research paper on interracial marriage

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Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples

Yuanting zhang.

National Institute of Health moc.eticxe@tnauygnahz

Jennifer Van Hook

Pennsylvania State University ude.usp.pop@koohnavj

Increases in interracial marriage have been interpreted as reflecting reduced social distance among racial and ethnic groups, but little is known about the stability of interracial marriages. Using six panels of Survey of Income and Program Participation (N = 23,139 married couples), we found that interracial marriages are less stable than endogamous marriages, but these findings did not hold up consistently. After controlling for couple characteristics, the risk of divorce or separation among interracial couples was similar to the more-divorce-prone origin group. Although marital dissolution was found to be strongly associated with race/ethnicity, the results failed to provide evidence that interracial marriage is associated with an elevated risk of marital dissolution.

Interracial marriage has long been a topic of interest and controversy in American history and has received a great deal of attention in the family research literature ( Fu, 2006 ; Kalmijn, 1991 ; Tucker & Mitchell-Kernan, 1990 ; Yancey, 2007 ). The antimiscegenation laws in the United States, enacted mainly to prevent Black-White interracial marriages, were struck down in a 1967 Supreme Court decision ( Sollors, 2000 ). Since then interracial marriage has increased dramatically from less than 1% in 1970 among all married couples to more than 5% in 2000. Children living in such families have quadrupled to more than 3 million between 1970 and 2000 ( Lee & Edmonston, 2005 ). Such changes have been interpreted as signifying the fading of racial boundaries in U.S. society ( Qian & Lichter, 2007 ) and as indicating immigrant structural assimilation ( Alba & Golden, 1986 ; Gordon, 1964 ).

Enthusiasm about increases in the prevalence of interracial marriages, however, may be dampened if such marriages are highly likely to break up. Partially because interracial marriage remains a relatively new phenomenon, few studies have assessed the stability of interracial marriages or offered theoretical guidance on this issue. Existing work tends to be dated and focused primarily on Black-White marriages. As a result, little is known about relative stability of such marriages in contemporary American society ( Joyner & Kao, 2005 ). As the U.S. population has grown increasingly diverse, it is important to update prior research to include interracial marriages involving Asians and Hispanics, especially given that they are more likely to intermarry (with non-Hispanic Whites) than are Blacks ( Qian, 1997 ). Also, interracial marriages involving America’s newest minority groups may operate differently than those involving Blacks because of the high levels of racism in the United States directed specifically toward Blacks, which is likely to stress Black-White marriages. In the present study, we analyze the stability of interracial marriages involving Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics over the period 1990 to 2001 by analyzing data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

Background & Theory

Existing work on marital dissolution among interracial couples focused primarily on divorce within Black-White marriages ( Monahan, 1970 ; Rankin & Maneker, 1987 ) or specialized populations such as Hawaiians ( Fu, 2006 ; Jones, 1996 ). Although one study of couples in Iowa found Black-White marriages to be more stable than Black-Black marriages ( Monahan, 1970 ), other studies concluded that interracial marriages were less stable in Hawaii ( Fu, 2006 ; Jones, 1996 ) and in the Netherlands ( Kalmijn, de Graaf, & Janssen, 2005 ). Further, prior research suggested that the stability of interracial marriages differed by gender. On the basis of a California sample, Rankin and Maneker (1987) found that Black men-White women marriages had shorter durations compared to other types of pairings.

Primarily two theoretical frameworks have guided research on the instability of interracial marriages. The first concerns the role of homogamy and the second involves ideas about ethnic convergence of divorce propensities. Sociologists have long found that people tend to date and marry someone who shares a similar cultural background and social economic status, and in many cases someone in the same neighborhood, school, or workplace. Among the explanations for homogamy, geographical propinquity and personal preferences were found to be the two underpinning factors ( Stevens, 1991 ). The pool of potential partners is determined by local demographic and geographic composition, and within this pool people generally prefer someone who is similar to them ( Kalmijn, 1998 ; Stevens & Swicegood, 1987 ).

The basic assumption of the homogamy perspective is that couples with similar characteristics have fewer misunderstandings, less conflict, and enjoy greater support from extended family and friends. Consistent with this idea, endogamous marriages were found to be more stable than those involving couples who were dissimilar on socially significant traits (e.g. age, education, race/ethnicity, and religion) ( Bahr, 1981 ; Jones, 1996 ; Kalmijn et al., 2005 ). Kalmijn (1998) found that interracial couples in particular could face group sanctions if racial heterogamy threatened in-group solidarity. Indeed, interracial couples often faced pressures in the forms of strangers’ stares and anger, and even rejection by their own racial groups because of their “betrayal” and non-conforming behavior of “crossing the line” ( Billingsley, 1968 ). This may be particularly salient for Black-White marriages, as Yancey (2007) found that social discrimination against such couples could be especially harsh. The enduring social boundaries specifically between Blacks and Whites became apparent in the continuation of low levels of Black-White intermarriage and higher levels of intermarriage between non-Hispanic Whites, Asians, and Hispanics, especially among those with higher levels of socioeconomic status ( Qian & Lichter, 2007 ). Other studies have corroborated this view. In their study of multiracial identification among those with Black, Asian, or Hispanic backgrounds, Lee and Bean (2007) found that those with Black backgrounds more consistently identified as Black and not multiracial (similar to the “one-drop” rule as applied in the past), whereas those with Hispanic and, especially, Asian backgrounds exhibited more flexibility and choice in racial/ethnic identification and were more likely to identify as multiracial. Lee and Bean (2007) concluded that these patterns illustrated the salience of the color line that continues to divide Blacks from non-Blacks in U.S. society.

The homogamy perspective predicts that interracial marriages will be less stable than same-race marriages. Thus, Black-White marriages are expected to be more likely to divorce than either Black or White endogamous marriages; similarly, Asian-White marriages are expected to be more likely to divorce than either Asian or White endogamous marriages. The homogamy perspective further leads to the expectation that the stronger the racial boundary of the two groups represented in the couple, the greater the risk of divorce. Thus, Black-White marriages are expected to be at greater risk of divorce than Hispanic-White or Asian-White marriages.

An alternative to the homogamy perspective is the ethnic divorce convergence perspective. Developed by Jones (1996) , “ethnic divorce convergence” perspective theorized that divorce propensities of interracial couples were likely to fall between the divorce patterns of the involved racial groups. This contrasts with the homogamy hypothesis, which predicts higher levels of divorce for interracially married couples. On the basis of his empirical tests using Australian and Hawaiian data, Jones (1994 , 1996) argued that divorce patterns for mixed marriages reflected the interplay of the divorce cultures of the ethnic groups involved, instead of following the divorce culture of the dominant group. For example, he found that Chinese-White couple divorce rates fell somewhere in between divorce rates of Chinese and White endogamous marriages. Similarly, Kalmijn et al. (2005) also reported that interracial marriage divorce rates tended to fall in between the two groups in the Netherlands.

In the United States, Blacks have had higher divorce rates than Whites, whereas Hispanics and Asians have had lower divorce rates ( Frisbie, Bean, & Eberstein, 1980 ; Sweezy & Tiefenthaler, 1996 ), although there have been important differences among the various Hispanic subgroups, with Puerto Ricans having had the highest divorce rates and Cubans, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans the lowest ( Landale & Ogena, 1995 ). Thus, the ethnic convergence hypothesis would lead to the expectation that Black-White interracial marriages will be less likely to dissolve than Black-Black marriages but more likely than White-White marriages. Similarly, Hispanic-White and Asian-White marriages would be expected to be more likely to dissolve than Hispanic or Asian endogamous marriages but less likely than White endogamous marriages. Jones’ (1996) hypothesis could be viewed especially important for couples involving a combination of immigrants and natives because immigrants have had a tendency toward lower levels of divorce than natives ( Frisbie, Opitz, & Kelly, 1985 ), a difference that has been interpreted as reflecting cultural differences ( Oropesa & Landale, 2004 ). Therefore, according to the ethnic convergence hypothesis, immigrant-native marriages would be expected to have divorce risks that fall between those of immigrant-immigrant marriages and native-native marriages. Also, if Hispanic and Asian interracial marriages are less likely to divorce, this could be because so many of these marriages involve immigrants. After controlling for immigration characteristics, the effects of interracial marriage should diminish for these couples.

