Study: Married couples have similar DNA when they wed

Thinkstock

Study: Married couples have similar DNA when they wed
(Image credit: Thinkstock)

A new study concludes that white husbands and wives are more similar to each other genetically than they are to random individuals, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Scientists investigated the statistical likelihood that a person will marry someone with a similar genotype, gathering data from 9,429 non-Hispanic white individuals. Researchers also examined 1.7 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (points where the DNA sequences of individuals diverge). They discovered that while the married couples were more genetically similar than randomly generated pairs, that likeness "was just one-third the magnitude of educational similarity between spouses," notes the Times' Monte Morin.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.