Topic: Marrying cousins in Medieval period?

[Christine B.]

My WIP is a fairy tale set in a made-up kingdom that has some resemblance to Medieval England but with large differences (a made-up history, religion, culture, etc.).

I know that for a large part of Medieval Europe, princes and princesses often married first cousins.

There's a plot point that I am playing with where the crown princess in my WIP needs a husband, but her two male first cousins need to be out of the question for the plot point to work. Would you buy this, in a fairy tale in a made-up place? If I just said, by law, the princess cannot marry her first cousin, period, would that be enough for you?

[Anne Marie]

It's made up.  Works for me.

[Tori]

I'm with Anne Marie, and I majored in medieval history and still use it as background settings for some of my books.  Go for it!  Or, should I say, "Onward!"
Aloha,
Tori

[rab]

I agree with Tori and Anne Marie. If it's in a made-up, pseudo-medieval setting and you've established that the law says they can't marry, I'll buy it.

[lizstraw]

Your Kingdom, your law.  Besides maybe that branch of the family has bats in their belfry.  Not a good match.  Pitty the poor babies.

[Kurtis]

Hm. I'll play devil's advocate and say if I read that, I would think the author was imposing modern values on a historic setting -- which is common enough, and it wouldn't ruin the book for me or anything, but it wouldn't ring true. There are plenty of ways around it -- they don't like one another, their parents don't like one another, or there would be no benefit to marrying them since it wouldn't expand the kingdom, etc.

[ruecole]

I'm inclined to agree with Kurtis. There are other ways around it than to institute a law that just seems far too modern. I like the idea of making it a political disadvantage for her to marry one of them.

Hope that helps!

Rue

[lizstraw]

   I guess my answer goes against everything I argued against in another thread.  Go with the not a good match, they need a rich person or someone to expand the kingdom or someone to stop a war.

[MysteryRobin]

Or come up with a law that makes sense in your world with good justification for it... maybe they are first cousins, but they can't marry because of some other obscure law. Maybe they are too old, or from the wrong branch of the family or walked backwards on a Tuesday. You can take them out of the running for any reason you want, really, since the point is just to get them out of the running...

[dinalapomy101]

The current law against first cousin marriage could be based on a "big bad thing" that happened in the kingdom's history so now it is outlawed....

[Christine B.]

Thank you for all the responses, on both sides of the issue!