For most people, carrying a recessive gene isn't necessarily a death sentence. It's only when that person links up with another carrier of the same bit of genetic code that their children might be in danger. They run the risk of getting both recessive copies and suffering from a recessive disorder. With a relatively large and diverse gene pool, those incidents are pretty rare. But, if someone is restricted to picking a partner only from their family, that chance can start to rise dramatically...
As for why inbreeding happens, it could be due to many different factors, including geographic isolation, social restrictions, or rare but brutal incidences of abuse. Some groups may simply want to follow familiar traditional paths, marrying people from similar stations who, over time, tend to all become related.
Historically, the rules of royal marriages have been completely bizarre to normal people. Marrying for love, or even with a tiny bit of choice, was almost always out of the question. Royal marriages were arranged as part of treaties or to consolidate power. This meant it wasn't unusual for very young children to get coupled up. It also meant those couples were often made up of people who were related — often with a degree of closeness that seems disturbing, if not outright illegal, today.
In the vast majority of world cultures, inbreeding — the birthing of children between two close family members — is a fundamental taboo. Indeed, the practice is discouraged in many major religions, with the rules of the Hebrew Bible prohibiting sexual contact between certain family members, such as siblings, in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Only 75 miles from West Virginia's state capital, Charleston, sits the village of Odd, population about 360. The town's unusual name — chosen, …
We delve into the history and contemporary perspectives of the British monarchy and others.
