ENDOGAMY
Endogamy is the practice of seeking a mate or marriage
partner from within a group defined by social status, ethnic identity, family relationship
or area of residence or some other distinct social characteristic. People tend to marry
within their own status or class, religion or ethnic group.
Some societies have rules of endogamy that specify marriage
to a particular kinship-related partner. A low rate of endogamy suggests that a group is
being assimilated into the surrounding society.
The opposite of endogamy is Exogamy. Both practices are defined by values and norms that
vary cross-culturally.
Endogamic: of or pertaining to endogamy.
Endogamous: practicing endogamy; of or pertaining to endogamy.
Exogamy is when one marries someone outside one's own
group.
Endogamy and inbreeding since the 17th century in past
malarial communities in the Province of Cosenza (Calabria, Southern Italy) - Danubio
M. E.; Piro A.; Tagarelli A.
Source: Annals of Human Biology, Volume 26, Number 5, 1 September 1999, pp. 473-488(16)
Abstract: Many authors stressed the importance of considering mating patterns, migration
and consanguinity when analysing micro-geographic differences in the distribution of the
frequency of genetic traits (thalassaemia and glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency
(G6PD) in populations living in areas of past malarial endemy. Therefore, the present work
was aimed at estimating the reproductive isolation of Calabria, an Italian region that
experienced endemic malaria until very recently. The research was carried out on 15311
records of marriages from Parish Books of four villages located in the past malarial area,
and four situated in the non-malarial region. Endogamy rates were high in every village
and decreased only in the present century as a consequence of the breakdown of isolation.
In the earlier periods, the rates ranged between 93-84% in non-malarial villages, and
between 96-66% in the past malarial area. The rate of consanguineous marriages was low in
all villages: in the malarial area it was 2.15% on average, whereas in the non-malarial
villages it ranged between 2-16%. Its trend increased with time almost everywhere.
Concerning alpha values, differences between past malarial and non-malarial villages in
earlier periods are not consistent as they ranged from 0:1 10- 3 to 1 10- 3. In the
present century, however, alpha was higher in the non-malarial villages. Observed changes
of the coefficient alpha since the 19th century are due to the increased frequency of
first cousin marriages. Isonymy rates were lower than 2% in all past malarial towns in all
periods, whereas in nonmalarial villages they ranged between 1.2-9.5% and increased with
time. Inbreeding coefficients F are always higher than alpha values, but show the same
trend with time. They were between 0.0006-0.0045 in past malarial towns, and between
0.0017-0.024 in non-malarial villages. In non-malarial villages Fn displayed noticeable
negative values in two situations in the earlier periods. In conclusion, given the above
mating patterns and the observed distribution of frequencies of G6PD deficient hemizygous
and thalassemic heterozygous in the investigated villages, there is clear evidence in this
area for the absence of any specific role of reproductive isolation and consanguinity on
the distribution of genetic traits related to past malaria presence. - ingentaconnect.com
Endogamy, consanguinity and community disease profiles.
