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Summary of Question:	Marrying A Distant Cousin
Category:	Love & Marriage
Date Posted:	Tuesday, 7/24/2001 8:59 AM MDT

I've fallen in love with my second cousin who is my mum's first cousin sister's son. Our relationship has been a secret and everybody assumes that we have a platonic relationship. It is now time for us to open up, but i don't see why we can not marry. There is no blood relationship and we have even taken genetic tests to confirm that. I met him when i was 18 and fell in love a year later. I did not grow up knowing him as a cousin, so I have never assumed he was one. But everyone assumes that we are cousins and that's the way the relationship has to be! Please help me out of my dilemma. Are we doing anything wrong? Is it incestous?

Very concerned

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REPLY
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Dear Very Concerned:

Sat Siri Akaal. If you have taken genetic tests to prove lack of blood relationship, then that is all the proof you need from a legal standpoint or a religious standpoint. Unfortunately, from a cultural standpoint, the extended family is regarded as family by blood, whether or not it actually is all blood-related.

So from a Sikh and legal standpoint, you are clear, but now you have to convince the extended family that you are not 'inter-marrying.' You have all the arguments you need. I recommend that you find a Sikh doctor or lawyer who knows your family whose words might carry some weight. Just because everyone assumes you are cousins doesn't mean you are. So it is time to break up the assumptions. This will take a lot of courage and strength. You are going to have to speak up over and over and over, or have some kind of extended family reunion and speak it once to everyone. But you will have to speak up and SO WILL HE. I am hoping that someone else in your combined extended family sees no problem with this union and can bring their weight and support to it.

If you don't speak up now and then along with assumptions will come slander and rumors, which will hurt you more. I wish you both the best.
Guru rakha,
-- DKK