Parted-at-birth twins 'married'

[Papa Schlumpf]

A pair of twins who were adopted by separate families as babies got married without knowing they were brother and sister, a peer told the House of Lords. A court annulled the UK couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said. The peer - who was told of the case by a High Court judge involved - said the twins felt an "inevitable attraction". He said the case showed how important it was for children to be able to find out about their biological parents. 'Truth will out' Details of the of the identities of the twins involved have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage. The former Liberal Democrat MP raised the couple's case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December. "They were never told that they were twins," he told the Lords. "They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation." He told the BBC News website that their story raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents . "If you start trying to conceal someone's identity, sooner or later the truth will out," he said. "And if you don't know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur." Pam Hodgkins, chief executive officer of the charity Adults Affected by Adoption (NORCAP) said there had been previous cases of separated siblings being attracted to each other. "We have a resistance, a very strong incest taboo where we are aware that someone is a biological relative," she said. "But when we are unaware of that relationship, we are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves. "And of course there is unlikely to be anyone more similar to any individual than their sibling." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7182817.stm

Yikes.

[Larry_OHF]

Isn't it horrible to think that this will definately happen more often in the coming years (and maybe already has) due to more people adopting and more children born from sperm donors and egg donors, etc...?

The report does not mention how long they had been married or if they had consumated their marriage, or if she's pregnant...HOPEFULLY for their sanity and health it was discovered really soon...

[LordKathen]

It would be interesting to see their kids... though completely immoral of course...

[Iron Greasel]

Oh, the inbreeding doesn't start showing for several generations. I think some egyptian royal lineages were at it for hundreds of years, at least.

And while adoptions may increase, so will population in general, so accidentally marrying a sibling is still extremely unlikely. Nothing gene pool threatening.

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

Wow, that's just crazy! I wonder if they had more of a brother/sister type love, but read it more as a man/woman type of love.
Perhaps because they were connected in a physical way, they wanted to connect in a sexual way? I'm not trying to be gross, but, you know what I'm saying?

[Bungleau]

I have read (somewhere!) that you're supposedly "wired" so that you won't find your siblings attractive... at least, not for romantic purposes. I don't remember if that's genetic or environmental... could be interesting, though.

[Olorin]

I remember reading a study that dealt with the relative taboo. It basically found that when you grew up with your siblings and cousins, you were not romantically attracted to them. On the other hand, if you met a relative, like a cousin, after you were adults, then attraction was possible.

For those adults who found themselves attracted to their cousins, they still generally did not act on it, due to the societal taboo, but it was a conscious restraint, whereas for cousins that they grew up with, they never developed romantic attraction in the first place (a subconscious restraint).