Meow

"Twenty per cent of Emiratis who had pre-marital health tests in the UAE capital last year were looking to marry their first cousin, the latest Health Authority Abu Dhabi (HAAD) figures have shown."

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http://www.7daysinabudhabi.com/Cousi...ail/story.html



YUK! I actually need a green faced vomiting smiley.

kittycat1

I went to a certain bank and was served by a cashier with 6 fingers (1 thumb and 5 fingers)- I was transfixed! She didnt count the cash any bloody quicker mind!

Beaverstate

Be careful of any banks working on a 6 or 12 base instead of ten. Not sure who comes out ahead.

Miss Anne Thrope

It's not that long ago that the practice of marrying cousins was perfectly acceptable in the West. Literature provides a good source. Austen, Dickens, Bronte novels are full of instances; it goes even as late as turn of the century Henry James (for example, in the magnificant Portrait of a Lady, cousin Ralph is clearly the most idealised of the suitors for Isabel's hand, and other bits).

I know of potential matches here that have been overturned (often by sisters who usually have a big say in whom their younger brothers marry) because the familial relationship is not sufficiently close. Intra-tribal marriage is strongly preferred in many cases, particularly among the big tribes that stretch across the Jazeera. If you know any Khaleejis well you will likely have encountered their absolute obsession with lineage. Marrying relatives is a straightforward way of preserving the integrity of the line (and weakening the gene pool, perhaps thus being responsible for much of what we find so inexplicable here).

Meow

It wasn't smart then and it isn't smart now.

the_red_sheep

It is still legal in the UK for first cousins to marry isn't it? Don't get me wrong it's f**ked up, but I think it can be done.

Meow

Luckily this lot don't have the gene for methemoglobinemia which gives a person blue skin. It's a hereditary condition and the best known case is a family of blue people, the Fugates, in Kentucky many years ago. They married too close for a few generations so the odd rogue and generally dormant gene became stronger and there were quite a number of them with blue skin.

Meow

Yes it is legal.

Boomhauer

If it wasn't, there would be quite few illegal marriages within the Brit Pakistani community.

Boomhauer

I forget how to disect an Emirati name.
Take for instance Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan ; it would be Zayed son of Sultan of the Al Nahayan family ? But could family be replaced with Clan, such that it would be the Al Nahayan Clan ?

britexpat76

So the smurfs are all inbred ?

Thought Papa Smurf always looked dodgy.........

littlejimmy

Adolf Hitler's mother and father were cousins.

Miss Anne Thrope

I'm no expert but I think the distinction between "family" and "clan" is a bit nebulous, more about wanting to selectively define a particular group of descendents. Nahyan is the family name that the Abu Dhabi ruling family have chosen, like Maktoum in Dubai or Saud in the modestly named Saudi Arabia (as the Economist once tartly pointed out, like naming the UK Windsor Britannia, or should that be Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha-Mountbatten Britannia). So the Nahyan, Maktoum or Saud royal families, for example, are all direct desendents of somebody with that respective given name. How and why they decide to cut it off at that point rather than some earlier or later antecedent I don't know. I guess it is largely to do with which ancestor they decide they want to be publicly associated.

The Nahyans and Maktoums are families within two of the many branches of the Bani Yas tribe which appears to get it's name from the place where the then newcomers arrived in this area sometime in the late 18th century. Maktoum was the bloke who broke off and moved to Dubai in the early 19th century.

Sometimes "family" names are actually tribal names. That is prevalent in the big peninsular tribes but not so common, say, in Dubai city which is dominated by relatively recent arrivals of Iranian and Bandari origin. Even if somebody's tribe is not explicitly part of their name it can often be deduced by their given and father's names. I guess it's a bit like in Northern Ireland where somebody's religion was usually immediately apparent (to those who knew how to read the signs) from their name (including the spelling).

weasel decentral

TOO..... that is all I have to contribute

Bahtatboy

Does that explain Chelsea fans?