Is it illegal to marry a cousin in Vietnam? What are the fines for getting married to a cousin in Vietnam?

Is it illegal to marry a cousin in Vietnam?

Pursuant to Clause 2 Article 5 of the Law on Marriage and Family in 2014 stipulating protection of the marriage and family regime as follows:

2. The following acts are prohibited:

a/ Sham marriage or sham divorce;

b/ Underage marriage, forcing a person into marriage, deceiving a person into marriage, obstructing marriage;

c/ A married person getting married to or cohabitating as husband and wife with another person, or an unmarried person getting married to or cohabitating as husband and wife with a married person;

d/ Getting married or cohabitating as husband and wife between people of the same direct blood line; relatives within three generations; adoptive parent and adopted child; or former adoptive parent and adopted child, father-in-law and daughter-in-law, mother-in-law and son-in-law, or stepparent and stepchild;

dd/ Demanding property in marriage;

e/ Forcing a person into divorce; deceiving a person into divorce; obstructing divorce;

g/ Giving birth with assisted reproductive technology for commercial purpose, commercial gestational surrogacy, prenatal sex selection, cloning;

h/ Domestic violence;

i/ Taking advantage of marriage and family rights for human trafficking, labor exploitation or sexual abuse or committing another act for self-seeking purposes.

Pursuant to Clause 18 Article 3 of the Law on Marriage and Family in 2014 stipulating interpretation of terms as follows:

Relatives within three generations are people born of the same stock with parents constituting the first generation; full siblings, paternal half-siblings and maternal half-siblings constituting the second generation; and children of paternal aunts, maternal aunts, paternal uncles, maternal uncles constituting the third generation.

As regulations above, cousins are relatives within three generations. Therefore, it is illegal to marry a cousin in Vietnam.

What are the fines for getting married to a cousin in Vietnam?

Pursuant to Clause 2 Article 59 of the Decree 82/2020/NĐ-CP stipulating acts of violating regulations on marriage and divorce and violations of the monogamous marriage regime as follows:

2. A fine of between VND 10,000,000 and 20,000,000 shall be imposed for one of the following acts:

a) Marrying or living together as husband and wife between people of the same direct blood line or between people who have the same surname within three generations;

b) Marrying or living together as husband and wife between adoptive parents and adopted children;

c) Forced marriage or fraudulently married; forced divorce or fraudulent divorce;

d) Taking advantage of marriage to exit, enter, reside or naturalize Vietnamese or foreign nationality; to enjoy the State's preferential regime or to achieve other purposes other than to build a family;

dd) Taking advantage of the divorce to evade property obligations, violate policies and laws on population or to achieve other purposes without the purpose of terminating the marriage.

Pursuant to Clause 4, Article 4 of the Decree 82/2020/NĐ-CP stipulating fine levels:

4. The fine levels specified in Chapters II, III, IV, V, VI and VII of this Decree shall be applied to administrative violations committed by individuals, except for the articles specified in Clause 5 of this Article. In case the organization commits administrative violations like that of an individual, the fine level is equal to 2 times the fine level imposed on an individual.

Pursuant to Article 184 of the Criminal Code in 2015 stipulating incest as follows:

Any person who engages in sexual intercourse with another person in the knowledge that he/she is in a consanguineous relationship, a sibling or half-sibling shall face a penalty of 01 - 05 years' imprisonment.

As regulations above, you may be liable to administrative or criminal prosecution for getting married to a cousin in Vietnam.

Getting married to relatives within three generations shall face a fine of between VND 10,000,000 and 20,000,000.

To keep the fire in the marriage relationship between husband and wife, it is impossible not to have a sex life, so intercourse will occur. If anyone has sexual intercourse relatives within three generations, he/she can be imprisoned for up to 5 years.

Best regards!