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It does make sense. In hindsight. But why would the tribes send away all their daughters in the first place? I don't think that inbreeding was a concept back th

It does make sense. In hindsight. But why would the tribes send away all their daughters in the first place? I don't think that inbreeding was a concept back then. So what compelled a rich and powerful father to send away all his daughters. That seems rather odd to me.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
So, political marriages?
deleted 7y ago
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Tsiklon 7y ago
Assuming Male Primogeniture; A rich and powerful father arranging the marriages of his daughters to other powerful and wealthy families is how business relationships and alliances were formed, and how one could potentially move their own family up the social order. It's pretty much how royalty and landed gentry used to work in Europe.
- choeger 7y ago
  Sure. But wouldn't you expect these marriages to also be arranged within the domain to at least some degree?
dragontamer 7y ago
> I don't think that inbreeding was a concept back then. There are evolutionary guards against inbreeding. Its why brothers + sisters can grow up and live together, but for the most part don't feel like dating or marrying each other. Its beyond culture: its written in our genetic code itself. Presumably, the primitive-man tribes who did do in-breeding were probably wiped out in the stone-age due to the (now well known) problems. True, there are exceptions. But in the general case, the guards against in-breeding are part of the human's genetic code. Sorta anyway: IIRC the specific genetic programming is against "marrying people who you grew up with".
- viraptor 7y ago
  There are also relatively-modern tribe rules which provide some protection. For example Australian tribes use a split into subsections where you're allowed to marry only 4 out of 8 (or some other configuration) which provides a minimum of some number of generations before people with common ancestors can marry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_kinship#The_subsection_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_kinship#...
- choeger 7y ago
  But there are no evolutionary guards against cousin/cousin inbreeding whose effects show only after some generations. I don't think that this policy was a deliberate attempt to save the gene pool.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

So, political marriages?

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[deleted]

Tsiklon 7y ago

Assuming Male Primogeniture; A rich and powerful father arranging the marriages of his daughters to other powerful and wealthy families is how business relationships and alliances were formed, and how one could potentially move their own family up the social order. It's pretty much how royalty and landed gentry used to work in Europe.

choeger 7y ago
Sure. But wouldn't you expect these marriages to also be arranged within the domain to at least some degree?

dragontamer 7y ago

> I don't think that inbreeding was a concept back then. There are evolutionary guards against inbreeding. Its why brothers + sisters can grow up and live together, but for the most part don't feel like dating or marrying each other. Its beyond culture: its written in our genetic code itself. Presumably, the primitive-man tribes who did do in-breeding were probably wiped out in the stone-age due to the (now well known) problems. True, there are exceptions. But in the general case, the guards against in-breeding are part of the human's genetic code. Sorta anyway: IIRC the specific genetic programming is against "marrying people who you grew up with".

viraptor 7y ago
There are also relatively-modern tribe rules which provide some protection. For example Australian tribes use a split into subsections where you're allowed to marry only 4 out of 8 (or some other configuration) which provides a minimum of some number of generations before people with common ancestors can marry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_kinship#The_subsection_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_kinship#...
choeger 7y ago
But there are no evolutionary guards against cousin/cousin inbreeding whose effects show only after some generations. I don't think that this policy was a deliberate attempt to save the gene pool.