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Miscegenation (Latin ''miscere'' “to mix” + ''genus'' (“kind”)) is the "mixing" of different " Races ", that is, Marrying , Cohabiting , or having having Sexual Relations with a partner from outside of one's racially or ethnically defined Social Group . USAGE The term "miscegenation" has been used to refer to Interracial Marriage and interracial Sex , and more generally to the global process of racial admixture that has taken place since the Age Of Discoveries , particularly through the European Colonization Of The Americas and the Atlantic Slave Trade . Historically the term has been used in the context of Ethnocentric or Racist attitudes and practices, such as the enactment of laws banning interracial marriage and sex, so-called Anti-miscegenation Laws . It is therefore a Loaded word and is considered offensive by many. Today, the word "miscegenation" is still used when referring to past ethnocentric and racist attitudes and practices concerning Multiracial ity. It is also still in use by some as a general term encompassing the different social and demographic aspects of "race-mixing". However, because of its controversial history, other terms such as " Interracial " or " Interethnic " are more common in contemporary usage. In genetics, the term " Admixture " is used for the interbreeding of people of different ethnicities or races. Sociologist s also use the terms "outmarriage" or Exogamy (the opposite of "inmarriage" or Endogamy ) for marriage and procreation within marriage with someome from outside of one's Social Group . However, the boundary of a particular social group does not have to be "racial", it can also be based on religion, culture, lineage or ethnicity. In Spanish , Portuguese and French , the words used to describe the mixing of "races" are ''mestizaje'', ''mestiçagem'' and ''métissage''. These words, much older than the term miscegenation, are derived from from the Late Latin ''mixticius'' for "mixed" and from the Spanish word Mestizo . Portuguese also uses ''miscigenação'', a direct translation of miscegenation. These non-Englsh terms for "race-mixing" are not considered as offensive as "miscegenation", although they have historically been tied to the Caste System ( Casta ) that was established in Latin America during the colonial era. The concept of miscegenation is tied to concepts of racial difference. As the different connotations and etymologies of miscegenation and mestizaje suggest, definitions of Race , "race mixing" and Multiracial ity have diverged globally as well as historically, depending on changing social circumstances and cultural perceptions. Thus, mestizo are people of mixed white and indigenous, usually Amerindian ancestry who do not self-identify as indigenous peoples or Native Americans . In Canada however, the Métis , who also have partly Amerindian and parly white, often French-Canadian, ancestry, are a constitutionally recognized Aboriginal People . The differences between related terms and words that encompass aspects of "racial" admixture show the impact of different historical and cultural factors leading to changing Social Interpretations Of Race and ethnicity. Thus the Comte De Montlosier , in exile during the French Revolution , equated class difference in eighteenth century France with "racial" difference. Borrowing Boulainvilliers ' discourse on the " Nordic Race " as being the French aristocracy that invaded the plebeian "Gauls", he showed his contempt for the lowest Social Class , the Third Estate , calling it "this new people born of slaves ... mixture of all races and of all times". ETYMOLOGICAL HISTORY ''Miscegenation'' comes from the '', "kind". The word was coined in the US in 1863, and the Etymology of the word is tied up with political conflicts during the American Civil War over the Abolition of Slavery and over the Racial Segregation of African-Americans . The reference to "genus" was made to emphasize the supposedly distinct biological differences between whites and non-whites. In fact, all humans belong to the same Genus , Homo , to the same Species , Homo Sapiens and to the same subspecies, Homo Sapiens Sapiens . The word was coined in an anonymous , 2007 . The pamphlet, which was a Hoax , purported to be in favor of promoting the Intermarriage of whites and Blacks until these "races" were indistinguishably mixed, claiming that this was the goal of the United States Republican Party . The real authors were David Goodman Croly , managing editor of the '' New York World '', a Democratic Party paper, and George Wakeman, a World reporter. The anonymous pamphlet was later exposed as an attempt by Democrats (the so-called Copperheads ) to discredit the Republicans, the Lincoln administration, and the Abolitionist Movement by exploiting the racist fears common among whites. The pamphlet and variations on it were reprinted widely in communities on both sides of the American Civil War by opponents of Republicans. Only in November 1864 did it become known that the pamphlet was a hoax. By then, the word ''miscegenation'' had entered the common language of the day as a popular Buzzword in political and social discourse. The issue of miscegenation, raised by the opponents of Lincoln, featured prominently in the election campaign of 1864. In the United States, the concept of miscegenation has been used to focus primarily on the intermarriage of White People and non-whites, and especially Black People . Before the publication of ''Miscegenation'', the word Amalgamation , borrowed from Metallurgy , had been in use as a general term for ethnoracial intermixing. A contemporary usage of this metaphor was Ralph Waldo Emerson 's private vision in 1845 of America