The Importance of Being Earnest ends with some familial revelations, resulting in the fact that one of the heroes is now engaged to his own cousin. This seemed to cause some "distress" to people around me, after the play. (Well, more like they thought Oscar Wilde had overlooked something.)
But if you're A Great Reader of Aulde Books then you know that (a) cousin doesn't always mean "first cousin", and (b) though in this case it does, the taboo against marrying cousins is a recent thing, and (c) in any case it isn't against the law in England. And it's legal in many US states, as well as in Canada.
I just thought... I needed to put everyone's minds to rest.
Or I needed a minute of procrastination. I swear I was researching!
1 comment:
Not to mention that in many small communities (whether physically small or isolated due to social structure) it was damn near impossible to marry someone who wasn't somehow related to you.
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