Posted by Kaapuikinaea on February 1, 2010 at 7:24am
I thumbed through some of the old laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom last night, stumbled the law of marriage where it states:In order to validate the marriage contract, it shall be necessary that the respective parties be not to each other within the fourth degree of consanguinity.Just so happened the past few weeks I was reading about things like that, double cousins, double 1st cousins, etc. But I still don't know what this 4th degree is and even asked my friend but he asked me what did that mean.I'm guessing since I read about 1st cousins sharing 12.5% of the same genes or consanguinity or whatever, that make the 25% (which would be siblings) is what they mean by 4th degree?I read on wiki (actually wapedia) that, to no surprise:In the Roman Catholic Church, unwittingly marrying a closely-consanguineous blood relative is grounds for an annulment, but dispensations were granted, actually almost routinely (the Catholic Church's ban on marriage within the fourth degree of relationship (first cousins) lasted from 1550 to 1917; before that, the prohibition applied to marriages within the seventh degree of kinship).Obviously a missionary influence. But here's a thought. Although Kanaka Oiwi were few in numbers, our ancestors have been intermarrying with all kinds of outsiders for over a century now. But what about these MISSIONARY families who continually mix among each other's families? *shakes head*
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