a recent “Gallup Pakistan analysis of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey,” around half of Pakistani women from 2017-18 decided to walk down the aisle with men from their own families – their first cousins!

While, we might have gotten rid of the questionable fashion trends of the nineties, the trend of cousin marriages seems to have survived against all sense of medical and health reasoning. Back in 1990-91, the cousin marriage count was hovering around a solid 49.6 per cent. Fast forward to 2017-18, and it has only decreased by less than a per cent.

Even in intra-family marriages, women seem to prefer first-cousins over second-cousins or distant family members

The decline is a bit more prominent among the urban areas as compared to rural areas. Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh decided to give cousin marriages a slight pass, with percentages dropping by 5, 4, and 3, respectively. But Balochistan made up for it, where cousin-marriages rose by a whopping 8 per cent, according to the analysis.

There’s more! A few attempts were made at shaking things up through education, but eventually to no avail. The 1990s witnessed education as a valiant catalyst in mitigating the prevalence of cousin marriages. By 2017, this educational intervention resulted in a languid decline of only 1 per cent in cousin.

Education, nevertheless, remains a potent dissuader for cousin marriages. While the overall trend remains relatively stable among women with equivalent educational backgrounds, conspicuous differences emerge across divergent educational strata.

50-60 per cent of women in the lower wealth quintiles and 40-45 per cent of women in the top quintiles have embraced cousin-marriages

As educational attainment ascends, the prevalence of cousin marriages proportionally descends. In 2017, uneducated women accounted for 54.3 per cent of cousin marriages, whereas merely 26.3 per cent of women with higher education embraced this practice.

And guess what else? Money can’t buy love! Cousin marriages don’t discriminate on wealth strata either. The survey discovered that the cousin-marriage trend stands strong, with 50 to 60 per cent of women in the lower wealth quintiles and 40-45 per cent of women in the top quintiles choosing their cousins as life partners.

There is one more caveat in this survey. Even in intra-family marriages, women seem to prefer first-cousins over second-cousins or distant family members. In 2017, an average of 42 per cent of the women between age groups 15-29 years had married their first cousins compared to 54 per cent on average for the same age group in 1990.

Rate of marrying second cousins is markedly lower – it seems women largely marry either first cousins, or nonrelatives, with minority of women marrying second cousins or distant relatives.

The data presented by the Gallup on the persistence of Pakistani cousin-marriages invites a critical examination of the practice.

Despite advancements in education and changing societal norms, the unyielding prevalence of cousin marriages raises questions about the impact on the health and well-being of future generations.

Read: LHC orders measures against child marriage

According to a 2017 report on genetic mutations in Pakistan, the “heterogenous composition” of Pakistan’s population, including high levels of “consanguinity” has led to a prevalence of genetic disorders.

The report introduced a Pakistan “genetic mutation” database, which identified and tracked different types of mutations and the disorders they lead to.

According to the database, more than 1,000 mutations had been reported in 130 different kinds of genetic disorders found in Pakistan.