Marrying your cousin is no longer a social norm

The Arab American News has an article contrasting views on cousin marriage between the United States and the Middle East:

Cousin-marriage is a social norm pretty much acceptable — culturally and religiously— in the Middle East, but not for today's generation of Arab Americans trying to bridge the Arab and American ways of life.

Their life among two cultures allows them to see both sides of the picture and adapt to a middle ground. Therefore, the fact that cousin-marriage is not a social norm in the U.S. plays a role in the decisions of many young Arab Americans.

According to the scholarly article "'It's Ok, We're Not Cousins by Blood': The Cousin Marriage Controversy in Historical Perspective" by Diane Paul and Hamish Spencer, first cousins married until the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe and America, as it was a practice highly preferred by "elites." However, after the Civil War, it was no longer customary in the U.S..

The researchers wrote, "unlike the situation in Britain and much of Europe, cousin marriage in the U.S. was associated not with the aristocracy and upper middle class but with much easier targets: immigrants and the rural poor."