Adultery has confused European genealogy for five centuries

Five centuries of extramarital sexual relations have affected the DNA of many Europeans. This is a new scientific research feed.

Since time immemorial, the family is made up of a father and mother who are officially married by an official or unofficial religious authority. Sexual relations are stigmatized outside this framework and are labeled as "preacher or son of adultery" to those born outside. However, the father is not necessarily the husband. Europeans are already who we think?

To shed light on this issue, French magazine L'Onville Observateur reviewed a European study that researched "unexpected guests" in the trees of European families over five centuries of extramarital relations.

In an article in the magazine, Jean-Paul Fritz said that "adulterous sons", as they are known, are mostly children born to unmarried mothers whose fathers deny them, or the fruit of a sexual relationship based on coercion, but this is not always the case. The legitimate were in fact fathers by name only without knowing it.

To determine the magnitude of this phenomenon, a team of scientists, led by Martin Larmosu of the University of Louvain, Belgium, paid special attention to what they called "extra-marital paternity," a more precise term for the designation of births involving an extramarital worker.

Common chromosome .. or not

Larmoso and his colleagues have studied genealogies extensively over the past five centuries in Europe, identifying 513 "husbands" of men today living in Belgium or the Netherlands, who in theory have a common male ancestor.

This "great-grandfather" is different for each of these pairs, and the oldest of them dates back to 1315, according to the study that indicates that the participation in a male ancestor means the presence of a common Y chromosome, except in the case of a relationship outside marriage.

Thus, if two men of the same spouse are associated with a "patriarchal" family tree and do not carry the same Y chromosome, this is evidence of paternity outside marriage, the author said.

Thanks to genealogical data, the study team was able to model the probabilities of this “extra-marital event” by birth year, population density and social status.

The results of this study gave a percentage of births outside marriage, and also allowed the assessment of the proportion of births through adultery, especially since most of the ancestors who studied were born before the introduction of modern contraceptive methods, and relationships outside marriage often led to the birth.

"Our study covers many centuries, which has undergone significant changes in the social and human environment, including the rapid urbanization that accompanied the industrial revolution in Western Europe in the 19th century," says one researcher.

Manufacturing and overcrowding

The study refuted the link between extramarital relations with the whims of the rich and poor morality, and denied linking to a particular country or religion, as the study affected both Catholics in Belgium and Protestants in the Netherlands, and found no significant differences with regard to reproduction outside marriage.

The study pointed out that the number of births outside the marriage is generally small, as often does not exceed 1.6% of the children of each generation, and concluded that the rates of paternity outside marriage between 0.4% to 0.5% among the rich and farmers in most rural areas, but rise to 5.9 Among the disadvantaged in the most densely populated cities, in the late nineteenth century, during the Industrial Revolution, the cycle reached 12%.

“Our research shows that the chances of having an extramarital paternity in your family history really depend on the ancestral social status of your ancestors,” Martin Larmoso says. If they live in cities and belong to the lowest social strata, it is likely that the extramarital paternity in your family history is much higher than if They were farmers.

What motivated the relationship outside marriage?

To explain the use of this type of relationship, the research team links the subject to evolutionary theories, and points out that there are some benefits, for example, "For males, this means producing more children without having to pay for parental attention." Females may also benefit from having Additional resources.

The Panel cautions that these relationships have flaws such as an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases, aggression by the "official" partner, termination of marriage or reduced investment by males.

The Group felt that "elements of the social environment such as population density and availability of resources can severely affect the opportunities for individuals to establish extramarital relationships, and can modify both costs and benefits to prevent such relationships."

The study concluded that the proportion of children born to a man other than the official father was not as many as you might think in general, when contraception was not widespread, but the proportion of 1% nonetheless means large numbers of people.