Is it really that bad to marry my cousin?

Mona Chalabi: One winter a couple years ago, some of my cousins came to visit me in New York.

I have about 90 cousins, so I’m not going to say anything controversial about favorites, but I’m really close with these two. They’re sisters and I’ll call them Reem and Leila.

I decided to introduce them to my boyfriend at the time, a man I’d been dating for nearly a year. At that point, he hadn’t met anyone in my family. And introducing him first to these cousins, who are pretty close to me in age, seemed like a nice way to kind of ease him into the weirdness of my Arab clan.

We all met up at a dingy, BYOB falafel restaurant in the village. It was one of those places that’s got like six tables, and for some reason, t-shirts. The food there is good but maybe not “buy a t-shirt” good.

So, we ordered our falafel and started making small talk. My boyfriend asked my cousins what they did for work... my cousins asked how my boyfriend and I met. And then, my boyfriend asked them a perfectly normal, innocent small-talk question: “Are you two related to Mona on your mum’s side or your dad’s?”

My cousins looked at each other and then they looked at me. There was a long, awkward pause. And Reem finally said, “Both... We’re related to Mona on both sides.”

That’s because Reem and Leila’s parents are cousins.

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