‘Doomed to Fail’: Dutch and West German Consulates Warning Against Mixed Marriages, 1950s–70s

Abstract

This article demonstrates how official discourses in Western Europe warning against mixed marriages were built on colonial continuities as part of shared European heritage, as well as the importance of race and gender ideologies in those discourses. It addresses the exchange across borders of approaches to regulating ‘mixed’ marriages among Dutch and German consular officials, strongly advising European White women not to emigrate and not to marry Muslim men. Based on research in the archives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs as well as newspaper archives in the Netherlands and West Germany, this article demonstrates the central role that consulates of both countries played in developing these official discourses. This study contributes to literature on female (e)migration as well as literature on present-day restrictive migration control practices by demonstrating the historical and colonial roots that still serve to justify state practices of regulating mixed intimacies in surveilling women's partner choice.