“Endogamy and Exogamy”, Essay Example

Endogamy is the uniting, mating or marriage between individuals of the same group to which both people belong. In comparison, exogamy is the opposite. Exogamy is the united, mating or marriage between two individuals from different groups. The words can be broken down based on their terminology. For instance, the term “oogamy” refers to sexual reproduction. “Endo” refers to “in” and “Exo” refers to “out”. Putting the terms together you can distinguish there meanings.

The formal endogamy is not as common anymore, such as individuals from the same family marrying within. Most societies, however, are endogamous. For instance, cultures in our societies usually pressure individuals to marry someone from the same group or ethnic background. This does not mean they are related genetically, however, it means that they are from the same culture or religion, for instance. Exogamy on the other hand strives to reach outside of their own ethnic groups in order increase the social network. The important factor in both of these terms comes down to genetics. Endogamous type of mating focuses on the ethnic genetic links. These people want to be genetically similar in order for the same alleles or gene frequencies to occur in the population. Whereas, exogamy mating creates less genetically similar individuals and therefore the gene frequencies in the population are fewer. The benefit to exogamy is that there is a decrease in the recessive diseases because two of the same lethal alleles that are passed on to the offspring from the parent are less likely if the parents are from genetically different populations or ethnic backgrounds. A good example of this is the Jewish culture and the Cystic Fibrosis gene. The Cystic Fibrosis gene is more likely to appear in the offspring from two Jewish background parents than from a Jewish parent and a Caucasian Catholic American. (Holliday)

Works Cited

Holliday, J. Majority Rights.com. (2005). Genetic Patterns, Endogamy, Exogamy and Genetic

Interests. http://majorityrights.com/weblog/comments/http_majorityrightscom_indexphp_hollidays_first_post/