 Marriages between such cousins are allowed and encouraged.There is a clear distinction between cross cousins, who are one's true cousins and parallel cousins, who are, in fact, siblings.Like Iroquois people, Dravidians use the same words to refer to their father's sister and mother-in-law ( in Tamil and in Kannada) and their mother's brother and father-in-law ( in Tamil and in Kannada).