I may possibly have mentioned the Deceased Wife's Sister thing on previous occasions...

[oursin]

And honestly, I find this discussion over at AITA so point thahr, misst.

Okay, yes, I think the whole thing of the family doing their best to erase his first wife, the child's mother, very, very creepy and inappropriate -

But mostly it seems to be people going OMG HE MARRIED HIS DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER????!!!!! HORRORZZZ

Going on like a load of Victorian woezerers...

Really, this used to be if, not very common, not uncommon, even if for a long time the relationship either had to be without benefit of clergy or undertaken abroad.

Mind you, I notice that commentators there often get very wound up about cousins marrying, yea, even unto the third and fourth degree. (Ahem ahem the Darwin/Wedgwood Dynasty.) I think assumptions being made about ease of exogamy in earlier phases of society...

***

In entirely other news, I virtually attended a seminar earlier this week and ventured a question, and lo, the speaker turned out to be a fellow-fan of early C20th gay pacifist male suffragist sex reformer and subsequently entered into correspondence.

Very niche fandom!

Comments

[oursin]

That sounds like Westermarck Effect?

[mrissa]

Maybe? I feel like that effect assumes that sibling is the only family relationship that matters, which you get a lot in the kind of affluent Westerners who perform this kind of labeling--it feels to me like it's imposing the thing that the researcher has already determined is important (sibling relationship) on other relationships to model them, rather than saying, hey, culturally sometimes cousin is an important nonsexual-familial relationship as well.

That is: the second cousin in question has sisters, he would never describe me as having been raised like their sister and neither would I (and neither would the sisters). What I was raised like was their cousin. If someone from a different cultural sphere needs to label that "like a sibling" in order to explain the familial bond/reaction, they're...well, wrong, actually. Being their cousin was culturally and personally important in itself.

[ethelmay]

There's also the question of what happens if the marriage goes bad but you still have to be their cousin, their parents are still your aunt and uncle... it all sounds potentially Extra Fraught.