To assess the homogamy and ethnic convergence hypotheses, it is important to control for correlated factors. Individual-level socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are associated with interracial marriage and are important predictors of divorce. Age at marriage has been one of the most consistent key determinants for predicting marital stability ( South, 1995 ), which also have differed by racial group ( Phillips & Sweeney, 2006 ). Also, people with medium levels of education ( Carter & Glick, 1970 ) and women with higher incomes ( Ruggles, 1997 ) have been more likely to divorce or separate than others. Finally, while having young child(ren) has been shown to increase marital stability, this effect often decreased as the child(ren) grew older ( Cherlin, 1977 ).

In addition to the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of individuals, it is critical to control for couple-level characteristics. The homogamy perspective stresses that partner differences in any socially significant characteristics—not just race—may increase the risk of divorce, and spouses in interracial couples may differ on multiple characteristics. For example, Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan (1990) found that the age gap was larger for interracially married couples than other couples. Partners in interracial couples may also differ with respect to nativity and citizenship. Interracial marriages between immigrants and U.S.-born natives may be at greater risk of divorce because of partner differences in their reasons for entering the relationship. Kalmijn et al. (2005) found that larger cultural differences between the husband and wife increased the risk of divorce. In addition, marriage to U.S. citizens may serve as a legal means to immigrate for many foreigners. Such marriages may be motivated by the desire to obtain U.S. citizenship rather than love or companionship, as evidenced in many cases in France ( Neyrand & M'Sili, 1998 ) and the Netherlands ( Kalmijn et al., 2005 ).

Finally, group-level characteristics, such as marriage cohort, region of residence, religion, and women's changing status, may be associated with divorce or separation ( Trent & South, 1989 ). For example, interracial marriage has been more prevalent in the West than other parts of the country ( Tucker & Mitchell-Kernan, 1990 ), and marital instability has been more common in the West than other regions, although this relationship has varied by race ( Sweeney & Phillips, 2004 ) and has weakened over the years ( Castro Martin & Bumpass, 1989 ).

To summarize, the homogamy perspective leads to the following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1: Interracial marriages will be less stable than similar endogamous marriages.
• Hypothesis 2: Black-White couples will have higher risks of marital dissolution than other interracial couples.
• Hypothesis 3: Interracial couples will have higher risks of marital dissolution than endogamous couples among both of the respective origin groups.

On the other hand, the ethnic convergence hypothesis leads to the expectations that:

• d Hypothesis 4: Interracial couples have risks of marital dissolution that fall between those of the respective origin groups.
• e Hypothesis 5: Among Hispanics and Asians, differences in the risk of marital dissolution between interracial and endogamous couples will be partially explained by differences in nativity and citizenship.

Six panels (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, and 2001) of the SIPP were pooled in order to study marital dissolution patterns among interracially married immigrants and natives. The SIPP sample is a multistage-stratified sample of the U.S. civilian non-institutionalized population with sample sizes ranging from approximately 14,000 to 36,700 interviewed households (United States Census Bureau, n.d.). Each of the six SIPP panels includes a separate, independent sample that was interviewed every four months for roughly three to four years. For example, the 1990 panel includes individuals who were interviewed up to 8 times over a period of 32 months between 1990 and 1992, and the 1991 Panel includes an entirely new sample interviewed up to 8 times over a period of 32 months between 1991 and 1993. The respondents in the 1992, 1993, 1996, and 2001 panels were interviewed every 4 months over 40, 36, 48, and 36 months, respectively. Although the SIPP was not designed to study the same marriage cohorts, and it only followed respondents for 3 to 4 years, it provides a unique snapshot of the marital stability of interracially married couples. The advantages of using the SIPP are apparent. First, it followed individuals (and married couples) over time even if they left their original households and formed new ones. Secondly the SIPP included time-varying information on marital status as well as standard social, demographic, and economic variables (these questions were asked at every interview every 4 months). Third, it included a retrospective marriage and migration history for all adult household members.

By combining six SIPP panels, we amassed a sufficiently large sample to examine the stability of interracial marriages separately for couples of various racial/ethnic group combinations. The data used for this paper are mainly couple-level prospective data, which followed couples over time during the 3- to 4-year study period until they divorced/separated, dropped out, or were censored. The analytical sample was first restricted to 29,171 couples with at least one member who was between the ages 18 to 44 and in a first marriage at the beginning of the SIPP panel or were married for the first time during the ongoing waves of the panel. Because of limitations in sample size, Native American endogamous marriages ( n = 91) and White-Native American marriages ( n = 232) were excluded. We further restricted our sample by removing 5,709 couples on the basis of censoring or missing or invalid values for the time or any of our explanatory variables; thus, the final sample contains 23,139 couples.

Key Measures

The dependent variable was the dissolution of marriage by either divorce or separation for all couples. The timing of marital dissolution was determined prospectively by observing year and month in which a married respondent was coded as having changed marital status to divorced or separated. Widowed respondents were censored at the time they were no longer married (or were dropped from the sample). First marriage was defined as an ongoing first marriage at the beginning of the SIPP panel or transition from never married to married for the first time during the SIPP panel. The duration of marriage (measured in days) was obtained by examining the difference between the date of first marriage and the date of marital dissolution. For presentation, the descriptive statistics on marriage duration were reported in years instead of days. Marital duration is implicitly embedded in all of our Cox Proportional Hazards models (duration is not included as an independent variable because the partial likelihood function takes into account the ordering of failure times) ( Box-Steffensmeier & Jones, 2004 ). Interracial couples were identified as those married to a person of a different race or ethnicity. We opted to use broadly defined racial/ethnic categories: non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Asian, Hispanic, and other minority. We refer to non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black with the shortened terms “White” and “Black” throughout the remainder of the paper. Marriage types were later further classified by gender (e.g., White husband-Black wife, Black husband-White wife, etc.).

Control Variables

A set of six dummy variables was included in the models to indicate the time period (in five-year intervals) the couple got married (e.g., before 1970, 1970 - 1974, . . . , 1990 - 1994, and 1995 or later). Region of residence at the time of the first interview was classified according to the U.S. Census Bureau standard (Midwest, Northeast, South, and West). Because age at first marriage showed clear non-linearity in our preliminary analysis, we opted to code it as a series of binary variables. The age difference between the spouses was categorized in the same fashion as by Phillips and Sweeney (2006) : husband more than 5 years older than the wife, less than 2 years younger to 5 years older than the wife, or more than 2 years younger than the wife. To measure educational heterogamy, we distinguished between couples for whom the husband had more or less education than his wife. For couples who have the same educational levels, we distinguished among four categories: less than high school, high school, some college, and college or above. We controlled for the wife's income (logged) by summing across income from the previous 4 months at the time of the first interview. Because some respondents have a true zero for their income, log (income + 1) was used instead of log (income). We reported the unlogged mean income (summed over 4 months) in our descriptive statistics. We also controlled for the number of preschool-aged (0 to 4 years old) children living with the couple and both the citizenship and nativity status of the couple. Specifically, we distinguished among couples in which (a) both spouses were foreign born and at least one was a non-citizen; (b) both spouses were foreign-born naturalized citizens; (c) one spouse was a non-citizen but the other was native; (d) one spouse was a naturalized citizen and the other was native; and (e) both spouses were native (born in the United States).

Data Analysis

Cox Proportional Hazards models were used to estimate the relationship between interracial marriage and the hazard of dissolution. All independent variables were non-time-dependent covariates. Cox Proportional Hazards models assume that the underlying hazard rate (rather than survival time) is a function of the independent variables (covariates) and is thus proportional to the hazard function for the baseline category ( Allison, 1995 ). The proportional hazards models are robust and make no parametric assumptions concerning the nature or shape of the underlying survival distribution ( Allison, 1995 ).

