  To understand the effect of assortative mating on the genetic evolution of a
population, we consider a finite population in which each individual has a
type, determined by a sequence of n diallelic loci. We assume that the
population evolves according to a Moran model with weak assortative mating,
strong recombination and low mutation rates. With an appropriate rescaling of
time, we obtain that the evolution of the genotypic frequencies in a large
population can be approximated by the evolution of the product of the allelic
frequencies at each locus, and the vector of the allelic frequencies is
approximately governed by a diffusion. We present some features of the limiting
diffusions (in particular their boundary behaviour and conditions under which
the allelic frequencies at different loci evolve independently). If mutation
rates are strictly positive then the limiting diffusion is reversible and,
under some assumptions, the critical points of the stationary density can be
characterised.
