Saletan cites Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Rudy Giuliani as home-grown, cousin-marrying counterparts to the many Indians and Pakistanis who marry first cousins.

Um. Darwin and Einstein were also "foreign"- the former hailing from Britain, the latter from Germany. And Giuliani married his second cousin, whom he (claims to have) believed was his third cousin.

Saletan seems to argue that cousin marriage is an undesireable import to the West from the East, but until very recently, cousin marriages were incredibly common in Europe as well. It was often a strategic move allowing families to control their wealth and power, and to maintain social and political balance. The extreme case in point is the European ruling families, who actually did inbreed enough to produce dwarves and offspring with genetic disorders and cognitive disabilities. But cousin marriage was also going on at lower levels, too, among the nobility, landed gentry, and among the poor.

In the last century America and Europe have largely the taste for cousin marriage. Marriage is less about economics, more about a romantic love ideal. Genetic research has shown us the benefits of reproducing from a diverse gene pool. We're more mobile, and therefore more likely to encounter more potential partners. But we shouldn't forget that cousin marriage is an integral part of western history, not a scandalous habit imported from the east.

Personally, I would support the legalization of first-cousin marriage. It's not something that very many people want to do, and as long as families don't enter into closed systems of breeding like the crowned heads of Europe did, the risks of defects seem acceptably small.