Community Genetics. 2005;8(1): Bittles AH., Centre for Human Genetics, Edith Cowan
University
Considerable attention is paid to the role of consanguineous marriage as a causative
factor in the prevalence of genetic disorders. At the same time, the potential influence
of community endogamy on overall levels of homozygosity and disease profiles remains
largely under-investigated. With the ongoing global epidemiological transition from
infectious to non-communicable disease, the impact of genetic disorders will become
increasingly important and a thorough understanding of the determinants of human
population-genetic structure will be all the more necessary. In particular, the genetic
components of adult-onset diseases will become more obvious and assume greater
significance. Similarly, refinements of study design to incorporate intercommunity genetic
variation appear to be an essential prerequisite in pharmacogenetic research if the
concept of individualized treatments is to achieve reality, with equivalent
subject-control comparison difficulties also predicted in forensic genetics. Copyright
2005 S. Karger AG, Basel. - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Effect of consanguinity and endogamy on mortality and fertility in a Spanish population
[Article in Spanish] Genetica Iberica. 1985;37(3-4) Cereijo AI, Prieto L, Martinez-frias
ML.,
The effects of inbreeding and endogamy on prenatal mortality and fertility in a Spanish
population were analyzed using the data for control newborns registered in the Spanish
Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations (ECEMC). The ECEMC collects information on
all newborns with major or minor malformations diagnosed in the first 72 hours of life in
participating maternity hospitals. The controls consist of the first subsequent healthy
infant of the same sex born in the same hospital. 5794 ECEMC controls born between April
1976-June 1982 were the subjects of the inbreeding and endogamy study. 116 of the 5609
couples who specified the existence or nonexistence of consanguinity were related. Of the
remaining couples, 316 of the 2659 or 11.88% who specified the place of origin of the
spouses' parents were considered highly endogamous, 165 couples or 6.21% were considered
intermediately endogamous, and 65 couples or 2.44% were considered slightly endogamous.
Couples were defined as highly endogamous if at least 1 parent of each spouse came from
the same village of fewer than 5000 inhabitants. They were considered intermediately
endogamous if at least 1 parent of each came from the same village of 5001-10,000
inhabitants, and slightly endogamous if 1 parent of each came from a village of
10,001-15,000 inhabitants. 2113 couples or 79.47% were considered exogamous, with all
parents from different villages or villages with more than 15,000 inhabitants. Considering
all pregnancies prior to the most recent one, which ended in the birth of a healthy infant
in all cases, 7.85% among the inbred couples ended in abortion, compared to 12.26-13.79%
for the other 4 groups. 1.57% of pregnancies among the inbred resulted in still births, a
higher proportion than among the other groups although not significantly so. Fertility was
studied by comparing the number of pregnancies in each family. The inbred had an average
of 2.68, significantly higher than the 2.22 of the exogamous, but the difference
disappeared when educational status was controlled. Educational level should be controlled
in studies of the effects of endogamy and consanguinity, especially with regard to a
variable like fertility that is so largely determined by the socioeconomic environment of
the couple. - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Surname Endogamy among the Brahmin of India - Suhasini
Bhatnagar, Suraksha Agrawal
Current Sociology, Vol. 50, No. 6, 853-861 (2002) © 2002 International Sociological
Association
Endogamy has been a strong influence on Hindu society over the centuries and most of the
75,000 subcastes or subgroups of India's complex social stratification system practise
endogamy, while the further divisions within these subcastes, called gotras, are required
to marry exogamously. The present study focuses on three socioculturally isolated, highly
endogamous groups, to study the effect of endogamy on genetic microdifferentiation. The
groups are all subdivisions or classes of the Brahmin or priest caste, namely Bhargavas
and Chaturvedis and Kanyakubja and Sanadhaya Brahmin, and all groups practise patrilineal
surname endogamy. Two-generation pedigrees were drawn up and microdifferentiation was
estimated using parameters like mean concordance, i.e. within-gotra marriages in Bhargavas
and Chaturvedis, FIT (the inbreeding coefficient or inbreeding-like effect due to
endogamy), FST (within-group a priori kinship) and RST (reduced variance of the mean value
of within-group a priori kinship). Our results indicate that there is an increase in
same-gotra marriage showing that these groups are in fact not following the strict rule of
exogamy. This is highest among Chaturvedis (17.1 percent) as compared to Bhargavas (11.2
percent), Kanykubja Brahmins (13.4 percent) and Sanadhaya Brahmin (16.92 percent). The FST
is almost the same in all the populations over two generations; however, it is slightly
lower among Bhargavas and highest in Brahmin indicating that although these populations
follow endogamy at surname level they are exogamous at gotra/kuldevi level. The same is
indicated by FIS, which shows that in spite of strict endogamy there is no inbreeding-like
effect in these populations. RST measures variance among populations and our results
reveal that these populations are distinct from one another. -
csi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/50/6/853
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