From the table below we observe that the majority of marriages are consanguineous in Muslim countries with low rates of literacy and economic development—Pakistan, Egypt, and the Sudan. But even Muslims with a high literacy rate have extremely high rates of cousin marriages. Israeli Arabs are 95 percent literate—the highest rate for Arabs anywhere in the Middle East—but 34 percent marry cousins. Jordan’s literacy rate is 90 percent, but 40 percent of Jordanians still marry cousins.
