The popular theory of telegony states that a mother's previous sexual partners leave their genetic mark forever on her children born from another partner. We decided to check whether there is scientific justification for this belief.

The theory that genes are passed on to a child not only from parents, but also from the mother’s previous sexual partners, known as telegony, has been spreading in the Russian-language media space for many years. They write about this and make videos on the sites “Zen" And "Peekaboo", the issue of transferring foreign genes to a child is discussed at forums. In 2009, the journal “Physics of Consciousness and Life, Cosmology and Astrophysics” published a lengthy article, proving the scientific nature of telegony. That same year in interview Anna Kuznetsova, future ombudswoman for children’s rights (2016–2021), and now deputy chairman of the State Duma, discussed telegony as a science. In 2016, the Kuban authorities supported showing to schoolchildren film, in which the assertion that a man should marry only a virgin was justified by telegony. WITH regularity articles or opinions scientific evidence of telegony is published on various unauthorized websites. Articles in which experts discuss the reality of the transfer of genes from the first partner appear in Russian regional And federal The media, as well as websites with a strong religious theme. The last notable publication that made this claim was came out V magazine “Legal Science: History and Modernity” in December 2023. In the article, whose co-author is State Duma deputy Igor Ananskikh, this question illuminated as one of the problematic ones.

The term "telegony" suggested the famous 19th century geneticist August Weismann combined the words tele (“far”) and gennao (“generate”). Telegony became most famous in connection with a case described by Charles Darwin. Lord Morton's mare, first covered with a quagga (an extinct subspecies of zebra), then sired foals with the characteristic quagga stripes on their legs by a stallion of her own breed. And if Darwin himself considered this a manifestation of an archaic trait characteristic of the common ancestor of horses, the French biologist Felix le Dantec explained The situation is that part of the genes of the first male remains and influences further offspring of the female. Moreover, in 1898 he suggested, that in humans it should work the same way: “It cannot be allowed that the bastard children do not have any signs of their mother’s husband, if this latter was not impregnated by him at least once. <…> A child born to a woman who has previously had many children from different partners may have characteristics from all of these previous fathers.”

In the USSR, telegony became popular during the times Lysenkoism — the dominance of the pseudoscientific Soviet alternative to classical genetics. Proponents of this theory believed that a parent could pass on acquired characteristics to their offspring, that is, if one horn was cut off on cows over several generations, then over time one-horned cows would begin to be born.

However, it was never possible to confirm telegony scientifically. Scottish biologist Cossar Ewart at the end of the 19th century spent many years of experiments with horses and zebras and found out that the appearance of stripes on the legs could also occur in mares that had never mated with male quaggas or zebras. Experiments carried out on rabbits, pigeons and dogs also didn't give it result.

Moreover, in 2014, Australian biologist Angela J. Crean stated, which was able to detect hereditary mechanisms similar to telegony in the neriid fly of the species Telostylinus angusticollis. In the study, researchers raised large male fruit flies on a nutrient-rich diet and smaller males on a nutrient-poor diet. Males of different sizes were placed with young females, who were already ready to copulate, but not give birth. When the female reached maturity, her partner was changed: instead of a large one, a small one was added, and vice versa. Although the female gave birth to offspring from the second male, the size of her offspring was determined by the diet of the first partner. Scientists have suggested that immature eggs are capable of absorbing molecules of the seminal fluid of the first male.

Normal genetic inheritance works like this: the offspring receives half of the genetic information from the mother's egg, and half from the father's sperm. Nature does not provide a third set of genes. Biologists have suggested that in the case of flies, seminal fluid may also carry information. However, this does not prove the existence of telegony, including in humans. Candidate of Biological Sciences Sergey Lysenkov explains:

“Under special experimental conditions, some acquired characteristics can be transmitted from the male to other children of the female with whom he mated. But this is precisely the non-genetic inheritance of acquired properties. The vast majority of traits are still transmitted in the usual way, through genes, methylated or not, and only directly from the father and mother. The results of the study, no matter how much modern proponents of telegony might wish the opposite, do not in any way increase the possibility that previous males of a given female can leave their genes with her.”

In a similar way speaks out Regarding the Australian experiment, science popularizer and candidate of biological sciences Alexander Panchin:

“I would not call the discovered phenomenon telegony. When they talk about telegony, they still mean the transfer of hereditary characteristics from the first male. If we were talking about color or some other trait determined solely by genes, this would be real telegony. But the size of a male is not so much a hereditary trait as an acquired trait (as a result of a special diet). And the effect itself is very nonspecific. Roughly speaking, one could just as well call the consequences of an STD telegony. The first man infected his partner with HIV, the woman had a child with the second man and gave birth to a child with HIV. The child exhibits a symptom that his mother’s first man had—a weakened immune system. This is also the transfer of a trait from the first (and not only) man to all subsequent offspring of the woman. We have known about this for a long time and do not call it telegony. We will only know what to correctly call the effect described in the article, which was observed when crossing flies, when we manage to understand the biological mechanism that is responsible for it.”

Females of some animals (but not humans) are able to retain sperm for a long time. Certain types of turtles (for example, painted turtle) can retain sperm in the oviducts for three years, and the clutch may contain descendants of different fathers. Human sperm Maybe remain viable for up to five days, but this does not indicate telegony. Let's assume that a girl had sex with partner 1, and then with partner 2. Even if fertilization occurs after the second sexual intercourse, and the sperm of the first turns out to be “resultative,” the child will still receive the genes of only one father, partner 1. And there will be no trace of the second in his genome. Viable sperm simply cannot remain in a woman’s body for long.

Doctor of Biological Sciences Marlen Aslanyan and Professor of the Department of Molecular Biology of Moscow State University Alexander Spirin in their joint article “The Striped Daughter of Lord Morton’s Mare” suggest that the signs of telegony include three phenomena long known to genetics. The first is atavism, a spontaneous secondary mutation.

“A textbook example is the appearance of a tail in a human child (“tailed boy” - see the high school textbook and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude”). <...> Atavism in color - for example, the unexpected appearance of a wild tabby trait (striped color) in a cat that is the offspring of non-striped parents - is a much less rare phenomenon than a tail in a person.”

The second possible option is the return of a wild-type trait due to the interaction of different genes. The authors explain it this way: “In cats, the tabby trait can appear in the presence of the red color gene (O), which suppresses the action of the non-agouti gene even in a double set (aa). Another example of the interaction of color genes in cats is the epistatic (suppressing all other colors) effect of the white color gene (W); Therefore, when mating a white cat or male cat, and even when mating a white cat with a white cat, any colors can “come out” in the offspring, and no passing cat has anything to do with it.”

Finally, the third possible explanation is the manifestation of recessive traits as a result of segregation with certain combinations of parental genotypes. “The use of non-pure (note Darwin’s “almost purebred Arabian mare...” - apparently not a purebred after all!), strongly heterozygous lines of parents often gives unexpected results in the offspring, sometimes reminiscent of the characteristics of some previous suitor of the cat,” the authors explain.

Taking into account the genetic diversity of the human population, a child of two parents with blond hair may turn out to be dark-haired, have a different eye color and other characteristics from the parents. However, this will not clearly make it a child of the other parent. Only genetic testing can bring certainty.

Cover image: American Adoptions