For the ancient Greek epic poem about Telegonus, see Telegony.
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Telegony is a theory of heredity holding that offspring can inherit the characteristics of a previous mate of the female parent; thus the child of a woman might partake of traits of a previous sexual partner. The theory used to be accepted as a fact by the ancient greeks, but experiments in the late 19th century on several species failed to provide evidence that offspring would inherit any character from their mother's previous mates.[1] It has regained some prominence since the 2010's as some research find evidence in support of the controversial theory.[2][3][4]
Telegony is the idea that a female will be permanently affected when she is first impregnated, since the fetus will pass back characteristics to her that will affect all future offspring, no matter their progeny.[5]
The term was coined by August Weismann from the Greek words τῆλε (tèle) meaning 'far' and γονος (gonos) meaning 'offspring'.[5]
The idea of telegony goes back to Aristotle. It states that individuals can inherit traits not only from their fathers, but also from other males previously known to their mothers. In other words, it was thought that paternity could be shared.[6]
Of a supposed Parnassos, founder of Delphi, Pausanias observes, "Like the other heroes, as they are called, he had two fathers; one they say was the god Poseidon, the human father being Cleopompus."[7] Sometimes the result could be twins such as Castor and Pollux, one born divine and one mortal.
The more general doctrine of "maternal impressions" was also known in Ancient Israel. The book of Genesis describes Jacob inducing goats and sheep in Laban's herds to bear striped and spotted young by placing dark wooden rods with white stripes in their watering troughs.[8] Telegony influenced early Christianity as well. The Gnostic followers of Valentinius (circa 100–160 CE) characteristically took the concept from the physiological world into the realm of psychology and spirituality by extending the supposed influence even to the thoughts of the woman. It was also implied in the Gospel of Philip, a text among those found at Nag Hammadi.[9]
Understandings in the 19th century
In the 19th century, the most widely credited example was that of Lord Morton's mare, reported by the distinguished surgeon Sir Everard Home, and cited by Charles Darwin.[10] Lord Morton bred a white mare with a wild quaggastallion,[a] and when he later bred the same mare with a white stallion, the offspring strangely had stripes in the legs, like the quagga.[11]
The Surgeon-General of New York, the physiologist Austin Flint, in his Text-Book of Human Physiology (fourth edition, 1888) described the phenomenon as follows:[12]
A peculiar and, it seems to me, an inexplicable fact is, that previous pregnancies have an influence upon offspring. This is well known to breeders of animals. If pure-blooded mares or bitches have been once covered by an inferior male, in subsequent fecondations the young are likely to partake of the character of the first male, even if they be afterwards bred with males of unimpeachable pedigree. What the mechanism of the influence of the first conception is, it is impossible to say; but the fact is incontestable. The same influence is observed in the human subject. A woman may have, by a second husband, children who resemble a former husband, and this is particularly well marked in certain instances by the colour of the hair and eyes. A white woman who has had children by a negro may subsequently bear children to a white man, these children presenting some of the unmistakable peculiarities of the negro race.[12]
Both Schopenhauer and Herbert Spencer found telegony to be a credible theory;[13]August Weismann, on the other hand, had expressed doubts about the theory earlier and it fell out of scientific favor in the 1890s. A series of experiments by James Cossar Ewart in Scotland and other researchers in Germany and Brazil failed to find any evidence of the phenomenon. Also, the statistician Karl Pearson tried to find an evidence for telegony in humans using family measurement data and the statistical methods he invented, but failed to conclude that the steady telegonic influence really exists.[b][14]
Collapse of the theory in the 20th century
In mammals, each sperm has the haploid set of chromosomes and each egg has another haploid set. During the process of fertilization a zygote with the diploid set is produced. This set will be inherited by every somatic cell of a mammal, with exactly half the genetic material coming from the producer of the sperm (the father) and another half from the producer of the egg (the mother). Thus, the myth of telegony is fundamentally incompatible with our knowledge of genetics and the reproductive process. Encyclopædia Britannica stated "All these beliefs, from inheritance of acquired traits to telegony, must now be classed as superstitions."[15]
21st century
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: New research. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2024)
The theory of telegony has been revisited in the 21st century with new discoveries of non-genetic mechanisms.[2][16]
The concept of telegony, which suggests that offspring may inherit traits from a mother’s previous sexual partners, has been explored in recent studies. One such study, titled "Uterosomes: The Lost Ring of Telegony?" proposes that mechanisms such as the infiltration of sperm into uterine tissues and the involvement of uterosomes—extracellular vesicles from uterine fluid—could mediate this effect. Another article, "Semen Secrets: How a Previous Sexual Partner Can Influence Another Male’s Offspring," provides evidence from studies on animals, showing that seminal fluid from a previous mate may influence the development of offspring from subsequent matings. These studies challenge traditional Mendelian inheritance models.