Descriptive Results

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of all the couples that are included in the final analytical sample ( N = 23,139). Approximately 2,059 couples (8.9% of the sample) divorced or separated during the time interval they were followed in the SIPP. The majority (93.5%) of the couples in our sample were endogamous, including 77.4% White-White, 6.4% Black-Black, 7% Hispanic-Hispanic, and 2.7% Asian-Asian couples. The remaining 6.5% of couples were interracially married (including 1% White-Black, 3.5% White-Hispanic, and 1.4% White-Asian pairings, as well as 0.6% of all types of minority-minority marriages combined). Consistent with prior studies (e.g., Qian, 1997 ), there are distinct racial/ethnic differences in being in an interracial marriage (results not shown). Blacks are substantially less likely than Hispanics or Asians to have a White spouse (10.1% vs. 23.5% and 24.6%, respectively).

Potential Predictors of Marital Dissolution by Marriage Type: Descriptive Statistics

Note: Means are weighted. Data are from the pooled 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, and 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation panels. Couples in a first marriage at the beginning of the SIPP panel and couples who married during the on-going waves of the panel are included. Marriages involving Native Americans are not included. H = husband, W = wife.

Table 1 also highlights compositional differences between interracial and endogamous marriages. For example, compared with endogamous couples, interracial couples married in more recent time periods were more likely to live in the West and less likely in the Midwest, married on average at older ages (wives), had higher incomes and larger spousal differences in age and education, and were much more likely to involve a combination of foreign-born and native-born spouses. Over one third of interracial couples (34.5%) involved a foreign-born person married to a U.S. native compared with just 4.2% of endogamous couples.

As the focus of our analysis is on marital dissolution, we first examined the observed differentials in marital dissolution without considering the possibly confounding factors associated with both interracial marriage and marital instability during the observation period (results not shown). Consistent with the first homogamy hypothesis, interracial marriages are less stable: 13.7% of interracial couples compared with 9.9% of endogamous couples broke up during their SIPP panel. The descriptive results also confirm the second homogamy hypothesis in which mixed-race couples involving the most socially distant groups (e.g., Blacks and Whites) were most likely to break up: nearly 20% of Black-White couples divorced or separated compared with 13.5% of Hispanic-White couples and 8.4% of Asian-White couples. Furthermore, consistent with the third homogamy hypothesis, both White-Black and Hispanic-White couples were more likely to divorce or separate than endogamous couples from either of the origin groups (10% of White-White, 16% of Black-Black, and 9% among Hispanic endogamous couples). For Asians, however, the results were consistent with the ethnic convergence hypothesis (Hypothesis 4). Roughly 8.3% of Asian-White couples separated or divorced, a level that falls between the relatively high rates for White couples and the relatively low rates among Asian couples (1.4%). The descriptive results thus suggest that interracial couples, especially those involving Blacks and Hispanics, are more likely to divorce or separate than same-race couples. This may be a consequence of potential problems facing interracial couples including stress, social disapproval, and cultural differences. Furthermore, interracial couples differ from endogamous couples in important ways that may elevate the risk of divorce (such as greater age and education differences between spouses). To test this idea, we turn next to the multivariate hazards models.

Multivariate Results

Table 2 presents the results of the Cox Proportional Hazards models of marital dissolution (hazard ratios are displayed). Model 1 includes an indicator of all types of interracial marriages without any controls (Model 1 does not exactly replicate the descriptive results in Table 2 because it conditions the hazard on the duration of marriage). Indeed, interracial marriages are less stable. The risk of marital dissolution among mixed marriages is about 1.21 times that of (or 21% higher than) non-mixed endogamous marriages ( Table 2 , Model 1), and this did not change after adding controls for marriage cohort and region of residence (Model 2). When we added other potential marital dissolution risk factors in Model 3, the hazard ratio associated with mixed marriage declined by 25% to 1.15, and dropped in significance ( p < .01 to p < .10). In general, younger age of first marriage, age and educational differences among the spouses (particularly when the husband is more than two years younger or less educated than the wife); lower levels of education (less than college); lower income; and having no or fewer young children were significantly associated with marital instability. Interracial couples tend to have higher incomes and older ages at marriage (both of which are associated with lower rates of dissolution), so these characteristics cannot explain their higher levels of divorce or separation. Although, mixed marriages are also more likely to involve larger differences in age and education between spouses (consistent with the first homogamy hypothesis), which could partially explain their higher risks of marital dissolution.

Hazard Ratios from Cox Proportional Hazards Models of Marital Dissolution (N = 23,139)

Note : Omitted categories are shown in parentheses.

We next tested the idea that spousal differences in nativity or citizenship status may explain the higher risk of marital dissolution among mixed-race couples. As shown in Model 4, the risk of divorce was significantly lower for foreign-born couples (both spouses foreign born) than native-born couples, whereas mixed-status couples (foreign-born/native pairings) were not significantly different from couples involving two natives. Unexpectedly, however, the addition of controls for nativity/citizenship status did not alter the hazard ratio associated with interracial marriage.

Thus far, the results support the first homogamy hypothesis, though the support was rather weak. Interracial marriage was positively associated with marital dissolution net of couple characteristics, but this relationship was only marginally significant ( p < .10). To test the remaining hypotheses, it is necessary to examine the risk of marital dissolution separately across racial/ethnic groups. We therefore re-estimated the Cox models shown in Table 2 , this time breaking apart the single indicator of interracial marriage into multiple race combinations (upper panel of Table 3 ). We presented the hazard ratios for race/ethnicity only, although the full models are available to interested readers upon request.

Hazard Ratios from Cox Proportional Hazards Models of Marital Dissolution by Race and Gender of the Couple (N = 23,139)

Note : Controls were added to the models as in Table 2 . Omitted categories are shown in parentheses. H = husband, W = wife.

b p < .10.

When we examine the instability of interracial marriages by race/ethnicity in Table 3 , the results generally reveal patterns that are more consistent with the ethnic convergence than the homogamy hypothesis. Nevertheless, the results were consistent with the second homogamy hypothesis in that the risk of marital dissolution was highest among Black-White couples, followed by Hispanic-White, minority-minority couples, and finally, Asian-White couples. This ordering was retained across all models, although only Black-White couples had significantly greater hazard of dissolution than White endogamous couples when all controls were included in the model (Model 4, Table 3 ).

Overall, neither the descriptive nor the multivariate results provides strong support for the third homogamy hypothesis that interracial couples would be less stable than endogamous marriages from each of the origin groups. Across all four models in Table 3 , the hazard of dissolution for Black-White couples was significantly higher than White-White couples but not significantly higher than Black-Black couples. Among couples involving Hispanics, the risk of marital dissolution for Hispanic-White couples was 22% greater as compared to White-White couples. Though, when we controlled for couple characteristics in Model 3, the difference between Hispanic-White and White-White couples became insignificant. Also, after controlling for nativity and citizenship in Model 4, the difference between Hispanic-White and Hispanic-Hispanic couples also became insignificant. Thus, only Black-White couples were more likely to break up than otherwise similar White-White couples, but their risk of dissolution was no different from that of Black-Black couples.

Finally, the results provided some weak support for the ethnic convergence hypotheses. Among Asians, the hazard of divorce or separation for interracial couples fell between that of Asian and White endogamous couples but the difference from White couples was not significant, thus failing to fully support Hypothesis 4. We had also hypothesized that nativity and citizenship between spouses of Hispanic and Asian interracial couples may help explain their higher risks of marital dissolution (Hypothesis 5). This idea was not fully supported because interracial marriages involving Hispanics or Asians did not experience elevated hazards of dissolution (so there were no significant differences to explain). Nevertheless, nativity and citizenship did help explain the relatively low risks of instability among Hispanic and Asian endogamous couples. When we added controls for nativity and citizenship in Model 4, the hazards for Hispanic and Asian endogamous couples increased, thereby narrowing the difference from both White couples and interracial couples. In fact, the difference between Hispanic-White and Hispanic-Hispanic couples became insignificant after controlling for citizenship and nativity in Model 4.

