Samenvatting

This article describes the attitudes of Turkish and Moroccan Dutch regarding cousin marriages, using two qualitative studies. Last year the Lower House of the Dutch parliament passed a bill involving a ban of cousin marriages. The main reason for the ban is that many of these marriages are supposed to be concluded forcibly. The new law will mostly affect immigrant groups, since such marriages occur frequently in this population. This article describes the significance for the enforceability of the ban for these groups as well as the attitudes towards cousin marriage. Legitimacy problems seem to arise because a part of the Turkish and Moroccan Dutch respondents feel that the state should not interfere with the individual choice for a marriage partner. Yet there is also evidence for regulatory compliance on normative grounds, even among those who oppose the bans, due to democratic procedures and religious norms.