Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:55:31.272Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Canonical correlation analysis of assortative mating in two groups of Brazilians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Anete Trachtenberg
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, Biosciences Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
A. E. Stark
Affiliation:
School of Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia
F. M. Salzano
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, Biosciences Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
F. J. Da Rocha
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, Biosciences Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Summary

In two groups of people, 98 couples in which the husband was a military serviceman and 63 couples of Jewish ancestry living in Porto Alegre, Brazil, age at marriage, age at time of survey, fifteen anthropometric variables, and hair and eye colour were studied. Proper adjustments of the data were made taking into consideration duration of cohabitation, aging and secular effects, and skewness in the distributions. There are some differences between the two groups in age at marriage, but in both there is a tendency for those currently older to have married later in life. The correlation coefficients between spouses are with very few exceptions positive, with no indication of preferences for opposites. Size and factors related to body build are the most readily detectable agents in the assortative mating occurring in this population, but in the military group relative lengths of leg and trunk, rather than stature itself, are important in conditioning mate choice.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1985, Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Buss, D.M. (1984) Marital assortment for personality dispositions: assessment with three different data sources. Behav. Genet. 14, 111.Google Scholar
Franco, M.H.L.P., Salzano, F.M. & Lima, F.A.M. (1981) Blood groups and serum protein types in two Brazilian populations. Rev. Bras. Genet. 4, 689.Google Scholar
Franco, M.H.L.P., Weimer, T.A. & Salzano, F.M. (1982) Blood polymorphisms and racial admixture in two Brazilian populations. Am. J. phys. Anthrop. 58, 127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrison, G.A., Gibson, J.B. & Hiorns, R.W. (1976) Assortative marriage for psychometric, personality and anthropometric variation in a group of Oxfordshire villages. J. biosoc. Sci. 8, 145.Google Scholar
Harrison, G.A. & Palmer, C.D. (1981) Husband–wife similarities among Oxfordshire villages. Man, 16, 130.Google Scholar
Harrison, G.A., Palmer, C.D., Jenner, D. & Reynolds, V. (1980) Similarities between husbands and wives in rates of catecholamine excretion. Ann. hum. Biol. 7, 379.Google Scholar
Hill, M.D. (1974) Correspondence analysis: a neglected multivariate method. Appl. Statist. 23, 340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschfeld, H.O. (1935) A connection between correlation and contingency. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 31, 520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leslie, P. W. (1983) Age correlation between mates and average consanguinity in age-structured human populations. Am. J. hum. Genet. 35, 962.Google Scholar
Malina, R.M., Selby, H.A., Buschang, P.H., Aronson, W.L. & Little, B.B. (1983) Assortative mating for phenotypic characteristics in a Zapotec community in Oaxaca, Mexico. J. biosoc. Sci. 15, 273.Google Scholar
Mueller, W.H. (1983) The genetics of human fatness. Yearb.phys. Anthrop. 26, 215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, D.F. (1977) Assortative mating in man: husband/wife correlations in physical characteristics. Bull. Eugen. Soc. Suppl. 2.Google Scholar
Salzano, F.M. & Freire-Maia, N. (1970) Problems in Human Biology. A Study of Brazilian Populations. Wayne State University Press, Detroit.Google Scholar
Sharma, K., Byard, P.J., Russel, J.M. & Rao, D.C. (1984) A family study of anthropometric traits in a Punjabi community: I. Introduction and familial correlations. Am. J. phys. Anthrop. 63, 389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, R.S., Weimer, T.A. & Salzano, F.M. (1981) Rare and common types of phosphoglucomutase in two Brazilian populations. Hum. Biol. 53, 227.Google Scholar
Spuhler, J.N. (1968) Assortative mating with respect to physical characteristics. Eugen. Q. 15, 128.Google Scholar
Stark, A.E. (1976) A model of assortative mating. Ann. hum. Genet. 39, 455.Google Scholar
Stark, A.E. (1977) A model of assortative mating with partial dominance. Heredity, 39, 91.Google Scholar
Weimer, T.A., Salzano, F.M. & Hutz, M.H. (1981) Erythrocyte isozymes and hemoglobin types in a southern Brazilian population. J. hum. Evol. 10, 319.Google Scholar