As a final step, we investigated whether the findings varied by gender combination of interracial couples. We repeated the models by distinguishing among various race/ethnicity and gender combinations as shown in the lower panel of Table 3 (hazard ratios only). Overall, interracial marriages involving a minority husband and White wife were less stable than other types of interracial marriages. Among them, Black husband-White wife and Hispanic husband-White wife couples were particularly likely to break up (Model 1). Nevertheless, the results were consistent with the earlier findings showing little to weak support for the third homogamy hypothesis. After all controls were added, Black husband-White wife couples showed higher risks of dissolution than White couples but similar (and not higher) risks as Black couples. Among Hispanic-White couples, Hispanic husband-White wife were no more likely to dissolve than White or Hispanic endogamous couples.

Marital dissolution of interracial marriage serves as an important indicator of the salience and persistence of racial and ethnic boundaries in the United States. Yet, the majority of the current studies on interracial marriage have focused on the prevalence of such unions instead of their dissolution, while those that have assessed the instability of interracial marriages tend to be dated and have focused solely on Black-White marriages or on interracial marriage in a particular region. The contribution of this study is that it examines the instability of interracial marriage among Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in contemporary American society, an era marked by increasing diversity and increasing prevalence of interracial marriage. Overall, although marital dissolution was found to be strongly associated with race/ethnicity, the results failed to provide evidence that interracial marriage per se is associated with an elevated risk of marital dissolution. Some have argued that the increasing prevalence of interracial marriage may be associated with the reduction of social distance across groups. The findings described here showing little difference between interracial and endogamous marriages in the risk of divorce or separation lends further credence to this (albeit cautiously) optimistic point of view.

Our first hypothesis (consistent with the “homogamy” perspective) predicts that when couples are dissimilar in racial/ethnic background, their risk of divorce/separation is higher. Our results do show that, on the whole, interracial marriages are less stable than endogamous marriages, even after controlling for couple characteristics. Nonetheless, the analysis compared all interracial marriages with all endogamous marriages and did not take into account group variations in the tendency to divorce or separate. When we divided the results by race/ethnicity, the results were only partially consistent with the homogamy perspective. As we expected, racial/ethnic differences appeared in the risk of divorce or separation. Mixed marriages involving Blacks were the least stable followed by Hispanics, whereas mixed marriages involving Asians were even more stable than endogamous White marriages. In addition, Black husband-White wife pairings were found to be the least stable of all marriage types. One plausible interpretation of these results is that they reflect persistent racism and distrust directed toward Blacks, particularly Black men in the United States. The qualitative findings from Yancey (2007) indicated that Whites who married Blacks experienced more first-hand racism as compared to Whites who married other non-Black minorities. Specifically, White women reported encountering more racial incidents with their Black husbands (e.g. inferior service, racial profiling, and racism against their children) and more hostilities from families and cohorts as compared to other interracial pairings ( Yancey 2007 ). Research in communication and cultural studies echoed Yancey's findings and found that the above-mentioned social pressures tend to increase social isolation of Black-White unions, especially from the White community, and consequently negatively impact the survival of these marriages ( Hibbler & Shinew, 2002 ; Porterfield, 1982 ).

As suggested by the results that compare interracial couples with endogamous couples within racial/ethnic groups , the racial/ethnic patterns in the risk of dissolution appear to reflect broad race/ethnic differences, which may in turn be associated with a number of factors including discrimination, but are not specifically associated with interracial marriage itself. Specifically, in the descriptive results, Black-White and Hispanic-White marriages appeared to be less stable as compared to Black or Hispanic endogamous marriages respectively (consistent with Hypothesis 3). These patterns, however, failed to appear in any of the multivariate models for Blacks, and in the case of Hispanics were attenuated and did not reach statistical significance once couple-level characteristics were controlled. Thus, the third homogamy hypothesis was not supported. Rather, the most consistent result was that the risks of divorce for interracial couples for all combinations (Black-White, Hispanic-White, and Asian-White) were not significantly different from those of the higher-risk origin group. Kalmijn et al. (2005) found a similar pattern in the Netherlands in which the risk of divorce for mixed marriages seemed to be driven more by the divorce-prone group of the couple, a pattern they refer to as consistent with “a weak form of a heterogamy effect” (p. 83). More consistent with the ethnic convergence than the homogamy perspective, this idea makes some sense assuming that it takes both partners to make a marriage work. Furthermore, the results concerning Asians and, to some degree Hispanics, offer some additional support for the ethnic convergence perspective. The risk of divorce for Asian-White couples fell between that of Asian and White couples (significant in the descriptive results but not in the multivariate models), and the differences between Asian and Asian-White couples and between Hispanic and Hispanic-White couples narrowed once citizenship and nativity were added to the model.

The research presented here has several limitations. Although the SIPP data offer important advantages over alternative data, it provides only a snapshot of marriages for a 3- to 4-year time period. Even after pooling six SIPP panels together, the number of interracial couples was small, which may have contributed to the insignificant findings. In addition, because of limitations of the SIPP, we were unable to control for some potentially important measures (such as cohabitation history) and macrolevel forces (institutionalized discrimination and racism). Future research on the stability of interracial marriage would benefit from data that permits larger numbers of interracial couples to be followed over a longer period of time. Because many Hispanic and Asian families are still relatively new to the United States, the generational effect may be more apparent in the long run. Also, qualitative data and mixed methodology could help shed light on the complexity of this issue that quantitative data usually cannot easily answer. Finally, better theoretical frameworks need to be developed to guide the explanation of interracial marital stability. An example concerns the relationship between race and gender combinations and marital stability. In our study, the effects of certain racial/ethnic combinations were similar for both men and women once controls were introduced into the models (e.g., among Asians and Hispanics). Still, Black husband-White wife marriages tended to be less stable than White husband-Black wife marriages. This may reflect differences in the social acceptability of certain combinations, but the precise reasons remain unclear. As interracial marriages and multiracial children become more commonplace, expanding research on the stability of interracial marriage becomes vital, not only for the children born into those marriages, but also because the success and stability of such marriages provides insight into the enduring or waning social rigidity of racial boundaries in the United States.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Dr. Zhenchao Qian for providing many helpful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Contributor Information

Yuanting Zhang, National Institute of Health moc.eticxe@tnauygnahz .

Jennifer Van Hook, Pennsylvania State University ude.usp.pop@koohnavj .

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Research on Cross-Race Relationships: An Annotated Bibliography

Prevalence of cross-race relationships in the United States

Chatman, J.A., Polzer, J.T., Barsade, S.G., & Neale, M.A. (1998). Being different yet feeling similar: The influence of demographic composition and organizational culture on work processes and outcomes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 749 – 780. The authors examined how demographic diversity and corporate culture interact to influence interaction among members, the salience of social categories, and group creativity, productivity, and conflict in simulated organizations. Corporate culture was manipulated to be either individualistic (rewarding individual rather than team achievement) or collectivistic (rewarding team rather than individual achievement, emphasizing organizational membership), and demographic diversity was based on participants' age, sex, and race. Simulated organizations that were demographically diverse and emphasized organizational membership had more interaction between members and reported other member's demographic characteristics to be less salient than diverse and individualistically oriented organizations. Back to Questions Individual Characteristics

Despite negative social attitudes towards interracial relationships, there are many benefits to cross-race friendships and relationships. These benefits span from decreased prejudice to higher educational aspirations and leadership skills. Overall, studies involving both children and adults overwhelmingly support contentions that cross-race friendships increase positive intergroup relations in the U.S. There has been much replication of studies showing better cross-race attitudes among individuals with high proportions of interracial friendships. For children, the positive effects appear to span beyond intergroup attitudes to social and achievement domains. In addition, there is evidence that individual’s intergroup attitudes could benefit from cross-race friendships merely by observing positive intergroup friendships among their fellow in-group members. Back to Questions

About the Author

Elizabeth page-gould.

Elizabeth Page-Gould, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology and the Canada Research Chair of Social Psychophysiology at the University of Toronto.

