In this paper, I focus on one aspect of social intimacy − marriages across black, white and Asian racial lines. The paper begins with a brief history of the regulation of race and romance in America. Then, using census data from 1880-2000, an analysis of interracial marriage uncovers a rich set of cross-section and time-series patterns. Marrying across racial lines is a rare event, even today. Interracial marriages account for approximately 1 percent of white marriages, 5 percent of black marriages and 14 percent of Asian marriages. Among married whites, 0.4 percent choose to marry blacks and 0.6 percent choose to marry Asians. Among married blacks, 4.6 percent intermarry with whites and 0.5 percent with Asians. Asians intermarry almost exclusively with whites − white spouses comprise 13.2 percent of all Asian marriages and blacks roughly 1 percent.

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Additional figures and regressions.