Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such bases as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Jewish endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another Jew. Thus, as such endogamy could be considered as a form of racism, social and cultural segregation.

Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups, but globalization tends to counteract this tendency by exposing isolated ethnic groups to a wider variety of people and cultures.

Several ethnic religious groups are traditionally relatively more endogamous, although sometimes with the added dimension of requiring marital religious conversion, permitting an ostensibly endogamous marriage to be performed since the convert has accepted the partner's culture. Certain groups such as Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews have practiced endogamy as an inherent part of their religious beliefs and traditions.

Adherence

Proponents claim that endogamy encourages group affiliation and bonding. It is a common practice among displanted cultures attempting to make roots in new countries whilst still resisting complete integration, as it encourages group solidarity and ensures greater control over group resources (which may be important to preserve when a group is attempting to establish itself within an alien culture).

Endogamy can serve as a form of self-segregation and helps a community to resist integrating and completely merging with surrounding populations. It thus helps minorities to survive as separate communities over a long time, in societies with other practices and beliefs.

Ethno-religious groups which have successfully resisted complete integration for the longest, for example the Romany gypsies and the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe, practise a relatively higher level of endogamy.

Famous examples of strictly endogamous religious groups have been the 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, Mormons, Memons muslims, Mahishya Hindu and the Parsi of India (a non-Hindu minority in India). Through the 1940-1950s in the United States, the Catholic Church was successful at keeping its people marrying within the Catholic community. Since the 1960s, that has been changing as well. The caste system in India is based on an order of (predominantly) endogamous groups. Its formation has been suggested to have originated from the social organization of these groups.

Islam, although against ethnic endogamy, typically enforces a limited form of religious endogamy. Muslim men may take wives from Christian and Jewish populations but Muslim women are normally forbidden to marry outside of the Muslim community. This rule complements the rule of Islamic law presuming 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: Because 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, the former rule represents a safeguard against the reduction of the Muslim population through exogamy.

The isolationist practices of endogamy may lead to a group's extinction rather than its survival when genetic disease can affect a larger percentage of the population. For instance, while long serving to preserve their religion, the Samaritans' practice of endogamy now 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. Such a small gene pool has contributed to genetic disease within the community.

Endogamy also plays an important role in social stratification 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 with doctor parents, for instance, learns to be 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.

Endogamy causes groups to be less diversified because of the desire to stay within one's social group. For example, the percentage of interracial marriages in the United States is small, only 4%, under random matching 44% of all marriages would be interracial. With increased ethnic diversity and changing social attitudes among many people, younger people are entering into such marriages more often.

See also

• Consanguinity
• Inbreeding
• Ethnic nepotism
• Arranged marriage
• Auto-segregation

Cousin marriage:

• Cousin marriage
• List of coupled cousins

Marriage systems:

• Homogamy
• Exogamy
• Hypergamy