Consanguinity and spousal concordance in Kuwait.
Consanguineous marriage is favored in Kuwait. This research focuses on the relationship of physical and cultural traits to marriage types in Kuwait and examines concordance as a function of consanguinity and marriage duration. In a nonrandom opportunistic sample of 242 couples anthropometric and blood pressure data have been collected as well as data on acculturation, religiosity, Farsi proficiency, level of education, occupation, and attitudes regarding fertility. Significant concordances occur in cultural characteristics among couples in all three types of marriages with respect to the degree of religiosity, acculturation, language similarity, education, and occupation. Non-consanguineous spouses have the highest concordance in educational level, occupation, and degree of acculturation, but the lowest for religiosity and Farsi proficiency. Nonkin marriages seem to be based on personal preferences. In the wider potential nonkin marriage pool spouses show more concordance in stature and education indicating the positive assortative mating for those traits. Non-consanguineous spouses show a significant association for triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses hip and waist circumferences, and body fat distribution. Unrelated spouses exhibit more concordance for physical traits than do related spouses. There is a significant correlation between spouses in first and double cousin marriages as well as in spouses in second and less than second cousin unions for systolic and diastolic blood pressure, while non-consanguineous spouses show a significant association in diastolic blood pressure only.
al-Kandari
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Y
Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology, Kuwait University, Kaifan, Kuwait.
Crews
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DE
Poirier
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FE
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000886:Anthropometry; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003241:Consanguinity; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D006801:Humans; D007730:Kuwait / Q000208:ethnology; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations; D012067:Religion