Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Cousin marriage, practiced by over 10% of the world's population, restructures kinship networks by overlapping blood and affinal ties. Theory makes competing predictions about how this affects women. "Protection" accounts argue that consanguinity aligns spouses' interests and increases kin oversight, reducing coercion. "Constraint" accounts emphasize that dense kin involvement can prioritize family cohesion over women's autonomy, suppressing help-seeking. Using demographic data from ~40,000 women across Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey, I show that cousin-married women report significantly lower levels of both physical intimate partner violence and coercive control than women in non-consanguineous unions.
In the second half, I examine whether cousin marriage accelerates family formation by reducing search and transaction costs. Marrying kin may eliminate protracted spouse searches and simplify negotiations, lowering age at first marriage. Using demographic data from the same four countries I test whether cousin marriage reduces age at marriage and increases completed fertility. A fertility advantage could offset genetic costs of inbreeding, potentially explaining the evolutionary persistence of consanguineous marriage.
The following is a presentation in the UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture Speaker Series. For more information on this speaker series, including a searchable archive of all previous presentations, please see http://bec.ucla.edu/
BEC relies on the generosity of a variety of organizations and individuals. If you find this presentation valuable and would like to assist in advancing research and education in the evolutionary behavioral sciences, please see https://giving.ucla.edu/Standard/NetDonate.aspx?SiteNum=197
Cousin marriage, practiced by over 10% of the world's population, restructures kinship networks by overlapping blood and affinal ties. Theory makes competing predictions about how this affects women. "Protection" accounts argue that consanguinity aligns spouses' interests and increases kin oversight, reducing coercion. "Constraint" accounts emphasize that dense kin involvement can prioritize family cohesion over women's autonomy, suppressing help-seeking. Using demographic data from ~40,000 women across Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey, I show that cousin-married women report significantly lower levels of both physical intimate partner violence and coercive control than women in non-consanguineous unions.
In the second half, I examine whether cousin marriage accelerates family formation by reducing search and transaction costs. Marrying kin may eliminate protracted spouse searches and simplify negotiations, lowering age at first marriage. Using demographic data from the same four countries I test whether cousin marriage reduces age at marriage and increases completed fertility. A fertility advantage could offset genetic costs of inbreeding, potentially explaining the evolutionary persistence of consanguineous marriage.
The following is a presentation in the UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture Speaker Series. For more information on this speaker series, including a searchable archive of all previous presentations, please see http://bec.ucla.edu/
BEC relies on the generosity of a variety of organizations and individuals. If you find this presentation valuable and would like to assist in advancing research and education in the evolutionary behavioral sciences, please see https://giving.ucla.edu/Standard/NetDonate.aspx?SiteNum=197
