In ancient times, many countries around the world have been passing on the tradition of marriage between close relatives. For example, European royal families who advocate pure blood even issued a decree prohibiting members of the royal family from marrying people outside the royal family, otherwise they will be deprived of their royal status after heavy punishment.
TV stills
However, with the passage of time, the sequelae revealed after the marriage of close blood relatives became more and more serious. In particular, the rate of dementia is 150 times higher than that of ordinary households. In modern times, genetic experts in Spain have pointed out that the loneliness of European royalty is largely due to the marriage of close relatives.
This was the case with the British royal family in the nineteenth century, for example.
At that time, Queen Victoria, although her ability was outstanding, was a resolute enforcer of the marriage of her close relatives, which led to a "blood disease" in her descendants, almost destroying the entire royal family.
According to today's scientific explanation, because the genetic factors between close relatives are similar, the combination of the two will produce harmful genes, so the children born are prone to various congenital diseases. Even if the children do not have problems, this harm will be inherited downwards and eventually explode.
But the strange thing is that in ancient China, close relatives also married, why are there few people with dementia or genetic diseases?
In Chinese history, marriages between cousins were a very common thing. Cousin marriages also represent different meanings at all levels. For example, the cousin marriage between ordinary people is to kiss and add affection. The marriage of cousins between families can increase strength. The marriage of cousins within the royal family is to ensure blood.
Ordinary people aside, there are many records of marriages between some high-ranking households in history, such as Lu You, Li Bai and Li Shangyin, which we are familiar with. In the Qing Dynasty, after the Manchus introduced the Manchu and Han non-marriage regulations, the Manchu Qing royal family in order to ensure the purity of blood, the marriage of close relatives was even more serious.
But even so, we rarely hear of their children and grandchildren having dementia.
In fact, there are three reasons for this, and the reasons are very simple.
First, the ancient warrior clans were generally very large and did not force close relatives to marry. Even if there is a situation of "kissing and kissing", not all of them are blood relatives within three generations, and many of them are a combination of distant cousins, so it is rare to give birth to dementia.
Many people do not know the specific meaning of distant cousins. Here's a quick explanation. These relatives can be traced back to the same ancestor, but not within three generations.
For example, Liu Bei's ancestor, King Jing of Zhongshan, had more than 100 sons in his lifetime. When the descendants of these sons of King Jing of Zhongshan passed on to Liu Bei's era, the relatives of the clan who were of the same generation as Liu Bei and were not within three generations were called distant cousins. Therefore, these cousins and Liu Bei are already far away, and the same passers-by are no different.
Second, the legal age of marriage in ancient times was early, and both men and women were not mature in development, and although women could become pregnant, most of them were miscarriages or premature deaths. For example, the Kangxi Emperor as we know him, he was left with his first son at the age of 12. However, he was born deficient and died not long after.
Although this has little effect on men, it has a great impact on women, and after multiple miscarriages and fertility, it is easy to produce infertility, which is also one of the main reasons why ancient men often took concubines.
Third, in ancient times, men could have three wives and four concubines, which not only had the second reason, but also that cousins were mostly married at the behest of their parents, and men may not like this arrangement. Therefore, after marriage, the favorite woman will be adopted as a concubine, which will greatly reduce the risk of childbirth between cousins.
The above three points are the reasons why the ancients rarely gave birth to dementia.
To sum up, although the ancients paid attention to "kissing and kissing", the blood of the ancient family was complex, the kinship relationship was also very far, and men could marry multiple women, so there would be no very serious "hemophilia" and dementia like the European royal family.