Is there any real difference about "noble blood" that made it such a class separator throughout history?

by Chilly5

I think the obvious answer to this question is no, that noble blood has no inherent "better" properties to separate it from peasant blood. That the only really difference is the way different wealth classes are raised and live day to day - that if anything, constant "noble" breeding among a select population had instead lead to matchups within one's own family line, leading to weaker genes if anything.

But there is just such ubiquitous fixation on discriminating for "pure" and "noble" bloodlines throughout history over cultures across the world (still seen even today) that I can't help but second guess myself if there really may have been some special property to noble blood. Mayhaps in the past? Before bloodlines became increasingly mixed over time?

So is there answer to whether or not noble genes/royal blood ever had a difference that legitimized its separation it from common blood?

To expand on this question, I've noticed that in many instances in history, there may often be "take-overs" where one noble ruling power becomes unseated. And what ends up happening is that the take-overs, be they from significant lineage or not, will suddenly be the new "noble" power. I think occurrences like these demonstrate that noble blood has no real difference from common blood (as they can interchange, ie a noble celt would be a common roman), but more revealingly, bring up the question of: why was noble blood such a commonly used claim to legitimacy?

Pornucopia69

The short answer is that there is no inherent difference. Noble blood had/has importance for a few reasons. For a royal family it was important to seek out royal blood because that kept the power within the family, that meant that there was less chance of a person's legacy being disrupted which was and is a large concern for people. For people who were not royals, marrying into royal blood was greatly important because it was an inroad to large levels of wealth and opportunity. Royal blood actually is biologically less advantageous. I'm no biologist, and I don't have a scientific background but, it has been understood for a long time that royals are more prone to disease, hemophilia is a common one attributed to this. The high levels of marriages between royals that were related(generally distantly, but still related) led to a gene pool that had a lower chance of having genetic imperfections weeded out. I hope this was helpful.