How can a related marriage turn out? The attitude of modern society and the law towards consanguineous marriages.

Commentary on Article 14

This article establishes the circumstances that prevent marriage. The article provides 4 conditions under which marriage is not allowed. In accordance with the provisions of the commented article, marriages between:

- persons of whom at least one person is already in another registered marriage;

- close relatives (relatives in a direct ascending and descending line (parents and children, grandfather, grandmother and grandchildren), full and half (having a common father or mother) brothers and sisters);

- adoptive parents and adopted children;

- persons of whom at least one person has been declared incompetent by a court due to a mental disorder.

If the above circumstances exist, the head of the registry office may refuse to register the marriage. However, such a refusal can be appealed in court.

1. According to Part 1 of this article, marriage is not allowed between persons, at least one of whom is in another registered marriage. Another marriage means an ongoing or undissolved registered marriage.

Persons who were married can register new marriage only after presenting documents confirming the termination of the previous marriage. Confirmation of the termination of a previous marriage is: a death certificate of the spouse (in these cases, a note is not made in the passport), a certificate of divorce (if for some reason the divorce is not stamped in the passport), a court decision declaring the marriage invalid. At the same time, being in an actual (unregistered) marital relationship is not an obstacle to registering a marriage, no matter how long it lasts. However, the actual cessation marital relations(if the marriage is still registered but not dissolved) entails the recognition of the new marriage as invalid.

The Russian Federation enshrines the principle of monogamy, or monogamy, according to which only one man and one woman can be married, that is, bigamy and bigamy are prohibited. Polygamy is traditionally associated with eastern countries; it allows a man to be married to several women at the same time.

2. Marriage is not allowed between close relatives (relatives in a direct ascending and descending line - parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren; between full-blooded (having a common father and mother) and half-blooded (having only one parent in common) brothers and sisters) . The legislative ban is dictated, first of all, by concern for the health of future children and the prevention of the birth of defective offspring. It has been established that consanguineous marriages lead to a higher percentage of hereditary diseases and developmental defects in children. For example, the number of births with Down syndrome and severe pathology in families where spouses are cousins ​​is 2 times higher than in ordinary families. And the proportion affected by schizophrenia among first-degree relatives is 1 in 105.

In the Russian Federation, marriages of relatives are allowed, starting with cousins. This is not a very good legislative solution. It is known that in many countries of the world the list of prohibitions on marriage with relatives is much longer than in the Russian Federation, and the basis for such a list is one thing - concern for the new generation. It is known that modern humanity has accumulated many chronic diseases, and if a child has both parents of the same blood, this doubles the possibility of inheriting one or another disease. Thus, the next generation degenerates. It is worth recalling that in France, for example, not only an extensive list of relatives, but even former in-laws are prohibited from marrying. And relatives are members of the same family, not related general blood, for example, daughter-in-law and father-in-law, mother-in-law and son-in-law.

Unfortunately, modern family law The Russian Federation has not made any changes to this list of restrictions, although proposals have been repeatedly made in the legal literature to expand the number of prohibitions for biological and ethical reasons.

Such marriages contradict our moral ideas (the prohibition of marriage due to consanguinity is also associated with categories of moral order), not to mention the negative consequences resulting from incest.

3. For the same moral and ethical reasons Family code The Russian Federation prohibits marriages between adoptive parents and adopted children, since by virtue of the law their relationship is equated to the relationship between parents and children by origin. Consequently, this prohibition will also apply to marriages between stepfather and stepdaughter, stepmother and stepson, provided they are formalized properly.

At the same time, marriages between stepbrothers and sisters (children of each spouse from a previous marriage), as well as relatives (in a relationship of property, each spouse consists of relatives of the other spouse, as well as relatives of the spouses among themselves).