as an ethnoracial smelting-pot, a variation on the concept of the Melting Pot . Attitudes in the U.S toward the desirability of such intermixing, including that between white Protestants and Irish Catholic immigrants, were divided. The term miscegenation was coined to refer specifically to the intermarriage of blacks and whites, and with the intention of stirring up debate over this at the time controversial issue.Hollinger, David. (December 2003) "Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States." ''The History Cooperative'' Vol, 108, No. 5. Accessed June 28 , 2007 . LAWS BANNING MISCEGENATION See Also: Anti-miscegenation laws Laws banning "race-mixing" were enforced in Nazi Germany , in South Africa during the Apartheid era and in individual US states from the Colonial era until 1967. All these laws primarily banned marriage between spouses of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed "amalgamation" or "miscegenation" in the US. The laws in Nazi-Germany and South Africa under Apartheid, and many of the US state laws, also targeted sexual relations between such individuals. In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also the intermarriage of , 2007 Stein, Edward, {Link without Title} University Law Quarterly, Volume 82, Number 3, 2004 and present proposed amendments to the United States constitution regarding marriage" [http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/92-3/p%20611%Stein%book%20pages.pdf] a nation-wide law against racially mixed marriages was never enacted. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in '' Loving V. Virginia '' that anti-miscegenation laws are Unconstitutional . With this ruling, these laws were no longer in effect in the remaining 16 states that at the time still enforced them. The laws in Nazi Germany, South Africa and in US states all based themselves on concepts of Racial Purity and White Supremacy . The Nazi ban on interracial marriage and interracial sex, part of the Nuremberg Laws , classified Jews as a race and based itself on the racist concept of the superiority of Germans as members of the " Aryan Race ". Enacted by the National Socialist government in September 1935 as part of the Nuremberg Laws , the ''Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre'' (The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour) forbade marriage and extra-marital sexual relations between persons of Jewish origin and persons of “German or related blood”. Such intercourse was marked as ''Rassenschande'' (lit. ''race-disgrace'') and could be punished by imprisonment (usually followed by the deportation to a concentration camp) and even by death. The Prohibition Of Mixed Marriages Act in South Africa, enacted under Apartheid in 1949, banned intermarriage between Whites and non-whites. The Immorality Act , enacted in 1950, also made it a criminal offense for a white person to have any Sexual Relations with a person of a different race. Both laws were repealed in 1985. HISTORY OF ETHNORACIAL ADMIXTURE AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS MISCEGENATION In the United States See Also: Race in the United States ]] Historically, "race mixing" between Black and White people was taboo in the United States (see also Racism In The United States ). Especially white-black marriages were taboo. Today, a majority of Americans are not against black-white marriages. In a recent poll of 1,314 Americans of all ethnic groups, 3 in 10 people were opposed to white-black marriage, and a smaller proportion were opposed to white-Hispanic or white-Asian marriages. The taboo among American whites surrounding white-black intermarriage can be seen as a historical consequence of the oppression and Racial Segregation of African-Americans.Yancey, George. ( March 22 , 2007 ) "Experiencing Racism: Differences in the Experiences of Whites Married to Blacks and Non-Black Racial Minorities." ''Journal of Comparative Family Studies'' Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 197-213.Fredrickson, George. (March, 2005). "Mulattoes and métis. Attitudes toward miscegenation in the United States and France since the seventeenth century." ''International Social Science Journal'' Vol. 57, pp. 103-112. In many U.S. states interracial marriage was already illegal when the term miscegenation was invented in 1863. The first laws banning interracial marriage were introduced in the late seventeenth century in the slave-holding colonies of Virginia (1691) and Maryland (1692). Later these laws also spread to colonies and states were slavery did not exist. It has also been argued that the first laws banning interracial marriage were a response by the planter elite to the problems they were facing due to the socio-economic dynamics of the plantation system in the Southern colonies. The bans in Virginia and Maryland were established at a time when slavery was not yet fully institutionalized. At the time, most forced laborers on the plantations were , 2007 . During and after Slavery , most American Whites regarded interracial marriage between whites and blacks as taboo. However, during slavery many white American men did conceive children with female black slaves. These children also automatically became slaves, although they were sometimes freed from Slavery by their slave holding fathers. Most mixed-raced descendants merged into the African-American ethnic group, while over the centuries a minority of mixed-raced Americans Passed and became white. Although this is not widely known, genetic research suggests that a considerable minority of white Americans has some distant African-American ancestry. After the Civil War and the Abolition of slavery in 1865, the intermarriage of white and black