Epigenetics
A few studies in the 21st century have indicated that an organism can inherit traits that are not mediated by the genetic (DNA) material inherited from parents. The study of such effects is called epigenetics. One study published in 2014 reported the existence of telegony in Telostylinus angusticollis as a non-genetic mechanism of epigenetic inheritance.[2][17]
Telegony influenced late 19th-century racialist beliefs. A woman who had a child with a non-Aryan man, it was argued, could never have a "pure" Aryan child at a later point in time. This idea was adopted by the German Nazi Party.[13]
Telegony re-emerged within post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy. Virginity and Telegony: The Orthodox church and modern science of genetic inversions was published in 2004. Pravda.ru gave an overview of the concept and a brief review of the book, saying that the authors invented "scary and incredible stories" to "make women be very careful about their sexual contacts" and that the idea was being used by the Church to scare the faithful.[18]Anna Kuznetsova, who was appointed Children's Rights Commissioner for the Russian Federation in 2016, had said several years earlier that she believes in the concept, amongst other fringe views. The founding editor of the business newspaper Vedomosti, Leonoid Bershidsky, interpreted the appointment of someone with such views as a sign that Russian PresidentVladimir Putin was becoming more ideological.[19]
The religious practice known as P'ikareum is an unusual variant in that it holds that one can purify one’s own bloodline from sin by having sex with a holy person, such as the founder of one of the religious sects that engages in this practice.
Within popular culture, the belief that an illegitimate child would look like the mother's husband instead of the biological father gave married women some freedom to commit adultery without getting caught.[5]
↑ The quagga was a subspecies of zebra, now extinct.
↑ Assuming that later children of the same couple should increasingly resemble their father if there exists a possible "steady telegonic influence".
References
↑ Burkhardt, R. W. (1979). "Closing the door on Lord Morton's mare: the rise and fall of telegony". Studies in History of Biology. 3: 1–21. PMID11610983.
1 2 3 Crean, Angela J.; Kopps, Anna M.; Bonduriansky, Russell (December 2014). "Revisiting telegony: offspring inherit an acquired characteristic of their mother's previous mate". Ecology Letters. 17 (12): 1545–1552. Bibcode:2014EcolL..17.1545C. doi:10.1111/ele.12373. PMID35843387.
↑ Gospel of Philip, p. 112. Noted in p. 135 from: Grant, Robert M. (1961). "The Mystery of Marriage in the Gospel of Philip". Vigiliae Christianae. 15 (1): 129–140. doi:10.1163/157007261X00137.
↑ Nejabati, Hamid Reza; Roshangar, Leila; Nouri, Mohammad (October 2022). "Uterosomes: The lost ring of telegony?". Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. 174: 55–61. doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2022.07.002. PMID35843387.
Liu, Ys (April 2011). "Telegony, the Sire Effect and non-Mendelian Inheritance Mediated by Spermatozoa: A Historical Overview and Modern Mechanistic Speculations". Reproduction in Domestic Animals. 46 (2): 338–343. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0531.2010.01672.x. PMID20626678.
Nejabati, Hamid Reza; Roshangar, Leila; Nouri, Mohammad (October 2022). "Uterosomes: The lost ring of telegony?". Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. 174: 55–61. doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2022.07.002. PMID35843387.
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