Hi everyone,

 

I was reading a paper, and I found the term "assortative mating". It's a synonym of homogamy or there is a difference between these terms ?

 

Thanks in advance for your help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogamy

 

There's a variance in use. If using homogamy, it appears you will have to be clear in which sense you are using it.

You can look at the wikipedia pages for both terms. It seems they arn't synonymous.

 

I don't really like the first sentence of the wiki page on assortive mating as I thought assortive mating was non-random mating patterns caused by differential preference for individuals in a population. Other paragraphs on that same page seem to fit the one I described better than the one the page states in the first sentence.

 

Homogamy is another way of saying inbreeding according to wiki. I suppose inbreeding could be described as assortive mating in some scenarios (e.g arranged marriages) as they are not random patterns. Though in general, assortive mating should not be taken to mean inbreeding.

Ok thanks for your responses