Prevalence and Pattern of Consanguineous Marriages Among Different Communities in Mangalore

Introduction: Consanguineous marriages are a common practice in the Middle East, Asian and African populations. Many studies have stated an association between first cousin marriages and the incidence of autosomal recessive diseases and congenital malformations. High frequency of consanguinity is reported by researchers among South India. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence and type of consanguineous marriages among the different communities of Mangalore. Methods: This study was conducted on 1164 married women in Mangalore to investigate the prevalence and type of consanguineous marriages. All the women were interviewed personally using a structured questionnaire. Family pedigree was constructed to study the type of consanguineous marriages. Data analysis was done by SPSS Win 13.0. Results: A low percentage of consanguinity (6.53%) was observed with a mean inbreeding coefficient of 0.0339. Frequency of consanguinity between religions was highly significant. Of these the most frequent were first cousin marriages (43.42%). Within Hindu religion the highest rate of consanguinity was among the Billavas (47.62%) of which the most frequent were distant relative marriages (75%) followed by second cousin marriages (57.14%). There was no significant difference in the frequency distribution of the types of consanguinity between the religions and also between the different groups among Hindus. Conclusion: The frequency of consanguinity was found to be low in Mangalore. The findings contradict with the earlier reports of high prevalence of consanguineous marriages in South India. Increased female education, increased socio-economic status and decrease in parental decisions in marriages may be the reasons.