Interracial marriage is defined as a union between spouses of different races or ethnicities. Such unions were once considered miscegenation in the United States, Nazi Germany, and apartheid-era South Africa. Interracial marriage was prohibited by law in 31 U.S. states in 1960. Following the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Loving v. Virginia, which ruled that race-based restrictions on marriages, such as the anti-miscegenation law in the state of Virginia, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, it became legal throughout the United States in 1967. According to studies published on the Education Resources Information Center by Jenifer L. Bratter and Rosalind B. King, unions between white males and non-white females (and between Hispanics and non-Hispanic persons) in the United States have similar or lower divorce rates than white-white marriages, and unions between white males and black females last longer than white-white pairings. White female-black male couples, on the other hand, are more likely to divorce than white-white couples.
