War on Terror and Cousin Marriage

What in the world has cousin marriage to do with the War on Terror?

Good question senator.  I just so happens that there is one particular part of the world that goes in for men marrying their father’s brother’s daughter.

That is significant because “in-marriage” of this kind promotes very strong clan loyalty.  Whereas “out-marriage,” that is marrying mother’s brother’s daughter or any less close kin all the way out to marrying people unrelated at all, promotes social and cultural adaption and peaceful relations between families.

It is Islam that is the only society in the world that practices “in-marriage.”  That means, of course, that Islam has very strong kinship ties, but also cultural stasis and resistance to change.

Why is this important?  Stanley Kurtz connects the dots.

This means that any a long-term strategy for winning the war on terror will have to undercut, counter-balance, or reverse the functional “advantages” (cultural stasis and isolation) accruing to Muslim society through the ongoing practice of parallel-cousin marriage.

Of course, Kurtz assumes that the cousin marriage of the Muslims really is an advantage.

Arguably, the cultural advantage of “in-marriage” went out with the industrial revolution.  In the agricultural era rigid conservatism was universal, and for a good reason.  If you failed to follow the time-tested ways for food production you were probably going to starve.  But the market revolution of the last two centuries has put a premium on adaptation.

And the pickle in which the Islamic societies find themselves in is presumably related to their cultural resistance to adaptation.