Cousin marriage
In Egypt cousin marriage may have been even more prevalent than in Arabia in past periods, with one source from the 1830s observing that it was common among Egyptian Arabs and native Egyptian Muslims, but less so in Cairo, where first cousin marriage accounts for 35 percent of marriages. Reportedly the husband and wife would continue to call each other "cousin" because the tie of blood was seen as indissoluble while the marriage was not. In the upper and middle classes, the young man was seldom allowed to see the face of his female cousin after she reached puberty. Cousin marriage is not only practiced by Muslims, but also by Egyptian Copts in the past century, although at lesser rate (approximately 7-12% of all Coptic marriages). This rate has decreased to a very small percentage where Copts choose to marry cousins. Estimates from the late 19th and early 20th century state variously that either 80 percent of the Egyptian fellahin marry first cousins or two-thirds marry them if they exist. Cousin marriage was also practiced in the Sinai Peninsula, where a girl is sometimes reserved by her cousin with money long before puberty, and among Bedouins in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea. Cousin marriage was practiced in Medina during Muhammad's time, but out of 113 recorded marriages in one sample only 15 were between "abnaa 'amm" or paternal cousins of any degree.