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Interracial Marriage in "Post-Racial" America

• Jessica Viñas-Nelson

A protestor’s sign from a 2013 marriage equality rally using an image of Richard and Mildred Loving, the couple behind the court case that brought down interracial marriage prohibitions.

June 12th marks the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Loving v. Virginia case that struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriage. More than fifty years later, it seems absurd to most of us that such laws ever existed in the first place. But, as historian Jessica Viñas-Nelson explains, the fear of interracial marriage has been at the center of America's racial anxiety for a very long time.  

In June, many Americans marked Loving Day—an annual gathering to fight racial prejudice through a celebration of multiracial community. The event takes its name from the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. The case established marriage as a fundamental right for interracial couples, but 72 percent of the public opposed the court’s decision at the time. Many decried it as judicial overreach and resisted its implementation for decades.

The case that brought down interracial marriage bans in 16 states centered on the aptly named Richard and Mildred Loving. In 1958, the pair were arrested in the middle of the night in their Virginia home after marrying the month before in Washington, D.C. Pleading guilty to “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” they were offered one year imprisonment or a suspended sentence if they left their native state.

A 2013 Loving Day celebration in New York City (photo by Willie Davis).

The Lovings chose exile over prison and moved to D.C. but they missed their hometown. After being arrested again in 1963 while visiting relatives in Virginia, Mildred Loving wrote Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who in turn referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU appealed the Lovings’ conviction, arguing interracial marriage bans contradicted the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. Despite this line of argument, lower courts upheld the verdict because, as one jurist wrote, “the fact that [Almighty God] separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

After multiple appeals, the case reached the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Earl Warren’s opinion for the unanimous court declared marriage to be “one of the ‘basic civil rights of man’…To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications…is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty.” Warren further ruled that interracial marriage bans were designed expressly “to maintain White Supremacy.” The court’s decision not only struck down an 80-year precedent set in the case Pace v. Alabama   (1883), but 300 years of legal code.  

A chart depicting American approval and disapproval of interracial marriage from 1958 to 2007.

In the decades that followed, the nation’s views on interracial marriage have undergone a slow sea change. In 1967, only 3 percent of newlyweds were interracial couples. Today, 17 percent of newlyweds and 10 percent of all married couples differ from one another in race or ethnicity. Even though legal in most states by 1959, the overwhelming majority of white Americans then believed rejecting interracial marriage to be fundamental to the nation’s well-being. In 2017, in contrast, 91 percent of Americans believe interracial marriage to be a good or at least benign thing.

Today, few would publicly admit to opposing interracial marriage. In fact, most Americans now claim to celebrate the precepts behind Loving and the case has become an icon of equality and of prejudice transcended. Accordingly, individuals across the political spectrum, from gay rights activists to opponents of Affirmative Action who call for colorblindness, cite it to support their political agendas.

Yet, for 300 years, interracial marriage bans defined racial boundaries and served as justification for America’s apartheid system. And 50 years on, many of their effects remain.

Founding Myth, Foundational Rejection

The first recorded interracial marriage in American history was the celebrated marriage of the daughter of a Powhatan chief and an English tobacco planter in 1614. Matoaka, better known as Pocahontas, did not wed Captain John Smith as the Disney version of her life implies. Instead, she married John Rolfe as a condition of release after being held captive by English settlers for more than a year.

Rolfe presented her, duly baptized, in England as a symbol of peace, an example of England’s “civilizing” potential in the New World, and a means to raise funds for the Virginia Company’s colony. She died in England soon thereafter and the peace brokered with the marriage collapsed.

John Gadsby Chapman’s 1840 painting depicts Pocahontas’s baptism and rechristening as Rebecca before her 1614 marriage.

This first marriage obtained mythic portions long before Disney remade the story and even shaped Virginia’s laws on interracial marriage. Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 codified individuals as white only if they had “no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian,” except for those who had one-sixteenth or less blood from American Indians—the so-called “Pocahontas exception”—a concession to some elite families who claimed lineage from Rolfe and Pocahontas’s only child. 

While Rolfe—and his alleged future descendants—won esteem for association with an “Indian princess,” relatively little racial mixing occurred between English settlers and Native Americans. English prejudice against a “savage” people, religious injunctions against marrying non-Christians, and a smaller imbalance in gender ratios among English colonists than in French and Spanish colonies contributed to this outcome—not to mention Indian women’s disinclination to select Englishmen, who were much less adept than Native men at hunting, fishing, and other valued skills. 

The first laws proscribing interracial relationships, however, did not pertain to Native-English unions but to ones colonial leaders feared would upend the social order because they could promote alliances between indentured servants and slaves.

In 1664, Maryland sought to stanch potential interracial marriages by threatening enslavement for white women who married black men. Two years earlier, Virginia had enacted legislation to profit from white men’s sexual relationships with black women. Children would inherit the social status of their mother, not their father, meaning the children of slave women would be born slaves regardless of the father’s status. Virginia then outlawed interracial marriage entirely in 1691. Virginia’s original penalty for those who wed interracially—banishment—was the same punishment the Lovings received nearly three centuries later.

These laws had clear aims: to control women’s sexuality, to establish categories of slave and free, and to develop racist ideologies justifying discrimination. White men had sexual access to all women and exclusive access to white women. Interracial sex, so long as it remained out-of-wedlock and occurred between white men and black women, merited little legal or social consequence. These laws also set into motion America’s peculiar system of racial classification: hypodescent. Americans would be classified not according to the degree of mixture they contained but by the total absence or presence of blackness.

An 1804 political cartoon referencing the widely rumored relationship between President Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings. DNA evidence has demonstrated the rumor’s veracity.

The first laws prohibiting interracial marriages occurred when wealthy planters were transitioning from using European indentured servants as their primary labor to African slaves. As these two labor pools worked alongside one another and even married one another, planters feared that poor whites and African slaves would overthrow the far smaller planter class.

Interracial marriage bans, therefore, arose to build racial barriers that would supplant alliances among the laborers by creating binary categories of black and white, slave and free. Indeed, Maryland’s assembly passed the statute discouraging marriage between white women and black men within an act authorizing lifelong slavery.

Most other American colonies followed Maryland and Virginia’s lead and banned interracial marriage between 1661 and 1725. Forty-one states in all eventually enacted bans.

This abolitionist drawing from the 1850s suggests the plight of the enslaved children of white masters, depicting a nearly-white slave and her mother pleading not to be sold.

“The Battering Ram”: Interracial Marriage and the Age of Abolition

Northern colonies and later states also enacted bans on interracial marriage, although some repealed these as they gradually abolished slavery. Nevertheless, white fears of mixed marriages remained a potent political force, particularly in the North.

Most white northerners showed themselves firmly opposed to any suggestion of black equality through their rejection of interracial marriage or even the mere hint of its occurrence. Not coincidently, public hysteria against interracial marriage grew louder in the 1830s when the rights of black people were being contentiously debated and a more vocal and inclusive abolitionist movement emerged. Defenders of slavery accused abolitionists of coveting interracial marriages, despite the undeniable evidence of interracial offspring on Southern plantations resulting from slave owners forcing themselves on slave women.

A double-sided painting from New England c1825, Virginia Luxuries features a bust-length portrait on one side and the above image on the reverse. The double-side nature of the painting serves two purposes: as a commentary that behind the respectable exterior of white Virginia gentlemen lies perverse desires and as a means for the owner of the painting to hide its controversial side from unreceptive viewers.

After rumors spread in 1834 that abolitionist ministers had married an interracial couple (they hadn’t), 11 days of racial terror erupted in New York City. A mob attacked a mixed-race gathering of the American Anti-Slavery Society and continued to menace, burn, and destroy the homes and churches of leading abolitionists. The mob’s wrath targeted black churches, homes, schools, and businesses. A similar riot, with similar instigation and targets of violence, occurred in Philadelphia in 1838.

