Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such a basis as being unsuitable for marriage or for other close personal relationships.

Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups. Several 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. Certain groups, such as Orthodox Jews adhering to endogamy in Judaism, have practised endogamy as an inherent part of their religious beliefs and traditions.

Adherence

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 with other practices and beliefs.

The isolationist practices of endogamy may lead to a group's extinction, as genetic diseases may develop that can affect a larger 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]

Examples

Other examples of ethnic and religious groups that practice endogamy include:

• Dailamites, an ethnic group living in south of Caspian Sea in ancient and medieval Persia
• Druze of the Levant.
• Iranian Turkmens^[3]
• Yazidis, an ethnically Kurdish religious community or an ethno-religious group indigenous to northern Mesopotamia
• Mormons, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

See also

• Anti-miscegenation laws
• Arranged marriage
• Assortative mating
• Consanguinity
• Ethnic nationalism
• Ethnic nepotism
• Ethnoreligious group
• Interfaith marriage

Cousin marriage:

• Cousin marriage
• Marriages and gotras
• List of coupled cousins

Marriage systems:

• Exogamy
• Homogamy
• Hypergamy

References

External links

•  "Endogamy". Encyclopædia Britannica. 9 (11th ed.). 1911. 
• Commentary: The background and outcomes of the first-cousin marriage controversy in Great Britain