Alert readers may remember that
I wrote on this subject 18 months ago, arguing that we in the UK should ban consanguineous marriage. The column became one of the most-read stories of the year, not because of any journalist merit but because readers instantly spotted the logic. Friends in Scandinavia said the piece had been picked up there, and an article I cited by the brilliant scholar Patrick Nash started to trend. A movement seemed to be spreading.
Why is this significant? Why do I think a ban could not only help western nations but transform the developing world by boosting growth and reducing bloodshed? Well, permit me to offer a bit of context. Humankind has been tribal for much of the past 12,000 years (since the agricultural revolution). This form of social organisation made sense because cohesive groups built on kinship are good at defending territory. And how are the tribes glued together internally? By cousin marriage. People marry within the group, the unions typically arranged by patriarchs, ensuring a clear demarcation with outsiders.
A problem arose, however, when tribal societies sought — slowly, messily, often painfully — to become nation states. You can perhaps see the challenge. A region populated by tribes isn’t really a nation: it is an arena of disunity and, often, conflict.
Look at many of the world’s problems today — from terrible clashes in Yemen and Syria to civil wars in Sudan — and you see the same root cause. All these places are riven by tribe, clan and ethnic group.
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