What is Endogamy:
Endogamy is a practice according to which a group of individuals rejects or denies the incorporation of individuals outside their own group. The word, as such, is composed of the prefix endo-which means ‘within’, and -gamywhich means ‘union’.
Endogamy is a behavior or social attitude in which members of other groups are prevented from associating or uniting, either for marriage or reproduction, with members of a specific group.
In this sense, endogamous groups usually limit the unions or marriages of those in their group taking into account factors such as: having a common ancestry or lineage, belonging to the same social class, having the same religion, being part of the same ethnic group, or be a native of the same geographical area.
In Antiquity, endogamy was very common for various reasons: to maintain power within the same family (aristocracies, hegemonic groups), to establish alliances with other groups of the same social class (aristocrats, bourgeois), or to maintain the purity of a supposed race.
Inbreeding in biology
According to biology and genetics, endogamy is the crossing between individuals of the same race, community or population that is isolated both geographically and genetically. In an inbred cross, the chances of having offspring affected by recessive traits or genetic deteriorations increase.
Endogamy and exogamy
Exogamy is the opposite of endogamy. In this sense, it constitutes the practice of associating or establishing marital unions between people of different ancestry, social, ethnic, religious or geographical groups. Biology, for its part, considers that exogamy is the crossing between individuals of different races, communities or populations, the result of which is an increasingly heterogeneous offspring at a genetic level.