Man realizes the Arizona woman he likes is his third cousin. Then he looks up the ramifications—and asks her out anyway
Being a reporter is a wild and wonderful thing. Some days, you get to go about your business as usual. Other days, you spend ages combing through the finer points of incest legislation.
That’s right, folks—there’s a viral TikTok going around, and it’s sparking online debates about exactly how much shared DNA is too much when you’re fighting on the battlefield of love. But worry not: The Mary Sue is here to walk you through what initially went down in the TikTok video itself, and then subsequently through what the law actually has to say about it all.
‘It’s legal for third cousins to go on a date’
It all started when content creator Ella (@shesmytranquility1 on TikTok) shared a video on Apr. 6 that has since accumulated over 25,000 views. In it, she shares a wild experience she had with a distant family member.
“Do you guys want to hear about the time when I was on vacation and I was getting all these Facebook messages from this dude?” Ella begins in her video. “He’s like, ‘Hey, can I, like, take pictures of you?’ And like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never seen anybody like you.'”
But then Ella notices something weird. This guy, who’s obviously attracted to her (judging by how he’s fawning), has… a familiar last name. It’s the same as her mom’s maiden name.
And then he drops the bomb.
“He was like, ‘Oh, yeah, well, my mom and your mom are cousins,'” Ella says. “And I was like, ‘Wait, if my mom and your mom are cousins, then me and you are cousins buddy, right?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, but it’s not that bad. We’re third cousins. So, like, technically I can take you on a date.'”
At this point, Ella is flabbergasted. She sends a shocked “LOL” in response (accompanied by “a sweating emoji” to convey her discomfort), but he doubles down.
“Then he responded back and he said, ‘No, seriously, I Googled it,'” Ella recalls. “‘It’s legal for third cousins to go on a date. Let me take you on a date.’ And then I had to block him.”
Fair enough, honestly. But unfortunately, it didn’t end there.
This guy “proceeded to call [Ella’s] mom and said, ‘Please, please don’t think that I’m a creep. I just think your daughter’s beautiful. I would go on a date with your daughter, but she doesn’t understand that third cousins … it’s not against the law. She keeps telling me it is, but it’s not.'”
An extremely bizarre situation to find oneself in, no doubt. But Ella’s third cousin seemed so sure about the legality of it all—so was he right?
Third cousin marriage and more: Is it legal for third cousins to be dating?
While Ella was clearly not enchanted by her third cousin propositioning her, he—just as clearly—believed he was doing nothing wrong by asking her out. So what does the actual law have to say about all this? Can people date, or even marry, any cousins at all?
Well, in short, yes. But that mostly applies to second and third cousins. The National Conference of State Legislatures states that “twenty-five states prohibit marriages between first cousins.” States that do allow first-cousin marriage tend to have strict stipulations about when that’s actually acceptable. For example, Minnesota only allows first cousins to marry each other if they are Aboriginal people, in accordance with Indigenous customs. Arizona lets them marry if they’re at least 65 years old, or can prove that they’re biologically unable to have children.
Legal blog FindLaw explains this is largely because of a perception that cousin marriage is a form of genetic “inbreeding” that results in birth defects, even though “about 20 percent of marriages, or one in five worldwide is between cousins, according to the Huffington Post.”
“… some say [the belief in cousin marriage-induced birth defects] is based on a myth that has been debunked,” FindLaw writes. “There is reportedly only a very slightly higher likelihood of genetic defects in children who are born of a cousin couple. The risk of birth defects in children born to first cousins is increased from a baseline of 3-4 percent to 4-7 percent, according to the National Society of Genetic Counselors.”
That’s why, by the time we get to second and third cousins (like Ella’s eager suitor), laws loosen up considerably. According to law firm Yekrangi & Associates, “only five States ban second-cousin marriages.” There are no legal bans, however, on third-cousin marriages anywhere in the United States. Regardless, there is certainly a lingering taboo regarding any form of cousin marriage in the English-speaking West.
@shesmytranquility1 #onthisday #cousin ♬ original sound – Ella
The Mary Sue has reached out to Ella via email.
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