Sweden declares war on consanguineous marriages - and wants to promote the integration of foreigners

Neue Zürcher Zeitung Germany Sweden declares war on consanguineous marriages - and wants to promote the integration of foreigners Article by Ingrid Meissl Årebo, Stockholm • 1 hour • 3 minutes reading time Wedding rings are not exchanged voluntarily in all cultures. The increase in immigration has led to an increase in arranged marriages in Sweden. Sweden wants to ban the marriage of close relatives. From mid-2026, neither cousins ​​nor uncles and nieces or aunts and nephews will be allowed to marry. The investigation report requested by the conservative Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer also suggests that consanguineous marriages concluded abroad will no longer be recognized. According to the conservative minister, the planned ban is an important piece of the puzzle in combating violence, oppression and control of people in the name of "family honor." Girls and women are clearly affected, but sons can also fall victim to arranged marriages, with which clans try to create loyalty within the family, secure their power or form ties with other clans. Such forced unions are often arranged by parents or entire families at birth, without giving those affected a choice in how they live their lives later on. It is unclear how widespread marriages between cousins ​​are in Sweden at present; there are no reliable figures. In the 1970s, it was estimated that they accounted for one percent of all marriages in rural areas, and half as many in cities; between 1880 and 1900, almost one in ten marriages was between close relatives. At that time, it was mainly wealthy parents who married their first-born sons to cousins ​​in order to secure the family's land holdings. The situation is different today. With the sharp rise in immigration in recent decades, more and more people have settled in Sweden whose home countries have a tradition of cousin marriages. According to estimates, a tenth of the global population lives in countries where 20 to 50 percent of all marriages are between second cousins ​​and other close relatives. These include many countries in North Africa and the Middle East, but also Pakistan. A 2009 study published in the journal "Reproductive Health" assumes that in the Arab world a third of all marriages are between first cousins. The decisive factor here is less religion than culture and tradition. Cousin marriages are accepted in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as in Christianity (with the exception of Christian Orthodox denominations, while the Catholic Church can grant exceptions). Bans are the exception rather than the rule Contrary to this widespread practice, marriage bans for first cousins ​​are the exception rather than the rule: they are prohibited in most states of the USA, in China, Taiwan, the two Koreas and the Philippines. In Europe, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and, since this summer, Norway have such a ban. Most other countries, including Switzerland and Germany, only prohibit marriages between close blood relatives, such as between siblings and half-siblings. When Norway's parliament debated the ban, the improved integration of immigrants was a main argument. Proponents also brought medical reasons into play, such as the increased risk of stillbirths and deaths in childhood among descendants of close relatives, as well as recessively inherited diseases. On the latter, the European noble families, which used cousin marriage for centuries to expand their power and wealth, have provided doctors and genetic researchers with excellent study material. Enormous bureaucratic effort Sweden's government has now sent the planned ban on cousin marriage out for consultation. The proposal was part of the coalition agreement that the bourgeois government concluded two years ago with the right-wing nationalist Sweden Democrats, without whose votes it would not be able to gain a majority. It is unclear how such a ban would be handled in practice. Clarifying the family relationships of migrants requires not only considerable bureaucratic effort, but also good contacts with their countries of origin, which must also have meaningful population registers. Sweden's largest party, the now opposition Social Democrats, spoke out against a ban on marriage between close relatives at the beginning of 2022. Their then Minister of Justice did not want to dictate to adults who they could marry; he also found that the existing bans on forced and child marriages as well as the "Lex Fadime" offered enough protection.