when did interracial marriage become legal in the united states
Interracial marriage Interracial marriage is a form of exogamy that involves a marriage between spouses who belong to different races. It was historically a taboo in the United States of America and outlawed in South Africa. It was formally declared legal in the United States in 1967 when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case Loving v. Virginia that race-based restrictions on the set of individuals whom an individual is eligible to marry violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.
Cousin marriage These developments led to 13 states and territories passing cousin marriage prohibitions by the 1880s. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play much of a direct role in the bans. George Louis Arner in 1908 considered the ban a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he thought would eventually be replaced by more refined techniques. By the 1920s, the number of bans had doubled.[4] Since that time, Kentucky (1943) and Texas have banned first-cousin marriage and since 1985, Maine has mandated genetic counseling for marrying cousins to minimise risk to any of serious health defect to their children. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws unanimously recommended in 1970 that all such laws should be repealed, but no state has dropped its prohibition.[2][9][23]