Endogamy
Encyclopedia
Endogamy is the practice of marrying
within a specific ethnic group
, class
, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another Greek Orthodox Christian.
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
, have practiced endogamy as an inherent part of their religious beliefs and traditions. Roman Catholics traditionally practiced religious endogamy as well.
and bonding. It is a common practice among displanted cultures
attempting to make roots in new countries while still resisting complete integration. It encourages group solidarity and ensures greater control over group resources (which may be important to preserve when a group is attempting to get established within an alien culture).
Endogamy can serve as a form of self-segregation
; it helps a community to resist integrating and completely merging with surrounding populations. It helps minorities to survive as distinct communities over a long time, in societies with other practices and beliefs.
Ethno-religious groups which have long resisted complete integration, for example, the Romani people and the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe, practice a higher level of endogamy.
Notable examples of endogamous religious groups have been the Arab Christians
in Middle East
, Assyrians
, Jews
, Yazidi
in Northern Iraq
also the Mandaeans (early Christians and followers of John the Baptist) in Southern Iraq
(all under Islamic majority), Turkmens
and Armenians in Iran, Old Order Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses
, Memons, Muslims, and the Parsi of India
(a non-Hindu
minority in India). The caste system in India
is based on an order of (predominantly) endogamous groups. Its formation is described in a shloka (verse) of the Purusha Sukta
, a Vedic hymn, as follows:
ब्रा॒ह्म॒णॊ॓உस्य॒ मुख॑मासीत् । बा॒हू रा॑ज॒न्यः॑ कृ॒तः ।
ऊ॒रू तद॑स्य॒ यद्वैश्यः॑ । प॒द्भ्याग्ं शू॒द्रॊ अ॑जायतः ॥
brāhmaṇosya mukhamāsīt | bāhū rājanyaḥ kṛtaḥ |
ūrū tadasya yadvaiśyaḥ | padbhyā śūdro ajāyata ||
The Brahmins came from His mouth; and from His arms came the kings.
The merchants sprang forth from His thighs; and from His feet, the laborers were born.
Islam
, although generally opposed to ethnic endogamy, typically enforces a limited form of religious endogamy. Its patriarchal rule allows Muslim men to take wives from Christian and Jewish populations, but Muslim women are normally forbidden to marry outside of the Muslim community. This rule is based on the rule of Islamic law that presumes that if a child is too young to be accountable in his own right
for his decisions regarding religious practice, his religion (or at least his outwardly exhibited one, given the tenet that all humans are born with knowledge of
Islam's truth), is that of his father. The latter rule implies that Islam gains followers in the next generation if a Muslim man marries a non-Muslim woman, but loses them if a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim man.
s' practice of endogamy threatens this community: refusal to intermarry, in conjunction with their non-acceptance of converts, has led the population of this ethnic group to decrease to fewer than one thousand.
of different social factors, such as occupations, activities, or education. This type of social endogamy is apparent in the United States because occupations have become a chief form of social networking for many adults after college. For instance, actors and actresses generally marry
or bond
with people in a similar industry.
Class
endogamy affects social mobility
: children of top executives have an easier time following a similar path as their parents due to similarities between the two, but also the power that executives have in modern corporations allowing them to influence hiring and promotion decisions. Elite
families generally contribute to endogamy within big business, producing social links that are carried forward and keep certain groups restrictive. There have been such rapid changes in business and technology, however, that new fields open up where people of achievement can create new hierarchies. Professions also establish endogamy: A child growing up with doctor parents, for instance, learns to feel at home in that world and is likely to choose a similar education and career; a son or daughter of a famous actor or musician has a much greater chance of becoming a successful performer compared to the son or daughter of an average worker.
Cousin marriage:
Marriage systems:
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
within a specific ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
, class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another Greek Orthodox Christian.
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
Marital conversion
Marital conversion refers to the concept of religious conversion upon marriage, either as a conciliatory act, or a mandated requirement according to a particular religious belief. Endogamous religious cultures may have certain opposition to interfaith marriage and ethnic assimilation, and may...
. 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
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, have practiced endogamy as an inherent part of their religious beliefs and traditions. Roman Catholics traditionally practiced religious endogamy as well.
Adherence
Proponents claim that endogamy encourages group affiliationAffiliation
In law, affiliation is the term to describe a partnership between two or more parties.- Affiliation procedures in England :...
and bonding. It is a common practice among displanted cultures
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
attempting to make roots in new countries while still resisting complete integration. It encourages group solidarity and ensures greater control over group resources (which may be important to preserve when a group is attempting to get established within an alien culture).
Endogamy can serve as a form of self-segregation
Auto-segregation
Auto-segregation is the separation of a religious or ethnic group from the rest of society in a state by the group itself. Through auto-segregation, the members of the separate group can establish their own services, and maintain their own traditions and customs.For example, some world tribes have...
; it helps a community to resist integrating and completely merging with surrounding populations. It helps minorities to survive as distinct communities over a long time, in societies with other practices and beliefs.
Ethno-religious groups which have long resisted complete integration, for example, the Romani people and the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe, practice a higher level of endogamy.
