<p>Stop the fight and tell your spouse that you both are more than a perfect match - an ideal genetic match!<br /><br /></p>.<p>According to research, people are more likely to pick mates who have similar DNA - a strong reason for tying the knots other than religion, age, race, income, body type and education.<br /><br />"It is well known that people marry folks who are like them. But there has been a question about whether we mate at random with respect to genetics," said Benjamin Domingue, a research associate at University of Colorado Boulder's institute of behavioural science.<br /><br />Individuals actually are more genetically similar to their spouses than they are to randomly selected individuals from the same population.<br /><br />To prove their point, Domingue and his colleagues examined the genomes of 825 non-Hispanic white American couples.<br /><br />They looked specifically at single-nucleotide polymorphisms, which are places in their DNA that are known to commonly differ among humans.<br /><br />The researchers found that there were fewer differences in the DNA between married people than between two randomly selected individuals.<br /><br />In all, the researchers estimated genetic similarity between individuals using 1.7 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms in each person's genome.<br /><br />The researchers compared this with the phenomenon of people with similar educations marrying - known as "educational assortative mating".<br /><br />They found that the preference for a genetically similar spouse, known as "genetic assortative mating", is about a third of the strength of "educational assortative mating".<br /><br />"We could further explore whether similar results are found between married people of other races or whether people also choose genetically similar friends," Domingue noted.<br /><br />The study appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</p>
<p>Stop the fight and tell your spouse that you both are more than a perfect match - an ideal genetic match!<br /><br /></p>.<p>According to research, people are more likely to pick mates who have similar DNA - a strong reason for tying the knots other than religion, age, race, income, body type and education.<br /><br />"It is well known that people marry folks who are like them. But there has been a question about whether we mate at random with respect to genetics," said Benjamin Domingue, a research associate at University of Colorado Boulder's institute of behavioural science.<br /><br />Individuals actually are more genetically similar to their spouses than they are to randomly selected individuals from the same population.<br /><br />To prove their point, Domingue and his colleagues examined the genomes of 825 non-Hispanic white American couples.<br /><br />They looked specifically at single-nucleotide polymorphisms, which are places in their DNA that are known to commonly differ among humans.<br /><br />The researchers found that there were fewer differences in the DNA between married people than between two randomly selected individuals.<br /><br />In all, the researchers estimated genetic similarity between individuals using 1.7 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms in each person's genome.<br /><br />The researchers compared this with the phenomenon of people with similar educations marrying - known as "educational assortative mating".<br /><br />They found that the preference for a genetically similar spouse, known as "genetic assortative mating", is about a third of the strength of "educational assortative mating".<br /><br />"We could further explore whether similar results are found between married people of other races or whether people also choose genetically similar friends," Domingue noted.<br /><br />The study appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</p>