As the targeted violence against abolitionists and black institutions illustrates, by the 1830s, interracial marriage had become a proxy for white anxieties that the social order they had built upon racial distinction might be endangered. Abolition threatened the social order and thus supporters of slavery raised fears of interracial marriage to torpedo abolitionists’ efforts and to hurt the free black population.

Just days after its grand opening in 1838, a mob burned Pennsylvania Hall—a building constructed as a forum to discuss abolition and other social movements—after rumors spread that an interracial marriage had been performed there.

Many of the 165 anti-abolitionist riots that took place in the 1830s were provoked by rumors of interracial marriages. Little else could more effectively raise a mob or garner as much wrath; anti-abolitionists used this to great effect. In 1838, the black-authored newspaper Colored American astutely labeled the tactic “the battering ram of the pro-slavery party.”

Despite allegations that abolitionists were amalgamationists (supporters of interracial marriage), most in fact opposed interracial marriage and readily crumbled before the oft-repeated question: “Would you let your daughter marry a Negro?”

Part of E.W. Clay’s 1839 series of lithographs on the topic, “Practical Amalgamation (The Wedding)” caricatures people of African descent as buffoonish but depicts whites as having delicate and refined features. The black clergyman at center was meant to show a reversal of the racial hierarchy and the man on the far right’s resemblance to William Lloyd Garrison suggests a connection between abolitionists and amalgamation. Clay’s series as a whole encouraged the belief that blacks were physically and socially inferior to whites, yet sought interracial marriages to improve their standing.

Even William Lloyd Garrison, one of the most radical abolitionists, never advocated actual interracial marriages even as he fought for the repeal of marriage bans. Garrison explained that abolitionists’ support for repealing interracial marriage bans “has not been to promote ‘amalgamation,’ but to establish justice.”

Such marriages among abolitionists were also exceedingly rare. One of the few known interracial marriages between abolitionists—William King and Marry Allen (1853)—resulted in their fleeing the country in fear for their lives.

Abolitionist and publisher William Lloyd Garrison spoke out about the injustice of interracial marriage bans ( left ). Abolitionist and writer David Walker called for black unity against racial injustice in 1829 ( second from left ). Abolitionist, writer, and women’s rights advocate Lydia Maria Child argued for the right to interracial marriage in principle, not in practice as she maintained “no abolitionist considers such a thing desirable” ( third from left ). Orator and abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond considered the legality of interracial marriage the epitome of rights necessary for a free and open society and fought for the repeal of Massachusetts’s ban in 1843 ( right ).

Most African Americans too were ambivalent toward marrying interracially. They saw the importance of obtaining the legal right to it in principle, but took pains to deny allegations that they coveted such unions and vehemently decried slave owners’ rape of enslaved women. Perhaps the era’s most famous black pronouncement on the matter came from David Walker’s revolutionary  Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World  (1829) when he declared: “I would not give a  pinch of snuff  to be married to any white person I ever saw.” Nevertheless, he argued that marriage bans were a hallmark of inequality and he sought their removal on principle.

Even where interracial relationships were legal, derogatory depictions—like E.W. Clay’s popular series of lithographs—linked it in the white public’s imagination with bastardy, debauchery, and immorality. In rare cases though, interracial couples inside and outside of legal wedlock existed and sometimes even thrived in pockets of the North where local communities paid far less concern than one might expect. Even if community tolerance existed, however, the children of interracial couples unable to legally wed were defined as bastards—a branding that carried real consequences in the 18 th and 19 th centuries as it foreclosed the possibility of inheritance—meaning white property remained in white hands.

The final image of E.W. Clay’s 1839 series of lithographs on the topic, “Practical Amalgamation (The Fruits of Amalgamation)” implies a direct line between interracial interaction and the upending of social norms and racial hierarchies.

For the enslaved population, however, no such consensual interracial relationship could exist. Even the rare and seemingly loving unions that functioned like marriages between masters and slaves could not—by definition—be consensual. Most interracial sex under slavery, however, did not even have a veneer of loving attachments and was instead the blatant rape of black women by white men. This history’s effect on African Americans’ views of interracial relationships cannot be overstated.

Nor can interracial marriage’s role in politics and legal history be exaggerated.

As part of the justification for the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford   (1857) case, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney used the existence of interracial marriage bans as evidence that the Founding Fathers never intended Black Americans to be citizens. These laws, Taney insisted, were evidence of a “perpetual and impassable barrier erected between the white race and [those]…which they looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings that intermarriages between white persons and negroes and mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes.”

An 1864 political cartoon depicting a ludicrous version of the results of racial equality as allegedly proposed by the Republican Party.

The issue even arose in the legendary debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas accused Lincoln of condoning amalgamation, to which Lincoln vehemently protested “that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife.” Accusations, however, continued to plague Lincoln and took on a life of their own in the 1864 election.

Miscegenation and “Purity”

Resurrecting the false connections between abolitionism and amalgamation, Lincoln’s opponents invented a new term in the midst of the Civil War to describe interracial relationships: “miscegenation” (the blending of races). Aiming to cost Lincoln and his party the 1864 election, two Democrats (posing as Republicans) promoted the notion that the Republican Party not only condoned interracial marriages, but actively encouraged them.

An 1864 anti-Republican satire using white northerners’ fears of racial mixing.

The new term did not cost Lincoln reelection, but its overnight and enduring popularity highlights the public’s desire to describe something that had long been around, but suddenly seemed in need of a new moniker in order to associate it with heightened fear of black freedom. Miscegenation permanently rooted itself into America’s racial lexicon and the fear of it became a political wedge issue for at least a century thereafter.

Fears of miscegenation, interracial marriage, or “social equality” arose in nearly every debate over political, economic, and social rights. The topic would even make an appearance in the rationale for the Supreme Court decision that allowed the system of Jim Crow discrimination and supposed “separate but equal” to continue: the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson   (1896) ruling. “Laws forbidding the intermarriage of the two races,” the court reasoned, “may be said in a technical sense to interfere with the freedom of contract, and yet have been universally recognized as within the police power of the State.” The foundation of post-Civil War white supremacy rested firmly upon opposition to miscegenation.

A rally against integrating Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1959. Protestors connected school desegregation to race mixing and race mixing to both communism and “the Anti-Christ.”

The far more chilling effect of irrational white fears over miscegenation, however, emerged outside of the court system: lynching.

Between 1882 and 1968, at least  3,446 black men were publicly and ritualistically murdered by white mobs. Roughly a third were accused of raping white women, but the alleged need to protect white women from black men—universally portrayed as violent, lustful, and savage—justified lynch mobs’ actions to the larger white public. Black journalist Ida B. Wells demonstrated that many of these accusations of rape stemmed from consensual interracial relationships that had been discovered by white women’s disapproving relatives. Nevertheless, the lynching continued, as did white fears about racial “purity.”

A close examination of almost any act of racial violence against African Americans reveals the specter of rape accusations. A mob hung, shot, and burned William Brown in Omaha, Nebraska in 1919 after he was accused of raping a white woman ( top ). Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in 1955 after supposedly whistling at a white woman ( left) . A 1921 newspaper article encouraging violence after a black teen allegedly assaulted a white teen in Tulsa, Oklahoma ( right ). The resulting riot leveled 35 blocks of the city’s black section and killed an estimated 39 to 300 African Americans.

The concept of racial “purity” evolved through interracial marriage law. In post-Civil War Arkansas, a black delegate to the state’s constitutional convention— William H. Grey —mocked a white delegate's insistence that interracial marriage be banned by questioning how such a feat could even be accomplished given that "the purity of the blood, of which the gentleman speaks, has already been somewhat interfered with."

Legislation would become a “farce,” Grey insisted, as scientific boards proved unable to draw a line between black and white given the extent of racial intermixture under slavery (perpetrated by white men, he pointedly noted). Although sound in principle, Grey proved incorrect in the end; state governments found ways to define race.

He was right, however, that the distinction between black and white would not be simple. States’ definitions of the degree of “blood quantum” required to be defined as being a particular race varied over time and place. By the 20 th century, any known presence of African ancestry (the “one-drop rule”) became the measure in many states and in the white public’s imagination. Instead of prejudice lessening over time, whites grew increasingly paranoid about marrying someone with “invisible blackness” and took up genealogy en masse to ferret out “passers.”