4. It is not permitted to enter into marriage between persons if at least one of them is recognized by the court as incompetent due to a mental disorder, since the incompetent person cannot be aware of the actions he is performing and control them and, therefore, is not able to express the conscious will to enter into marriage. By establishing such a prohibition, the law proceeds, first of all, from the interests of the incapacitated person. The need to prevent the birth of defective offspring is also taken into account. Mental disorders are usually associated with the presence of various kinds mental illnesses. However, just detecting a mental disorder is not enough. It must be confirmed in a court decision declaring the citizen incompetent. In the absence of such a decision, one cannot speak of the impossibility of marriage. The person's incapacity must exist at the time of registration of the marriage. If so judgment was adopted after marriage, it will be grounds for divorce.

Recognition of a citizen - a chronic alcoholic or drug addict - as having limited legal capacity in accordance with Art. 30 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, although the danger of children being born from the marriage of persons of whom at least one suffers chronic alcoholism or drug addiction, for future offspring is obvious and confirmed by medical statistics.

By the way, in many states, persons recognized as mentally incompetent in remission can marry. This is certainly a humane rule. However, it is not used in the Russian Federation.

About when the fact of the birth of children with physical and physical disabilities was first established mental disorders, whose parents were close relatives, history is silent. The origins of the discovery of such consequences go back to the primitive communal system. In this article we will look at the question of why you can’t marry relatives.

This fact forced people to prevent such relationships, guided primarily by the instinct of self-preservation. Representatives of various religions and secular society around the world adhere to strict ban on marriages between relatives to avoid the birth of unhealthy offspring.

For what reason did you marry relatives?

Everyone knows historical facts that demonstrate the consequences of consanguineous marriages. And today there are still very small tribes obsessed with the idea of ​​the so-called purity of the race. Representatives of such tribes should marry only relatives. The result is their degeneration and the threat of complete extinction.

A striking example negative consequences such marriages for Tsarist Russia is the history of the Romanov dynasty. Children from royal family married relatives. So the royals tried to prevent strangers from entering their family. As a result, the heir to the royal throne - the son of Emperor Nicholas II - was born with hemophilia, which indirectly influenced the fate of tsarist Russia.

Why you can't marry relatives

Possibilities modern science allowed us to understand why it is impossible to marry relatives, and what causes the birth of defective children from such marriages.

The fact is that by inheritance from parents, not only external signs- body structure, eye shape, skin and hair shade. In an unborn child, at the gene level, a hereditary program of predisposition to the development of various diseases is laid down.

If the father and mother are blood relatives, there is a high probability that their set of genes is identical. In this case, the transmission of genes carrying a hereditary disease to children is doubled.

In children born from close relatives, there are often cases of cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, hemophilia, a high percentage of oncology and mortality in early age. Such children may be born blind, deaf, with mental disorders and deformities various forms. All this causes the appearance of weakened offspring and their subsequent degeneration.

Advantages of offspring born from unrelated parents

• Even before the advent of the science of genetics, people understood the danger of marriages between close relatives, and tried to select a couple from other places.
• Until now, the peoples of Africa and Far North, living separately and in isolation, the following custom is preserved: foreign men who appear in their settlement can choose a local woman to conceive and give birth to a healthy child.
• Today everyone knows that the strongest, most beautiful, healthy and talented children are born from spouses of different nationalities, who have no external resemblance, and who cannot in any way be blood relatives. There are scientific works that prove the positive effect of combining different genomes on the offspring.

Legislation banning marriage to relatives

In the 21st century, the desire to marry a sister and have children together can only arise from a person who has lost his head in love. People of sound mind should understand the consequences of marrying a relative.

Such rules are dictated not only by nature. In many countries, marriage between relatives is not only prohibited by law, but is also classified as a criminal offense. In our country similar marriages also cannot be registered in accordance with the Family Code of the Russian Federation.

Even a suspected pregnancy future wife is not a valid reason for marriage between relatives.

In the occurrence of hereditary diseases, great importance is attached to consanguineous marriages, that is, to such marriage unions when spouses have one or more common ancestors.

It has long been noted that children from these marriages will be born weaker, which is manifested in increased morbidity and mortality. Moreover, the closer the degree of relationship between the parents, the more pronounced the adverse consequences. The role of consanguinity is especially obvious when studying the pedigrees of children with relatively rare hereditary diseases. Thus, the frequency of marriages between cousins and sisters in Europe and North America averages 1%, and their frequency in diseases such as albinism and ichthyosis can reach 18-53%.

