Not too long ago, more specifically, November 15, 2022, the world's population reached 8 billion people, and it’s surprising how we all fit on Earth. It’s hard to imagine so many people in one place when we still lose our friend in a crowd at a shopping center during sales.
But the phrase ‘what a small world’ was never more true than for this woman who managed to marry her cousin without even knowing it. Somehow their familiar relation never came to the surface until the two were looking for names for their baby and started looking up their family tree, wanting to honor a grandparent. Then they realized they were actually relatives.
More info: TikTok
Marriage between cousins was quite common in the past, but not so much now, but it happens even if the people in the couple aren’t aware of it
Image credits: @beingmarcellahill
Marcella Hill is an author and CEO who is passionate about women’s health and wellbeing. She has almost 300k followers on TikTok and she keeps the discussion about the parts of women's health that are not talked a lot going.
She rarely shares her personal life, but not too long ago, she made a confession that over a million people saw. Apparently, she never told this secret in a public setting, but it’s such a rare story that it had to be shared.
The woman was pregnant and she and her husband were sitting on the couch and looking up names for the baby that was coming. They both were analyzing their family trees and sharing the names of their grandparents. They quickly realized that they had a lot of names that were the same and the woman’s logical explanation was that her husband didn’t log out from her account.
The thing is that they were both logged into their own accounts and the reason why they had the same people in the family tree was because they were related. When they figured out that their grandparents were cousins, each of them called their grandparent and confirmed it was true.
Marcella and her husband were once searching for names for their baby who was on the way and they opened up their family trees
Image credits: @beingmarcellahill
That means the husband and wife are 3rd cousins. The couple didn’t know about it until then because their families hadn’t had a chance to meet yet. The husband and wife met through a mutual friend after they’ve both been divorced and when it came the time to get married, because it was their second marriage, the couple did it at a courthouse after work on a Wednesday, so there wasn’t a big family celebration.
When Bored Panda asked what were the reactions she, her husband and their families had, Marcella told us that she was just surprised and it was weird but nothing changed for her and her husband. Their families found it funny as they also didn’t know each other.
As Marcella told The Daily Mail, as soon as the parents found out they were relatives, their first concern was what would be the consequences for their baby. Turns out, they didn’t have to worry about it.
They noticed that the branches were the same and thought that they must both be logged into Marcella’s account
Image credits: @beingmarcellahill
Image credits: beingmarcellahill
3rd and 4th cousins can safely have kids and they are actually called “kissing cousins.” Scientists say that not only is it safe for them to have kids, but it makes good biological sense.
As Live Science explains it, “While first-cousin couples could have inbreeding problems, couples who are far-removed from each other could have genetic incompatibilities.”
Kari Stefansson of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik who led the research of 'An association between the kinship and fertility of human couples' said that “There is recognition in that definition of the fact that individuals have to be somewhat related to each other to be able to reproduce.”
But they were definitely looking at their own accounts and realized that their grandparents were cousins, which made them 3rd cousins
Image credits: @beingmarcellahill
While 3rd cousins are far enough apart to have children, it is also true that when people are too closely related, there is a bigger chance of their children being born unhealthy, because there is a bigger chance that both of the parents have the same disease-causing variants.
However, people aren’t just concerned about the possible unhealthy children that a related couple may have. Even if a couple isn’t planning on having children of their own, at least the modern Western society considers it morally wrong and weird when relatives get married, even if they are distant relatives.
But Marcella says that “I don’t think this is as interesting as anyone is making it to be. When a couple has children and the brother and sister go on to have their own separate lives and have their own children. And then those children have children, and those children, at that point you aren’t the same families. By that point there have been 4 different surnames given to the women. And there is less than 1% blood shared. I believe if couples did their family history many would be surprised to find they are 'related.'”
They called their grandparents to confirm and it was true, which made the couple concerned about their child’s health, but thankfully there was nothing to worry about
Image credits: @beingmarcellahill
Image credits: @beingmarcellahill
You can watch the viral video below
It is evident that the story caused controversy in Marcella’s comments as she turned them off, but from what is still available on the internet, it seems that some people were disgusted while others believed there is nothing wrong with that relationship and they didn’t even know about it.
What is your opinion on this? Do you think relatives should never be in a romantic relationship even if they are never planning to have their own kids? Do you think love is love as long as two people consent to it? Is there a line to draw? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Some people were weirded out by this relationship, but others considered 3rd cousins to be distant enough relatives for marriage
