Reply To: Cousins Marrying

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#930446
benignuman
Participant

I am not a geneticist but I suspect that there is some confusion in this thread between the causing of genetic disorders and the propagation of genetic disorders.

Because Jews in the Diaspora were always isolated minorities who married among themselves genetic diseases were propagated down through the generations and not diluted through marriage outside the minority. That doesn’t mean that the marrying of cousins caused the disease, it means it just made it easier to stay around.