The frequency of consanguineous marriages varies among the population different countries and districts. Thus, according to American geneticist Kurt Stern, in Brazil, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, the frequency of marriages between cousins ​​is relatively low and ranges from 0.4 to 0.05%. However, in a number of other countries it is still very high. For example, in India in cities it is 12.9%, and in rural areas- 33.3%, in Japan - 5.03 and 16.4%, respectively.

It is known that the conclusion of consanguineous marriages is usually facilitated by economic, everyday, legal, religious, geographical, historical, etc. factors.

People have long realized the harm of consanguineous marriages, and even in ancient times there were prohibition laws. At present, in most countries and areas of the world, custom or law directly or indirectly prohibits marriage between relatives.

What is the danger of consanguineous marriages for the health of the offspring? The correct answer can be obtained by turning to genetics. It is believed that every person is a carrier of some pathological genes, i.e., in the language of geneticists, each of us, being healthy, is a heterozygous carrier of certain harmful genes. Among relatives of the same family there are many identical genes, i.e. they (although healthy) are heterozygous carriers of the same pathological gene, and therefore, during a consanguineous marriage, a meeting of two heterozygotes of the same type can occur and the birth of a child - a homozygote.

Thus, consanguineous marriages are dangerous because they sharply increase the risk of a union between two carriers of the same disease.

History shows that in some social groups ah, consanguineous marriages have been encouraged for centuries. Thus, the ancient Egyptians and Incas in the ruling dynasties, avoiding the “clogging” of royal blood, encouraged marriages between siblings.

It was believed that consanguineous marriages were even useful, that they could, as it were, summarize the favorable characteristics of ancestors. It is known that in some cases, inbreeding (consanguineous marriages) leads to the birth of outstanding personalities. The example usually given is the famous artist Toulouse-Lautrec, who was descended from the marriage of a cousin. The great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin was born from a related marriage.

However, humanity has more extensive information about the dangers of consanguineous marriages for human health. Numerous examples of consanguineous marriages among royal families show their bad influence for posterity. In 1906, American researcher Adam Woods published a solid book on inheritance mental abilities and moral qualities of kings (“Mental and moral heredity in royalty”). They presented the analysis family trees the royal houses of Hanover, Hohenzollern, Conde, Bourbon, Habsburg, Oldenburg.

It is quite natural that many of the conclusions of an American researcher in our time sound naive. Perhaps, if Woods had had modern knowledge of genetics and medical capabilities at that time, he probably would have been able to identify something common among members of these families, such as metabolic disorders, and thereby explain such frequent disorders they have nervous system.

In this regard, the reader may be of some interest in the pedigree of the so-called “royal porphyria”, published relatively recently - in 1968. Porphyria is a rare but severe hereditary diseases With recessive type transfers. The disease is believed to be based on advanced education in the body of alpha-aminolevulinic acid, which is accompanied by increased secretion of a special substance porphobilinogen in the urine (port-wine-colored urine). The disease does not manifest itself constantly, but very severe pain in the abdomen and nervous system disorders. The pedigree of “royal porphyria” shows that this disease was inherited in the Stuart, George (House of Hanover) and Hohenzoller dynasties. It has been suggested that this serious illness can explain some of the insane actions of Mary Stuart, the cruelty of James I and James II, the madness of George III and George IV and other monarchs.

The famous Soviet geneticist V.I. Efroimson explains this susceptibility of royal dynasties to hereditary ailments not only by consanguineous marriages, but also by the lack of natural selection.

Various national, religious, territorial and other isolation factors play a significant role in maintaining a relatively high frequency of consanguineous marriages. In this regard, the study of the health status of the population living in isolates has attracted the attention of geneticists.

