What do we mean by the term interracial marriages? This is a form of marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. This form of marriage was outlawed in the US, Germany, and South Africa during the Apartheid era. It was later legalized in the USA around 1967 following the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States under the then chief justice, Earl Warren.

     In South Africa in June 1985, the ban on marriage between people of different ethnic backgrounds was finally lifted. This lift followed after decades of apartheid. The first interracial couple in South Africa under the new rules was that of Suzanne Leclerc and Protas Madlala.

      In Germany, the May 1912 Reichstag debate on interracial marriages was the most significant. It served as a preparation for the legal regulation of such marriages in German. It also elevated the status of children born from such unions.

      The number of interracial marriages has been increasing rapidly since 1967. The first interracial marriage in the United States was that of a woman named Pocahontas who married a tobacco planter John Rolfe in the year 1614. A man named Zephaniah Kingsley also married outside the US. He married a black enslaved woman that he bought in Cuba. He also had other three black enslaved wives. In his “Treatise”, he states the benefits of interracial marriages. Some of the benefits he states are that these marriages produced beautiful, healthier children and better citizens. Black men marrying white women terrified the Americans before the civil war. However, the first legal marriage between a black man and a white woman was that of William G. Allen, an African-American professor, and Mary King, a white student in 1885. When they first announced their plans to get married, Allen was almost lynched. This prompted to their marriage is a secret. They fled the country immediately for England never to return.

     In Kenya, the number of interracial marriages is increasing rapidly. Records have it that between 1998 and 2010, the number of interracial marriages grew by 85 percent.  Do interracial marriages work? This is a question most people have asked. Statistics show that 8 out of 10 of Some of these benefits these marriages work. An example of an interracial successful marriage is that of Oliver Powel, a sixty-plus American married to a Kenyan woman.

        Interracial marriages have several benefits that come with them. Some of these benefits include; Reduction in prejudice and towards people from different races. It also increases the opportunity for positive interracial encounters. Another benefit is that intermarried immigrants often are better educated, have better language skills, and have lived in the host country for longer.

Intermarried immigrants earn higher wages, are more often employed, and if self-employed, stay in business much longer as compared to the non-intermarried immigrant. More benefits are that one is advantaged since they have an option of settling in two countries. This is a chance that an average person does not have.