A certificate from 1924 mockingly “guaranteeing” a person’s racial “purity."

Ultimately, county clerks served as the front line in determining race when couples requested marriage licenses and birth certificates. More than merely dictating who could marry each other, racial designations determined where a person could live, work, learn, and socialize.

As the cornerstone of the edifice of Jim Crow, the number of prohibitions against interracial marriage only increased in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries as new states entered the Union.

Western states adopted prohibitions and included additional groups to discriminate against: people of Asian and American Indian descent. Revealing their true intent to be maintaining white “purity,” none of these laws bothered to prohibit interracial marriages among nonwhite groups or to prohibit marriage among different European nationalities. An Asian American and an African American were free to marry each other, but neither could marry a white person. In contrast, no laws prevented, say, an Italian American and a Polish American from marrying.

Sheet music from 1897 mocking African Americans and Chinese Americans ( left ). “The Melting Pot” analogy to celebrate America as a blend of nationalities first came into use with Israel Zangwill’s popular 1908 play of the same name ( right ). Conspicuously—and purposefully—absent from his melting pot were African Americans and Asian Americans who Zangwill believed should establish their own homelands elsewhere, even as he advocated for intermarriage among European nationalities.

Even where interracial marriage bans had been repealed, a prominent interracial marriage could ignite white hysteria. Every state in the North except Indiana had repealed its ban by 1887, but when World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jack Johnson wed interracially in Chicago for the second time in late 1912, white America panicked. In 1913, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a measure to prohibit interracial marriage in the District of Columbia. Eleven of the 19 states without prohibitions at that time introduced—and nearly passed—bans.

The panic diminished somewhat after an all-white jury convicted Johnson on trumped-up charges of crossing state lines with a woman “for immoral purposes,” but the precariousness of the issue remained a warning for would-be interracial couples and supporters of equal rights.

World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jack Johnson and Etta Terry Duryea, the first of his three white wives, in 1910 ( right ). Attempts to ban interracial marriage at the federal level swept the nation after Johnson’s second marriage to a white woman in 1912. A 1910 cartoon referencing the race riots in more than 50 cities after Jack Johnson defeated the white boxer James Jeffries in what was billed “the fight of the century” and Jeffries the “Great White Hope” ( left ). Johnson's marriage to a white woman likely fueled rioters’ anger.

“One Bombshell at a Time is Enough”: Miscegenation and Civil Rights

Given the widespread public opposition— 94 percent of white Americans opposed interracial marriage in 1958—most civil rights groups did not place repealing marriage bans at the top of their agendas.

Nevertheless, the modern campaign to overturn interracial marriage prohibitions began in California when a Hispanic woman legally defined as white and a black man sought to wed in 1947. In the resulting case, Perez v. Sharp (1948), the California Supreme Court became the first court in the 20 th century to declare interracial marriage bans unconstitutional, violating California’s constitution. Fearing a similar decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, the state declined to appeal the decision, although the California legislature waited until 1959 to repeal its anti-miscegenation laws.

In the years that followed, facing weaker opposition to the marriage injunctions because of demographic differences, western states gradually repealed or overturned marriage bans. Despite appeals to the Supreme Court from various states, the highest court in the land steadfastly avoided hearing cases on the topic.

A map depicting the range of years in which states repealed interracial marriage bans.

Even cases on seemingly unrelated matters brought outrage from critics who lambasted the court for rulings that they insisted would lead to “race mixing.”

When a case challenging interracial marriage bans reached the Supreme Court just a year after Brown v. the Board of Education   (1954), Justice Felix Frankfurter worried that ruling on the case would “seriously handica[p] the enforcement of … the [school] segregation cases” and he convinced his fellow justices to avoid the case. Justice Thomas C. Clark likewise concluded against hearing cases on interracial marriage bans after Brown, as “one bombshell at a time is enough.” Leading civil rights groups likewise stayed away from cases on interracial marriage for fear of damaging all other efforts.

Since the surprise victory in Perez, however, the ACLU had begun searching for an ideal test case to overturn bans everywhere. Given public sentiment, the ACLU sought to diminish resistance by finding a white male—preferably a veteran—seeking to marry a nonwhite—ideally Asian—woman.

Infringing upon a white male’s rights and avoiding the more controversial black-white pairing seemed the most promising strategy. Few such couples, however, desired to undergo the long, uncertain, and public process of being such a test. The ACLU had nearly given up hope when they received Mildred Loving’s letter and accepted the case despite the black-white pairing.

Like the South’s response to landmark civil rights rulings before it, little changed immediately after the Supreme Court decision on Loving in June 1967. Most southern states continued to resist the court’s decree and placed the burden on couples to appeal to federal courts if denied marriage licenses.

A county clerk in Tennessee stalled marriages by insisting that he could not issue licenses to interracial couples until personally receiving a copy of the Supreme Court ruling. Federal judges had to force Delaware, Louisiana, and Arkansas to issue licenses in 1967 and 1968. A Mississippi state judge issued an injunction to prevent an interracial couple from marrying in 1970. Although Virginia began issuing licenses to interracial couples, it continued to issue pamphlets stating that interracial marriage was illegal.

Although some states repealed their marriage bans within a year or two of the Loving decision, others stretched the process out. Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee repealed their bans during the 1970s while Delaware waited until 1986 and Mississippi, 1987.

Two states and at least one official, however, outlasted all others. South Carolina and Alabama kept their bans until 1998 and 2000, when referendums removed them—but even then, 38 and 40 percent of voters opposed repeal. In 2009, a Louisiana Justice of the Peace resigned after being told he could not continue to refuse to marry interracial couples.

Guess Who’s on the Cover of Time

Despite the white South’s intransigence, just months after the Loving decision, two other events cemented 1967 as a momentous year for interracial marriage and for shaping the public’s views on it. In September 1967, Peggy Rusk—the white daughter of Secretary of State Dean Rusk—and Guy Smith—a black Georgetown graduate student—married. In a move unthinkable a few years earlier, Time ran a photo of the newlyweds on its cover and celebrated their union as “a marriage of enlightenment.”

Secretary of State Dean Rusk with President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, the year after he offered his resignation because his daughter, Peggy Rusk, planned to marry Guy Smith, a black graduate student ( left ). The movie poster for the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner ( right ).

Just a few months after that, a comedy-drama hit theaters staring three of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner centers on a white woman bringing her black fiancé home to meet her parents. Her liberal parents’ ideals are tested, but ultimately conclude that the pair are “two wonderful people… who happened to fall in love” and give the union their blessing. As the year’s most talked-about film and one of the first respectful onscreen portrayals of an interracial couple—even if the film made Sidney Poitier’s character too perfect and whitewashed white racism—it did much to nudge public opinion towards acceptance.

The first film about an interracial romance, D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919), used a white actor to portray a Chinese man in love with an English girl ( left ). Like many films that would follow on interracial romance, it ended in tragedy. The Motion Picture Production Code prohibited the depiction of interracial romances until 1956. Hollywood circumvented the prohibition by casting white actors for nonwhite roles so relationships would not technically be interracial. Island in the Sun (1957) featured the first actual onscreen kiss between a black actor and a white actor, to much public controversy ( right ).

Rising Rates, Persistent Attitudes

Nevertheless, public opinion proved slow to change in the coming years, especially for black-white pairings. In 1990, 63 percent of non-blacks said they would oppose a close relative marrying a black person. Rates of disapproval for a close relative marrying a Hispanic or Asian person—more often seen as cross-cultural marriages than cross-racial ones—were far lower.

Regardless of the type of interracial pairing, though, not until 1997 did a majority of Americans express approval of interracial marriages. Since then, approval has increased exponentially. In 2013, the last year Gallup bothered to ask, 87 percent of Americans approved.