Notable examples of endogamous religious groups have been the Arab Christians
Arab Christians
Arab Christians are ethnic Arabs of Christian faith, sometimes also including those, who are identified with Arab panethnicity. They are the remnants of ancient Arab Christian clans or Arabized Christians. Many of the modern Arab Christians are descendants of pre-Islamic Christian Arabian tribes,...
in Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
, Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, Yazidi
Yazidi
The Yazidi are members of a Kurdish religion with ancient Indo-Iranian roots. They are primarily a Kurdish-speaking people living in the Mosul region of northern Iraq, with additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Turkey, and Syria in decline since the 1990s – their members emigrating to...
in Northern Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
also the Mandaeans (early Christians and followers of John the Baptist) in Southern Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
(all under Islamic majority), Turkmens
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
and Armenians in Iran, Old Order Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
, Memons, Muslims, and the Parsi of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(a non-Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
minority in India). The caste system in India
Caste system in India
The Indian caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis....
is based on an order of (predominantly) endogamous groups. Its formation is described in a shloka (verse) of the Purusha Sukta
Purusha sukta
Purusha sukta is hymn 10.90 of the Rigveda, dedicated to the Purusha, the "Cosmic Being". One version of the Suktam has 16 verses, 15 in the meter, and the final one in the meter...
, a Vedic hymn, as follows:
ब्रा॒ह्म॒णॊ॓உस्य॒ मुख॑मासीत् । बा॒हू रा॑ज॒न्यः॑ कृ॒तः ।
ऊ॒रू तद॑स्य॒ यद्वैश्यः॑ । प॒द्भ्याग्ं शू॒द्रॊ अ॑जायतः ॥
brāhmaṇosya mukhamāsīt | bāhū rājanyaḥ kṛtaḥ |
ūrū tadasya yadvaiśyaḥ | padbhyā śūdro ajāyata ||
The Brahmins came from His mouth; and from His arms came the kings.
The merchants sprang forth from His thighs; and from His feet, the laborers were born.
Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, although generally opposed to ethnic endogamy, typically enforces a limited form of religious endogamy. Its patriarchal rule allows Muslim men to take wives from Christian and Jewish populations, but Muslim women are normally forbidden to marry outside of the Muslim community. This rule is based on the rule of Islamic law that presumes that if a child is too young to be accountable in his own right
Sui iuris
Sui iuris, commonly also spelled sui juris, is a Latin phrase that literally means “of one’s own laws”.-Secular law:In civil law the phrase sui juris indicates legal competence, the capacity to manage one’s own affairs...
for his decisions regarding religious practice, his religion (or at least his outwardly exhibited one, given the tenet that all humans are born with knowledge of
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
Islam's truth), is that of his father. The latter rule implies that Islam gains followers in the next generation if a Muslim man marries a non-Muslim woman, but loses them if a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim man.
Population genetics
The isolationist practices of endogamy may lead to a group's extinction rather than its survival, as genetic diseases may develop that can affect a larger percentage of the population. For instance, while long serving to preserve their religion, the SamaritanSamaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...
s' practice of endogamy threatens this community: refusal to intermarry, in conjunction with their non-acceptance of converts, has led the population of this ethnic group to decrease to fewer than one thousand.
Social dynamics
Endogamy also plays an important role in social stratificationSocial stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
of different social factors, such as occupations, activities, or education. This type of social endogamy is apparent in the United States because occupations have become a chief form of social networking for many adults after college. For instance, actors and actresses generally marry
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
or bond
Human bonding
Human bonding is the process of development of a close, interpersonal relationship. It most commonly takes place between family members or friends, but can also develop among groups such as sporting teams and whenever people spend time together...
with people in a similar industry.
Class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
endogamy affects social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
: children of top executives have an easier time following a similar path as their parents due to similarities between the two, but also the power that executives have in modern corporations allowing them to influence hiring and promotion decisions. Elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
families generally contribute to endogamy within big business, producing social links that are carried forward and keep certain groups restrictive. There have been such rapid changes in business and technology, however, that new fields open up where people of achievement can create new hierarchies. Professions also establish endogamy: A child growing up with doctor parents, for instance, learns to feel at home in that world and is likely to choose a similar education and career; a son or daughter of a famous actor or musician has a much greater chance of becoming a successful performer compared to the son or daughter of an average worker.
See also
- ConsanguinityConsanguinityConsanguinity refers to the property of being from the same kinship as another person. In that respect, consanguinity is the quality of being descended from the same ancestor as another person...
- InbreedingInbreedingInbreeding is the reproduction from the mating of two genetically related parents. Inbreeding results in increased homozygosity, which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or deleterious traits. This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population, which is...
- Ethnic nepotismEthnic nepotismEthnic nepotism describes a human tendency for in-group bias or in-group favouritism applied by nepotism for people with the same ethnicity.- The theory :...
- Arranged marriageArranged marriageAn arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
- Auto-segregationAuto-segregationAuto-segregation is the separation of a religious or ethnic group from the rest of society in a state by the group itself. Through auto-segregation, the members of the separate group can establish their own services, and maintain their own traditions and customs.For example, some world tribes have...
Cousin marriage:
- Cousin marriageCousin marriageCousin marriage is marriage between two cousins. In various jurisdictions and cultures, such marriages range from being considered ideal and actively encouraged, to being uncommon but still legal, to being seen as incest and legally prohibited....
- List of coupled cousins
Marriage systems:
- HomogamyHomogamy-In sociology:Homogamy is marriage between individuals who are, in some culturally important way, similar to each other. Homogamy may be based on socio-economic status, class, gender, ethnicity, or religion...
- ExogamyExogamyExogamy is a social arrangement where marriage is allowed only outside of a social group. The social groups define the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. In social studies, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects:...
- HypergamyHypergamyHypergamy is the act or practice of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status, or caste status than oneself....