Social norms regarding who marries whom have changed dramatically in the United States across the 20th century. These changes may influence the level of genetic similarity between spouses. This study investigates whether genetic similarity in height between husband and wife was influenced by a historical transition in spouse selection criteria. The great transition from the companionate marriage to the individualized marriage occurred in the 1960s. In the companionate marriage, husband and wife chose each other as companions, and the emphasis was on playing marital roles well: husbands being good breadwinners and wives being good homemakers. In the individualized marriage, the emphasis switched to individual feelings, and as a result, when choosing their partners people tended to pay less attention to height, suggesting a smaller genetic correlation for height between spouses. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we found that the genetic correlation for height declined substantially in the individualized marriage. We conducted a number of analyses to test for the confounding effects of cohort and age and to address population stratification, selection issues, and genetic relatedness between spouses. Evidence suggests that the effect of this transition is robust.

中文翻译：

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20世纪美国配偶之间的婚姻时期和身高遗传相似性。

在整个 20 世纪，关于谁与谁结婚的社会规范在美国发生了巨大变化。这些变化可能会影响配偶之间的遗传相似性水平。本研究调查了夫妻之间身高的遗传相似性是否受到配偶选择标准的历史转变的影响。从伴侣婚姻到个体婚姻的巨大转变发生在1960年代。在伴侣婚姻中，夫妻相互选择伴侣，重点是扮演好婚姻角色：丈夫是好养家糊口的人，妻子是好家庭主妇。在个性化的婚姻中，重心转向个人感受，因此在选择伴侣时，人们往往不太注重身高，表明配偶之间身高的遗传相关性较小。使用来自健康和退休研究的数据，我们发现在个性化婚姻中，身高的遗传相关性显着下降。我们进行了大量分析，以检验队列和年龄的混杂效应，并解决人口分层、选择问题和配偶之间的遗传相关性。有证据表明，这种转变的影响是强大的。