What is "preferential cousin marriage"?

Question

? in anthropology.

Answer 1

It is cousin marriage.  Traditionally you see Bilateral Cross Cousin Marriage as the most dominant form of cousin marriage.  This is a prominate system among the aboriginal people in Australia, but this system is seen in different groups around the world.

Parallel Cousin Marriage can occur also, but is rather rare and in some societies falls under the incest taboo.

Traditionally Bilateral Cross Cousin Marriage results in a patrilocal residence pattern.  

The site I have listed as a source is great for showing you how it works and what is going on.

For the record, Cross Cousin Marriage has little to do with descent and more to do with marriage.

Also, You also do not need to worry about genetic abnormalities with Bilateral Cross Cousin Marriage because you are not marrying your direct consanguines.  This system has been used for a very long time among some societies, and typically works well with small, Hunter Gatherer type bands.

Answer 2

Is that what happens in jewish families? They are known to prefer to marry their own cousins! I bet the jews get this deleted although it is factual!

Answer 3

Ususally, preferentially marrying a cousin from one side of the family, like your fathers' brother's kids. It's seen a lot in Saudi.

Repeated cousin marriages are a bad idea. Occasional cousin marriages are okay, but if you keep mating within the same family you end up by suppressing the kids IQ's by more than 7points.

Answer 4

It means that one (or more) set of the children of one, or both, of your parents are seen as ideal marriage partners. Like the other person said, perhaps your mother's brother's children are seen as people that would make a good marriage partner, or maybe your father's brothers kids, etc... Usually it's about keeping inheritence within a family line, or about not mixing blood of a certain line with a different group, etc...