Cousins are natural: they are GIVEN to you like your DNA, your grandparents, your heritage. In sharp contrast to friendship, they are not chosen, not merited or achieved, not transitory. They are permanent, stable, reliable in a world of change and chaos. You can live 1,000 miles away and not see a cousin for 20 years but then at a reunion (probably funeral) you realize you still love your cousin. You belong to each other, naturally, without effort. You share blood, history, culture, faith, attitudes, mannerisms and a litany of intangibles. You will always belong to each other, without deliberation or voliton. It is the nature of things.
Cousins are more distant than siblings and therefore ordinarily there is less competition and conflict. With this distance (within closeness) there is an aura of fascination and attraction. You are close enough to be intimate but distant enough to be exotic. Younger cousins look up to older ones, intuitively; older ones mentor and guide the younger ones, instinctively. The taboo on cousin romance so strong in our own culture (but not universal) allows boys and girls to be friends in an innocent, free way without all those complications. This enhances the male/female relationship with an affection, tenderness and reverence that is wholesome and spontaneous. I would suggest that a male who has had good relationships with female cousins is less prone to disrespect women. Likewise, a girl with good boy cousins is comfortable with the opposite sex and confident in herself and her worth as a woman.
We parents and grandparents like to see the cousins together because we know they are safe, they care for and challenge each other, and they implicitly enforce our family values. I am myself an expert on the topic: I have 12 first cousins, three are double cousins (which is doubly cool!). I love them dearly! My seven children are close to their 31 first cousins. Our 24 grandchildren delight in each other and are even close to their second cousins. I realize I live in a special world: the rich get richer! I count my blessings!
But the outlook is dismal for the emerging order of sterility, individuality and cousinlessness! I would suggest that the decline of cousinhood correlates with, and partially contributes to: deaths of despair, widespread addictions, isolation, careerism, technologism, scientism, materialism, consumerism, abuse of women and children. Search for social science research on the significance of cousinhood and you will find nothing except the issue of marriage to cousins. (The evidence suggests very low genetic risk. But I favor our taboo because the longterm health of the social order and specifically our Catholic religion is enhanced by broader outbreeding and less inbreeding.)
Even the Catholic Church is disappointingly inattentive. I have searched in vain for the patron saint of cousins, so I have designated my own. First, of course, St. Elizabeth cousin of Mary and St. John the Baptist second cousin of our Savior. I include also Jesus, Mary and Joseph who surely had cousins and were cousins. But my favorite is Blessed Charles de Foucault who may soon be canonized. He was a ravishingly handsome, wild, adventurous, French Legion womanizer. His holy female cousin prayed for him. When he converted, it was big! One of the biggest! He eventually buried himself in the Sahara desert, lived a humble life of service, and many years later his journals were discovered and inspired many orders and movements, including the NeoCatechumenal Way. I give credit to his holy cousin.
A highlight of my daily routine is my prayer to these patrons for my own cousins and those of my wife and children. It is a big, beautiful world when it is populated with plenty of cousins!
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