Isolates include population groups that, due to different conditions(geographical, religious, social, historical, etc.) lead a separate lifestyle. Due to the small population of these groups, it can be very difficult to find a bride or groom, and marriages take place mainly within this small community. Such isolates are not uncommon; they still exist in many countries around the world. More often they arise in the Far North in the form of small settlements separated from each other by roadless areas or in the south, in mountainous or desert areas.

Currently, as part of an international biological program in many countries, scientists are conducting joint studies of the biological characteristics of different ethnic groups and isolates: in South America, in the Middle East, on the Hawaiian and Solomon Islands, among the Eskimos of Greenland and Alaska.

Isolates also include various socio-economic or racial strata in populous cities, wherever a group of people, part of a larger population, tends to marry only within their own circle, and this continues for many generations. For example, Jewish communities in England and Germany, Old Believers, Indians in the USA.

As we have already noted, a characteristic property of isolates is a high frequency of consanguineous marriages, or inbreeding. In isolates, the number of carriers of one “harmful” gene can reach more than 60%, and in the presence of frequent consanguineous marriages it becomes very high risk“separation of homozygotes,” i.e., the appearance of patients with hereditary defects. These are not theoretical calculations, these are well-known facts.

In Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, France and other countries, examination of various isolates made it possible to detect new, previously unknown recessive mutations in humans. It turned out that the population of each isolate is characterized by its own hereditary anomalies.

Thus, genetics shows not only the social harm of caste, sectarianism, and chauvinism, but also their direct threat to human health. Economic progress, improved means of communication, increased welfare and culture, sanitary and hygienic knowledge led to the inevitable breakdown of isolates. The intensified process of migration and urbanization of the population leads to a significant reduction in isolation factors and the frequency of consanguineous marriages. Scientists say that the number of mixed marriages is constantly increasing, and this reduces the incidence of hereditary diseases.

Marriage is a good thing. Even despite the name. And, strange as it may seem, the majority strives for it... Upon reaching of a certain age. However, for some it is earlier, for others it is later. But it turns out that everything is not so simple. Even the law (at least Article 14 of the Family Code Russian Federation) provides whole line circumstances that may be obstacles to marriage. And this list, either fortunately or not, is exhaustive.

It is prohibited to enter into a marriage between persons if at least one of the two is already in another registered marriage. In the end, polygamy is only allowed in some places by Muslims and especially conservative Mormons. If the previous marriage was dissolved in the manner prescribed by law, was terminated or declared invalid (for example, in the event of the death of one of the spouses or the court declared him dead), then the person is considered unmarried and can enter into a new marriage with full responsibility .

You cannot marry between close relatives. This, in fact, is not just a law, but a rule of life, because from school we are told about the dangers of inbreeding, such as genetic mutations and hemophilia. There is, however, an unambiguous answer as to which specific closely related crosses cause the manifestation of usually recessive mutations, but the legislation provides a list of such persons: children and parents, grandparents and grandchildren, full and half brothers and sisters. The law does not say anything about cousins, uncles and aunts, but, in an amicable way, it is also not recommended for the benefit of future offspring. In fact, the ban on incestuous marriage exists throughout the world, and primitive societies they also did not encourage such marriages and tried to “dilute” the blood of one tribe with the blood of another.

Based more on moral and ethical considerations, marriages between adoptive parents and adopted children are prohibited. The law assumes that relationships that arise in connection with adoption are equivalent to family relationships. At the same time, this prohibition does not apply to marriages between relatives of the adoptive parent and the adopted child.

Persons who have been declared legally incompetent due to a mental disorder are prohibited from marrying. The prohibition is due to the fact that such a person cannot show conscious will when entering into a marriage. However, without a court decision, no mental disorder or mental illness, even certified by a medical certificate, in itself cannot be an obstacle to marriage. It is important that incapacity is established before marriage. If a person was declared incompetent after its conclusion, then the marriage cannot be declared invalid on this basis.

The conditions for marriage are the mutual voluntary consent of the man and woman entering into marriage, and their achievement marriageable age. The first is, of course, very important. If it is known for certain that someone entered into marriage under pressure, threats or as a result of blackmail, then the marriage is declared invalid. As for the second, according to the law, marriage before the 18th birthday is possible only with the permission of parents or legal representatives. But the Family Code presupposes that even if there is good reasons allow marriage to persons who have reached the age of sixteen, but permission for such a marriage is given by the local government body at the place of residence.

