Template:Multiple issues
Template:Anthropology of kinship
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups. Several religious and ethnic religious groups are traditionally more endogamous, although sometimes with the added dimension of requiring marital religious conversion. This permits an exogamous marriage, as the convert, by accepting the partner's religion, becomes accepted within the endogamous rules. Endogamy, as distinct from consanguinity, may result in transmission of genetic disorders, the so-called founder effect, within the relatively closed community.
Adherence
Template:Further Endogamy can serve as a form of self-segregation; a community can use it to resist integrating and completely merging with surrounding populations. Minorities can use it to stay ethnically homogeneous over a long time as distinct communities within societies that have other practices and beliefs.
The isolationist practices of endogamy may lead to a group's extinction, as genetic diseases may develop that can affect an increasing percentage of the population. However, this disease effect would tend to be small unless there is a high degree of close inbreeding, or if the endogamous population becomes very small in size.
Social dynamics
The Urapmin, a small tribe in Papua New Guinea, practice strict endogamy. The Urapmin also have a system of kinship classes known as tanum miit. Since the classes are inherited cognatically, most Urapmin belong to all of the major classes, creating great fluidity and doing little to differentiate individuals.[1]
The small community on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha are, because of their geographical isolation, an almost endogamic society. There are instances of health problems attributed to endogamy on the island, including glaucoma and asthma as research by the University of Toronto has demonstrated.[2]
Genealogy
Endogamic marriage patterns may increase the frequency of various levels of cousin marriage in a population, and may cause high probability of children of first, second, third cousins, etcetera.
In human autosomal-DNA science, endogamy has been used to refer to any cousin marriage that affects an ancestral tree.Template:Citation needed
If a cousin marriage has accrued in a known ancestral tree of a person, in historical time, it is referred to as pedigree collapse. This may cause relations along multiple paths between a persons autosomal-DNA matches. It creates stronger DNA matches between the DNA matches than expected from the nearest path.[3]
Cousin marriage should not be confused with double cousins, which do not cause a pedigree collapse. Certain levels of sibling marriage and cousin marriage is prevented by law in some countries, and referred to as consanguinity.
A long term pattern of endogamy in a region may increase the risk of repeated cousin marriage during a long period of time, referred to as inbreeding. It may cause additional noise in the DNA autosomal data, giving the impressions that DNA matches with roots in that region are more closely related than they are.
Examples
Other examples of ethnic and religious groups that practice endogamy include:
- The Amish of North America.[4]
- Assyrians, indigenous Christian people of upper Mesopotamia.[5]
- Armenians have a history of endogamy due to being almost entirely surrounded by Islamic neighbours while being a strongly Christian nation.[6]
- Daylamites, an ethnic group living south of the Caspian Sea in ancient and medieval Persia.
- The Druze of the Levant.[7]
- Gitanos typically practice endogamy within their raza, or patrigroup.[8]
- Greek Cypriots usually practice endogamy in order to maintain their status as the majority ethnic group on the island of Cyprus.
- Iranian TurkmensTemplate:Citation needed
- Judaism traditionally mandates religious endogamy, requiring that both marriage partners be Jewish, while allowing for marriage to converts. Orthodox Judaism maintains the traditional requirement for endogamy in Judaism as a binding,[9] inherent part of Judaism's religious beliefs and traditions.[10]
- The Knanaya, an endogamous group within the St. Thomas Christian Community of India. The community claims to have arrived to India in the fourth century and have been noted for their historical practice of endogamy.Template:Citation needed
- Jews of Mashhad, IranTemplate:Citation needed
- Mormons
- Syrian Christians of Kerala, India
- Parsis.Template:Sfn
- RajputsTemplate:Citation needed[11]
- The Vaqueiros de alzada of Spain.[12]
- Yazidis, a group with a syncretic religion indigenous to upper Mesopotamia.[13][14]
- Louisiana Creole people and Cajuns
- Mandaeans
See also
- Anti-miscegenation laws
- Arranged marriage
- Assortative mating
- Consanguinity
- Ethnic nationalism
- Ethnoreligious group
- Genealogical DNA test
- Interfaith marriage
- Miscegenation
Cousin marriage:
Marriage systems:
References
- ↑ Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society{{#if:Robbins|, Robbins}. University of California Press(2004). ISBN 0-520-23800-1
- ↑ Worldwide search for asthma clue(9 December 2008). Retrieved 15 March 2012.
- ↑ Endogamy Part 1: Exploring Shared DNA | Legacy Tree Genealogists(13 October 2016).
- ↑ Genomics in Amish Country, Ruder, Katherine 'Kate'. Genome News Network(23 July 2004).
- ↑ Pre-marital Counselling In a Multicultural Society{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}(14 September 2014). ISBN 978-1-291-83577-9
- ↑ Armenia in Pictures{{#if:Waters|, Waters}. Learner Publishing Group(2009). ISBN 9780822585763
- ↑ Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East{{#if:Chatty|, Chatty}. Cambridge University Press(15 March 2010). ISBN 978-0-521-81792-9
- ↑ Gitano Evangelism: the Emergence of a Politico-Religious Diaspora. Index of working papers. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
- ↑ Kiddushin 68b
- ↑ Endogamy is a mitzvah, Epstein, Jerome M.(29 October 2020).
- ↑ If Rain Doesn't Come{{#if:Fischer|, Fischer}. Manohar Publishers and Distributors(1997). ISBN 978-8173041846
- ↑ García Martínez, Adolfo (2009) [1988]. Los vaqueiros de alzada de Asturias: un estudio histórico-antropológico (Second edition)[in Spanish]. Oviedo: KRK Ediciones. p.746-748. Template:ISBN.
- ↑ The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion{{#if:Açikyildiz|, Açikyildiz}. I.B.Tauris(23 December 2014). ISBN 9780857720610
- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
External links
- Template:Cite EB1911
- Commentary: The background and outcomes of the first-cousin marriage controversy in Great Britain. International Journal of Epidemiology({Template:Year).