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Kissing Cousins - Big Cats in Rural Wales

Laurie Taylor is joined by Professor Adam Kuper to discuss Charles Darwin, Victorian marriage and the sudden demise of kissing cousins.

KISSING COUSINS
Like the queen, and many of his own class in the nineteenth century Charles Darwin was married to his first cousin. However he became increasingly anxious about the consequence of such close intermarriage; he attempted to have Parliament amend the census include a question on cousin marriage, and even asked his son George to scientifically investigate close-kin unions on a national scale. By the new century, though, it was a statistical rarity and by the 1920s only one marriage in 6,000 was with a cousin.

Laurie Taylor is joined by Professor Adam Kuper, author of β€˜Changing the subject – about cousin marriage, among other things’ to discuss Charles Darwin, Victorian marriage and the sudden demise of kissing cousins.

BIG CATS IN RURAL WALES
Samantha Hurn, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Wales, Lampeter talks about her research on feral big cats in Ceredigion, West Wales between 2001 and 2008.

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30 minutes

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  • Wed 18 Feb 2009 16:00
  • Mon 23 Feb 2009 00:15

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