ABSTRACT
Among interethnic relationships (i.e., relationships involving partners who differ in their racial, cultural, and/or religious group memberships; Baptiste, 1984), interracial relationships are especially likely to engender ambivalence, if not outright hostility, from relationship outsiders in the United States (Perlman, 1997). For example, unlike same-race couples among whom partners do not share a common cultural or religious background, mixed-race couples (who may or may not share cultural and religious backgrounds) frequently are targeted for abuse by strangers in public (Gaines & Ickes, 1997). Obviously within many segments of American society, interracial relationships (approximately 5% of all marriages; Suro, 1999) are regarded as “inappropriate.”
