The popular theory of Telegony says that the previous sexual partners of the mother left their genetic trace forever in her children born from another partner. We decided to check if such a conviction has scientific justification.

The theory that genes are transmitted to the child not only from parents, but also from the previous sexual partners of the mother, known as telegony, spreads in the Russian -speaking media space for many years. This is written and filmed on the venues "Zen" And "Picabu", The issue of transferring other people's genes to the child is discussed at forums. In 2009, in the journal “Physics of Consciousness and Life, Cosmology and Astrophysics” there was a lengthy articleproving the scientificness of telegonia. In the same year in interview Anna Kuznetsova, the future Ombudsumen for the Rights of the Child (2016–2021), and now the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, discussed about Tegony as science. In 2016, the Kuban authorities Supported Show to schoolchildren filmIn which the assertion that a man should marry only a virgin was justified by a television. WITH regularity Articles or Opinions The scientific evidence of telegony is published on different unauthorized sites. Articles in which experts discuss the reality of the transfer of genes of the first partner appear in Russian regional And federal Media, as well as on sites With a pronounced religious theme. The last noticeable publication, which approved this, I went out V magazine “Legal science: history and modernity” in December 2023. In an article, the co -author of which is the State Duma deputy Igor Anansky, this issue illuminated As one of the problematic.

The term "Telegony" Offered The famous geneticist of the 19th century August Weisman, uniting the words of Tele (“far”) and Gennao (“generate”). Telegony gained the greatest fame in connection with the case described by Charles Darwin. The mare of Lord Morton, first covered with kwaggga (extinct as a subdivine of zebra), then gave birth to foals with stripes on the legs characteristic of Kvaggg from the stallion of her breed. And if Darwin himself considered this a manifestation of an archaic feature characteristic of the common ancestor of the horse, the French biologist Felix Le Danteke Explained The situation is that part of the genes of the first male remains and affects the further offspring of the female. Moreover, in 1898 he suggestedThat people should work in the same way: “It cannot be allowed that the side children have no signs of their mother’s husband if this latter was not fertilized at least once. <...> A child born from a woman who previously had many children from different partners can have signs from all these previous fathers. ”

In the USSR, Telegony became Popular In times Lysenkovschina - The dominance of the pseudoscientific Soviet alternative to classical genetics. Supporters of this theory believed that the parent could convey the acquired signs to the descendant, that is, if one horn to cut off the cows for several generations, then one -time cows will begin to be born over time.

However, it was not possible to confirm Telegony scientifically. Scottish biologist Cossar Evart at the end of the XIX century Spended Perennial experiments with horses and zebras found out that the appearance of stripes on the legs could have occurred in mares that never had mating with the males of the Kwaggg or zebra. Experiments conducted on rabbits, pigeons and dogs, also did not give result. 

At the same time, in 2014, Australian biologist Angela J. Crin She saidthat she was able to detect hereditary mechanisms similar to telegonia in the species of the type of Telostylinus angusticollis. In the study, scientists have grown large males of fruit flies on a diet rich in nutrients, and smaller males on a diet poor in nutrients. Males of different sizes were planted to young females who were already ready to copulate, but not to give offspring. When the female reached maturity, her partner was changed: instead of a large one, they planted a small one, 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 suggested that immature eggs are able to absorb the molecules of the seminal fluid of the first male.

The usual inheritance occurs as follows: the descendant receives half the genetic information from the mother’s egg, and half from the father’s sperm. The third set of genes is not provided for by nature. Biologists have suggested that in the case of flies, seed fluid can also carry information. However, this does not prove the existence of telegonia, including people. Candidate of biological sciences Sergey Lysenkov explains: 

“In the special conditions of the experiment, some acquired features can be transmitted from the male to other children of the female with whom he mated. But this is precisely a non -general inheritance of acquired properties. The vast majority of signs are nevertheless transmitted in the usual way, through genes metered or not, and only directly from the father and mother. The results of the study, no matter how much, possibly, modern supporters of the reverse telegonia, in no way increase the possibility that previous males of this females can leave her genes from her. ” 

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

“I would not call the discovered phenomenon a telegone. When they talk about Telegony, they still imply the transfer of hereditary signs from the first male. If it was about the color or some other feature determined exclusively by genes, it would be a real telegonia. But the size of the male is not so much a hereditary feature as an acquired sign (as a result of a special diet). And the effect itself is very nonspecific. Roughly speaking, with the same success could be called a television consequences of STDs. The first man infected his partner by HIV infection, the woman started the child from the second man and gave birth to a child, a patient with HIV. The child has a sign that his mother’s first man had - weakened immunity. This is also a transmission of a sign from the first (and not only) man to all the subsequent offspring of a woman. We have known this for a long time and do not call Telegonia. What to correctly call the effect described in the article, which was observed when crossing flies, we will learn only when we can understand the biological mechanism that is responsible for it. ”

Females of some animals (but not humans) are able to maintain sperm for a long time. Separate types of turtles (for example, a painted turtle) can Save sperm in the oviducts for three years, and the descendants of different fathers may be present in the masonry. Human sperm Maybe Save vitality for up to five days, but this does not indicate a telegony. Suppose that the 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 will be “effective”, the child will still receive only one father, partner 1. And from the second there will be no trace in his genome. For a long time, a viable sperm can simply not remain in the body of a woman. 

Doctor of Biological Sciences Marlene Aslanyan and professor at the Department of Molecular Biology of Moscow State University Alexander Spirin in the joint article “The Striped Daughter of the Mares of Lord Morton” suggests that three phenomena of phenomena are recorded in the signs of Telegony. The first is atavism, a spontaneous secondary mutation. 

“A textbook example is the appearance of the tail of a human child (“ Tailed Boy ” - see a textbook for high school and Gabriel Garcia Marquez“ A Hundred Years of Loneliness ”). <...> Atavism in the color - for example, the unexpected appearance of a wild feature of Tebby (striped color) in a cat, which is a descendant of unwell parents - a phenomenon is much less rare than a person’s tail. ”

The second possible option is a return of a wild type, due to the interaction of different genes. The authors explain this this way: “In cats, a sign of Tabby can appear in the presence of a red-colored gene (O), which inhibits the effect of the non-aguti gene even in a double set (AA). Another example of the interaction of color genes in cats is epistatic (overwhelming all other colors) the action of the white gene (W); Therefore, when mating a white cat or cat, and even when mating a white cat with a white cat in the offspring, any colors can “get out”, and no passing cat has nothing to do with it. ”

Finally, the third possible explanation is the manifestation of recessive signs as a result of splitting with certain combinations of parental genotypes. “The use of not pure ones (notice Darwin-“ an almost purebred Arabic mare ... ”-apparently, is still not purebred!), Heterozygous lines of parents often gives unexpected results in the offspring, sometimes reminiscent of the signs of some former bridegroom of a cat,” the authors explain. 

Given the genetic diversity of the human population, a child of two parents with blond hair can be dark -haired, to have a color of the eyes that are different from parents and other signs. However, this will not definitely make him a descendant of another parent. Only a genetic examination can introduce certainty.

Image on the cover: American Adoptions

Not true

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