Stanley Kurtz opens up a window of insight in his two articles, Part I and Part II. What does the tendency to marry first cousins mean for Muslim assimilation in the West? Studies have indicated that it means a lot. Kurtz writes:
A preference for marriage with cousins characterizes large sections of the Muslim world. In two previous pieces, “Marriage and the Terror War” and “Marriage and the Terror War, Part II,” I’ve argued that the Muslim preference for cousin marriage (along with several associated social practices) helps explain why it has become difficult to reconcile Islamic social life with modernity, why Muslim immigrants in Europe have been slow to assimilate, and ultimately, why we are engaged in a war with Islamic terrorists.
Cousin marriage, I have argued, helps to create and organize a deep-lying bias in the Muslim world toward in-group solidarity—a social strategy that has the effect of walling off Muslim society from outside influences, heightening internal cohesion, and insuring cultural continuity. By no means do all Muslims marry their cousins. Yet, throughout much of the Muslim world, the cultural ideal and practice of cousin marriage helps to set and reinforce in-group solidarity as a leading social theme.
Kurtz draws on the work of British social anthropologist Roger Ballard who directs the Centre for Applied South Asian Studies at England’s University of Manchester. In particular, he leans heavily on Ballard's 1990
paper “Migration and kinship: the differential effect of marriage rules on the processes of Punjabi migration to Britain.” Kurtz says:
It’s a commonplace that Muslim immigrants in Europe have been slow to assimilate. In a general way, the public attributes this relative isolation to Muslim religion and culture. But if you’re looking for a clear, powerful, and detailed account of exactly what it is that’s been blocking Muslim assimilation in Europe, there is no better place to begin than Ballard.
It's fascinating to read the comparison between Punjabi Muslim and Sikh assimilation.
In Part II we learn that
Ballard (who’s done extensive fieldwork in Pakistan’s Mirpur district) estimates that “over 60% of all Mirpuri marriages are contracted between first cousins.” In 2002, Ballard noted that: “At least half (and possibly as many as two-thirds) of the marriages currently being contracted by young British-based Mirpuris are still arranged with their cousins from back home.”
. . . In “Marriage and the Terror War,” I discussed the difficulty modern Americans have in appreciating the pervasive significance of kinship in the non-Western world. For the greater part of human history, the political, cultural, and economic aspects of a person’s life have been inseparably bound up with customs of marriage and descent. Contemporary Muslim society is very much a part of that history. So when we learn that a high proportion of British Muslims are marrying kin, it’s not only interesting as a statistic about marriage itself, but is also a sign that many aspects of Muslim social life in Britain are being shaped and organized by the obligations of kinship.
Kurtz points out how the influence of Edward Said has caused a reluctance of social researches to explore this area to any great extent.
Ultimately, for Said, even the most scrupulous and respectful study of cultural difference amounts to nothing more than a covert form of racist imperialism. Said’s deeply influential political critique has had a paralyzing effect on scholars of the Middle East. Without venturing an account of social particularity, how can cross-cultural comparison take place? Western anthropologists stand condemned as neo-imperialists, whether they laud a particular social practice, criticize it, or remain scrupulously neutral. . . And of course, Said helped to usher in the scholarly notion that, in so far as the Middle East has distinguishing features or problems worth noting, these are largely a product of colonial oppression and American neo-imperialism, rather than of any distinctive social patterning within Middle Eastern society itself. (For more on Said and his impact, see my “Edward Said, Imperialist” and Charles Lindholm’s “The New Middle Eastern Ethnography.”)
There's a lot more in Kurtz's article. It deserves serious pondering. Kurtz will be expanding these themes in future articles.