Americans continued to be taboo, especially but not only in the former Slave States . The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, also known as Hays Code , explicitly stated that the depiction of ''“miscegenation... is forbidden.”'' One important strategy intended to discourage the marriage of white Americans and Americans of partly African descent was the promulgation of the One-drop Theory , which held that any person with so much as “one drop” of African “blood” must be regarded as completely “black”. This definition of blackness was encoded in the anti-miscegenation laws of various US states, such as Virginia's Racial Integrity Act Of 1924 . For a century after the Civil War, it was common for white , 2007 . In the United States, Segregation ists and Christian Identity groups have claimed that several verses in the Bible Nave's Topical Bible "Miscegenation" bibletools.org. Accessed June 28 , 2007 ., for example the story of Phinehas and the so-called " Curse Of Ham ", should be understood as referring to miscegenation and that these verses expressly forbid it. Since the Bible was written long before the emergence of the concept of , 2007 . In Portuguese colonies According to Gilberto Freyre , a Brazilian historian, miscegenation was commonplace in the Portuguese Colonies , and was even supported by the court as a way to boost low populations and guarantee a successful and cohesive settlement. Thus, settlers often released African Slave s to become their wives. The children were guaranteed full Portuguese Citizenship , provided the parents were married. Some former Portuguese colonies have large Mixed-race populations, for instance, Brazil , Cape Verde , Timor Leste , Macau and São Tomé E Príncipe . Mixed marriages between Portuguese and locals in former Colonies were very common in all Portuguese colonies. Miscegenation was still common in Africa until the independence of the former Portuguese colonies in the mid- 1970s . In Israel See Also: Who is a Jew? The modern State Of Israel was established as a Nation-state for the Jewish people. The Jewish Identity contains elements of religion ( Judaism ), Ethnicity , and a sense of a common lineage; not to be confused with " Race ". One may be of the same lineage or ancestry as another person of a different "race", as with siblings, one produced from a same-race relationship, the other from an interracial one, both fathered or mothered by a common parent. In this sense, Jewish miscegenation could be viewed on two levels; one based on belonging to the Jewish ethnic group or Jewish people, and the other based on the race of a given Jew. Jewish miscegenation based on Jewishness (belonging to the Jewish ethnic group or Jewish people) would be defined on whether one parent is not Jewish, independent of whether either the Jewish or non-Jewish parent are of the same or different races. Racial miscegenation would be defined as the union between a Jewish person of a given race with a person of a different race, be the other person a Jew or not. Two Jewish people may still be considered "interracial" if those two Jew s are of different races, although it would not be considered exogamous in the context of Jewish ethnicity, as both are still Jews. In Israel , all marriages must be by approved religious celebrants, and civil marriages are not legally recognized. Rules governing marriage are based on strict religious guidelines of each religion. By Israeli law, authority over all issues related to Judaism in Israel, including marriage, falls under the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate Of Israel . Orthodox Judaism is the only form of Judaism recognized by the state, and marriages performed in Israel by non-Orthodox Rabbis are not recognized. The Rabbinate prohibits marriage in Israel of , 2007 . most often to Cyprus . The only other option in Israel for the marriage of a halakhic Jew (Orthodox or not) to a non-Jew, or for that matter, a Christian to a non-Christian or Muslim to a non-Muslim, is for one partner to formally convert to the other's religion, be it to Judaism (Orthodox only), a Christian denomination (such as Eastern Orthodox or Maronite ) or a denomination of Islam (such as Sunni or Shia ). As for persons with patrilineal Jewish descent (i.e. not recognized as Jewish according to halakha) who wish to marry a halakhic Jew (i.e. born to a Jewish mother or is Jewish by Orthodox conversion) who is Orthodox or otherwise, is also required to formally convert to Judaism (Orthodox only) or they cannot legally marry. According to a '', 2007 . 300,000 people, or 150,000 couples, are affected by marriage restrictions based on the partners' disparate religious traditions or non-halakhic Jewish status. Israeli law concerns itself with miscegenation based on Jewish ethnicity, not miscegenation based on race. Therefore, there are no restrictions on interracial marriages between Jews of different Jewish Ethnic Divisions , or between other co-religionists of different races, although social stigma may still exist. DEMOGRAPHICS OF ETHNORACIAL ADMIXTURE In the US According to the US Census, in , 2007 . In terms of the US census, ''Hispanic origin'' supersedes race. Asians who identify ''Hispanic origin'' are not, therefore, including in figures on Asian-black marriage or Asian-white marriage. See the chart for specific breakdown of race within Hispanic origin. In Brazil See Also: Race in Brazil Multiracial Brazilians make up 38.5% Of Brazil's Population , about 68 million people, and they live in all regions of Brazil . Multiracial Brazilians are mainly people of mixed Europe an, Africa n ( Afro-Brazilian ) and Amerindian ancestry. SEE ALSO
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