What criteria do we take into account when choosing a partner? A new study reveals that DNA conditions our decisions, since we preferentially marry people who share a part of our ancestors .
To reach this conclusion, Neil Rish, from the University of California, has studied the effects of the family tree on mate choice in Mexican and Puerto Rican individuals. " Latin America , due to the confluence of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans over the past five centuries, provides us with a unique opportunity to study the genetic makeup of the population," says Risch. Their DNA analyzes not only reveal that current couples share ancestors, but also that previous generations had followed the same? Genetic drive? . According to Risch, this phenomenon cannot be explained by looking only at physical traits such as the color of the eyes, skin or hair. "It is clear that we do not choose a partner at random, " he concludes in an article published in the journal Genome Biology .
