Cousin marriage law in the United States

[179] Anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer suggests (1996) that marriage prohibitions were introduced to maintain the social order, uphold religious morality, and safeguard the creation of fit offspring.

[180] Writers such as Noah Webster (1758–1843) and ministers like Philip Milledoler (1775–1852) and Joshua McIlvaine helped lay the groundwork for such viewpoints well before 1860.

[180] In 1846, Massachusetts Governor George N. Briggs appointed a commission to study mentally handicapped people (at the time termed "idiots") in the state.

Perhaps most important was the report of physician Samuel Merrifield Bemiss for the American Medical Association, which concluded cousin inbreeding leads to the "physical and mental deprivation of the offspring".

Despite being contradicted by other studies like those of George Darwin (himself the result of a cousin marriage) and Alan Huth in England and Robert Newman in New York, the report's conclusions were widely accepted.

George Louis Arner in 1908 considered the ban a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he thought would eventually be replaced by more refined techniques.

[183] Since that time, Kentucky (1943) and Texas have banned first-cousin marriage and since 1985, Maine has mandated genetic counseling for marrying cousins to minimise risk to any serious health defect to their children.

[187] According to the University of Minnesota's The Wake, Kahn was aware the bill had little chance of passing but introduced it anyway to draw attention to the issue.

[188] In contrast, Maryland delegates Henry B. Heller and Kumar P. Barve sponsored a bill to ban first-cousin marriages in 2000.

[190] Texas did pass a ban on first-cousin marriage the same year as Amrhein and Andrews married, evidently in reaction to the presence of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).