Interracial marriage rates have also vastly increased in recent years. One out of every six newlyweds today marries someone of a different race. Over a quarter of all Latinos and Asians marry interracially, a figure that nearly doubles when only including those born in the United States. Interracial marriage rates are far lower for black-white unions, but they have seen the most dramatic growth in the rate of intermarriage—more than tripling from 5 percent in 1980 to 18 percent of black newlyweds today.

A chart depicting falling American support for interracial marriage prohibitions from 1972 to 2002.

Although considerably higher than even a few years ago and incomparable to the miniscule rates before Loving , intermarriage rates are still relatively low—especially between blacks and whites. If Asians and Hispanics are removed from intermarriage figures, intermarriage rates remain extremely low. White opposition to a close relative marrying a black person has decreased dramatically, but still constitutes 14 percent of white views in 2017.

These rates of marriage and disapproval speak to more than just continued individual discrimination. They also reflect the larger structural barriers that remain entrenched and that interracial marriage bans helped build. Many schools, workplaces, and communities in the United States remain highly segregated and therefore offer few opportunities for blacks and whites to meet and marry.

Even as some pundits began to discuss America as a post-racial society in the early Obama years, a seemingly benign cereal commercial revealed both the ugliness of the anonymity of the internet and the staying power of virulent opposition to interracial pairings. 

The 2013 Cheerios commercial featuring a biracial family garnered so many hateful YouTube remarks that the company closed the comment section. Harkening back to the nation’s long history of hysteria over interracial pairings, many commenters described the commercial as “disgusting” and “vomit” inducing. Others hatefully reveled in racial stereotypes by suggesting that the black father would beat or abandon his white wife. Although the majority of comments were positive, the amount and strength of the vitriol underscores the lingering public opposition and its deeply ingrained nature. 

For those who were surprised by the vitriol surrounding the Cheerios ad, a 2017 film illustrates how continued racism against African Americans and interracial couples is often more subtle, if no less harmful. Jordan Peele’s satirical dramedy  Get Out  is perhaps today’s  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,  except it’s a horror film. A surprise mega-hit,  Get Out ’s witty examination of microaggressions and use of race to subvert horror tropes has resonated at the box office and to critics alike.

Like its predecessor fifty years earlier,  Get Out  features white liberals with seemingly the best of intentions (“If I could, I would have voted for Obama for a third term” declares the white father to his daughter’s black suitor by way of introduction). Albeit  ad absurdum ,  Get Out  showcases the continued barriers to interracial intimacies and how fraught the wider public  and  the closest family can make these relationships.

Celebrating Loving , Forgetting its History

Loving ranks as a seminal Supreme Court decision and a vital civil rights victory. For three centuries, white America held interracial marriage bans fundamental to national identity and vital for building and policing racial boundaries. But despite the tremendous amount of progress since Loving , wide societal disparities remain as the structures marriage bans fostered still persist.

The 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania commissioned 57 fiberglass donkeys painted by local artists to represent each delegation to the convention. Virginia’s featured George Washington, Richard and Mildred Loving, and the state’s slogan since two years after the Loving ruling, “Virginia is for Lovers.”

Today the nation celebrates Loving as an example of racial transcendence and prejudice squashed. The Loving ruling can and should be celebrated as a momentous achievement. It not only led to the end of interracial marriage bans in 16 states, but more recently aided the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges , which legalized marriage for same-sex couples . A celebration of Loving , however, should not push out of public memory the three-centuries-long prohibitions on interracial marriage and their painful ramifications.

Carter, Greg. The United States of United Races: A Utopian History of Racial Mixing. New York: New York University Press, 2013.

Cashin, Sheryll. Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the threat to White Supremacy. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017.

Hodes, Martha, ed. Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Hodes, Martha, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-century South. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Lemire, Elise, “Miscegenation”: Making Race in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Maillard, Kevin Noble and Rose Cuison Villazor. Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Marriage. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Nyong’o, Tavia. The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Pascoe, Peggy. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 .

Rosen, Hannah. Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Wallenstein, Peter. Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Marriage, and Law: An American History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

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Understanding the occurrence of interracial marriage in the United States through differential assimilation

Affiliation.

• 1 University of Texas at San Antonio.
• PMID: 21174875
• DOI: 10.1177/0021934709355120

American society is undergoing unprecedented cultural changes in the 21st century. This social transformation began with the civil rights movement in the 1960s. As the United States becomes more diverse, both racially and ethnically, equal access to a variety of social institutions and organizations becomes more challenging. With respect to marriage, popular media continually report the blurring of boundaries between racial and ethnic groups. As a result, there has been a tremendous increase in interracial dating and marriage over the past several decades. There are considerable differences between the occurrence of interracial dating and interracial marriage. Data suggest that there is a much higher level of interracial dating in comparison to interracial marriage. This research effort focuses on trends in interracial marriages in the United States between 1980 and 2006. Information from the U.S. Census Bureau was used to analyze changes in the number and frequency of interracial marriages in American society over a 22-year time frame. Differential assimilation is employed for understanding interracial marriage trends and distinguishing important statistical differences between marriages with a Black spouse and those interracial marriages not involving a Black spouse. This exploration provides important empirical findings for assessing the progress of assimilation in America.

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Among U.S. cohabiters, 18% have a partner of a different race or ethnicity

A half-century after the Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in the United States, 18% of all cohabiting adults have a partner of a different race or ethnicity – similar to the share of U.S. newlyweds who have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity (17%).

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One-in-six newlyweds (17%) were married to someone of a different race or ethnicity in 2015, representing a more than fivefold increase from 3% in 1967.

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Many married adults point to several factors as bigger keys to a successful marriage than shared religious beliefs.

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Interracial Relationships and Marriage

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Margarida Vilaça , Ana Relvas

Despite the growing popularity of systemic family therapy, little is known about the way in which therapeutic change occurs. This question concerns theorists and clinicians, and can only be answered through research focused not only on the results but also on the therapeutic process. This article presents an overview of the literature regarding the path followed by published research in systemic family therapy, in order to understand the methodological issues at the core of the current state of the art. Aiming to synthesize and integrate the relevant knowledge consolidated to date, a bibliographic review was carried out using electronic databases (e.g. EBSCO Host) and referenced books in the field of family therapy, with an emphasis on the most relevant meta-analysis and systematic revision studies. The observed predominance of studies regarding family therapy effectiveness over research on the therapeutic process is examined, and the main factors empirically associated to the therapeutic change are presented, emphasizing the fact that this investigation is based on the individual's perspective, rather than on the family perspective. Finally, new ways to successfully introduce specific factors in systemic family therapy are suggested, indicating the need to research these possibilities.

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Description: Interracial couples are an understudied but increasingly common social group in the U.S. We used direct and indirect measures to examine implicit and explicit biases (respectively) against interracial couples among samples of: (a) predominantly White (non-Black; n=1,217), (b) Black (n=293), and (c) Multiracial (n=284) respondents recruited from the U.S. Results provide evidence of implicit and explicit bias against Black-White interracial couples among respondents in the predominantly White Sample and the Black Sample. There was no evidence of such biases among self-identified Multiracial respondents, in fact, they self-reported favoritism for interracial couples. Consistent with psychological theory and our preregistered hypotheses, we found that personal experience with interracial romance and self-reported contact with interracial couples tended to predict lower levels of bias against interracial couples. This research exposes a robust bias against a growing social group (interracial couples) among predominantly White respondents and Black respondents relative to respondents who identify as Multiracial.

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In the four decades since the U.S. Supreme Court declared laws prohibiting interracial marriage unconstitutional, the number of interracial families in America has rapidly increased. But interracial families continue to face unique external pressures and internal relational dynamics due to the persistence of racism in America. While formal structural barriers have been reduced, interracial dating on campuses has increased, and attitudes toward acceptance of interracial marriage have improved, interracial couplings continue to be the rare exception (and not the rule) when it comes to new marriages. This chapter explores why interracial families continue to be so uncommon in the United States, and it describes the challenges interracial families face in dealing with individual and institutional racism, responding to the disapproval of family members, and raising mixed-race children in what is still not a “color-blind” world.

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