Angela
Elite member
- Messages
- 21,823
- Reaction score
- 12,328
- Points
- 113
- Ethnic group
- Italian
See:
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aman.12023
The effect of high levels of consanguineous marriages, as, for example, repeated occurrences of first cousin marriages, and particularly of the fbd type, i.e. father's brother's daughter are well known: lack of fitness.
In the particular case of the Bedouin of Saudi Arabia, choosing it may have actually helped them survive. They carry a mutation which allows them to digest camel milk, notoriously difficult to digest even for cow milk drinkers. It was essential to their survival as they live in the middle of a desert where nothing much grows and there are few animals to hunt, so there were periods of the year when they lived only on camel's milk.
The people who surround them don't carry the mutation. High levels of admixture with them would have threatened their survival.
So, I guess the conclusion is that it's a balancing act. In their case, high levels of consanguineous marriages, given their small numbers, may have been the less risky one.
"[FONT="]Although exogamy is the worldwide marriage norm, many Middle Eastern populations regularly practice consanguineous marriage. Scholars have posited a number of explanations for this phenomenon, but these theories have not identified a concrete advantage to these marriages sufficient to counterbalance the inbreeding depression and other genetic risks inherent to kin marriages. Drawing on genetic studies and mathematical models, as well as both historical and ethnographic sources, I argue in this article that the Arabian Peninsula's camel Bedouin's dependency on the lactose tolerance allele exerted a selective pressure on marriage strategies that strongly favored consanguineous marriage. For milk‐dependent camel Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula, the advantages of consanguineous marriage did indeed outweigh its risks. In addition, I posit that another common Arabian Peninsula marriage practice, the strong prohibition of marriages between higher‐status and lower‐status groups, was favored by the same environmental and genetic factors that favored consanguineous marriage."
This doesn't say much about the rest of the Middle East, however.[/FONT]
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aman.12023
The effect of high levels of consanguineous marriages, as, for example, repeated occurrences of first cousin marriages, and particularly of the fbd type, i.e. father's brother's daughter are well known: lack of fitness.
In the particular case of the Bedouin of Saudi Arabia, choosing it may have actually helped them survive. They carry a mutation which allows them to digest camel milk, notoriously difficult to digest even for cow milk drinkers. It was essential to their survival as they live in the middle of a desert where nothing much grows and there are few animals to hunt, so there were periods of the year when they lived only on camel's milk.
The people who surround them don't carry the mutation. High levels of admixture with them would have threatened their survival.
So, I guess the conclusion is that it's a balancing act. In their case, high levels of consanguineous marriages, given their small numbers, may have been the less risky one.
"[FONT="]Although exogamy is the worldwide marriage norm, many Middle Eastern populations regularly practice consanguineous marriage. Scholars have posited a number of explanations for this phenomenon, but these theories have not identified a concrete advantage to these marriages sufficient to counterbalance the inbreeding depression and other genetic risks inherent to kin marriages. Drawing on genetic studies and mathematical models, as well as both historical and ethnographic sources, I argue in this article that the Arabian Peninsula's camel Bedouin's dependency on the lactose tolerance allele exerted a selective pressure on marriage strategies that strongly favored consanguineous marriage. For milk‐dependent camel Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula, the advantages of consanguineous marriage did indeed outweigh its risks. In addition, I posit that another common Arabian Peninsula marriage practice, the strong prohibition of marriages between higher‐status and lower‐status groups, was favored by the same environmental and genetic factors that favored consanguineous marriage."
This doesn't say much about the rest of the Middle East, however.[/FONT]