One of best sources existing information on marriages between relatives in human populations. 

     In modern In human communities, marriages between close relatives are quite rare. Certain types of close in- 

For example, let the probability that a gene randomly selected from an individual is identical in origin to one of the two alleles of the same locus of its brother (sister) is 1/2. If one of the siblings in a brother-sister marriage carries a gene that, when homozygous, causes a recessive disease, then the other sibling has this gene with a probability of 1/2, and the risk of the disease for each child of this pair is 1/4. Therefore, the probability that at least one child from this marriage will be sick is equal to 1-(3/4), where n is the number of children in the marriage. Thus, by analyzing the frequency of recessive diseases in the offspring of a certain number of marriages between brothers and sisters (provided that there is no selection for any other traits), it is possible to determine the average number of individuals in a population that have this recessive gene. The same reasoning holds for father-daughter marriages. However, marriages between such close relatives are extremely rare and are prohibited by law. In addition, individuals entering into 

In humans, marital relations between parents and children or between brothers and sisters are called incest. In most human cultures, there is a ban on such marriages, although they were common in the dynasties of the Egyptian pharaohs. Marriages between less closely related relatives, such as cousins, are also often prohibited by law or religious custom. In the United States, for example, in approximately half of the states there are laws prohibiting marriages between uncle and niece, aunt and nephew, as well as between first cousins; in the remaining states such marriages are legalized. 

In some societies, marriages between close relatives are not only allowed, but even considered desirable. In Japan, for example, marriages between first cousins ​​are encouraged and in some localities and social groups account for up to 10% of the total number of marriages. In the state of Andhra Pradesh (India), there are castes that favor uncle-niece marriages, which account for more than 10% of all marriages here. 

From those given in table. 7.5 estimates, one can see that for different population groups the value of a varies by more than two orders of magnitude. In large social or religious groups in which marriages between close relatives are strictly prohibited, such as Catholics, a values ​​are low, while in smaller groups (such as the Samaritans) or in groups in which marriages between first cousins ​​and sisters (like some Indian tribes), the values ​​of a are much higher. 

Marriage between close relatives is not allowed. Family Code in in this case By close relatives we mean relatives in a direct ascending and descending line (parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren), full and half brothers and sisters. By full brothers and sisters we mean those brothers and sisters who have both a father and a mother in common, and by half-siblings we mean those who are half-blooded and have only a mother in common. 

Studies conducted in Germany have shown that people who marry a close relative are psychologically different from the population average. For example, husbands from consanguineous marriages had greater difficulty than other men in establishing interpersonal contacts, which is why they chose a relative as a wife. In some regions, attitudes towards consanguineous marriages are positive, for example in South India, the most socially preferable marriage is between a niece and her maternal uncle. 

For countries with a Catholic population, the data is usually based on records of marriage licenses that are available in church registers. However, it is likely that not all Catholics planning to marry a close relative apply to the church for permission; priests, especially in cities, may not know their parishioners well enough to determine family ties between them. 

However, the majority of affected children had unspecified disabilities, such as uncomplicated idiocy. In addition, careful research showed that many of those entering into incest marriage suffered from mental retardation. Therefore, it is very difficult to separate the contribution of autosomal recessive anomalies identified by analyzing marriages between very close relatives, on the one hand, and the contribution of parental genotypes that are abnormal in other respects and unfavorable environmental conditions, on the other. For example, how many children suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome? However, the assumption that a significant part of these anomalies is due to homozygosity for harmful recessive genes seems probable. This finding means that in the population of parents, many individuals are heterozygous for deleterious genes. 

Apparently, such marriages can be interpreted as marriages between heterozygotes and homozygotes. In this case, there are two possibilities or mutations that cause dominant pathology (in this case, the affected parent is heterozygous, and the unaffected    Human Genetics T.3 (1990) - [