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In this article, data from the 1981 Yugoslav Census and from the Yugoslav population administration for the period 1962-1989 are used to study patterns of ethnic intermarriage in former Yugoslavia. The data show that the proportion of marriages outside the own ethnic group was generally law, but that in this respect large differences among the ethnic groups existed. The proportion of mixed marriages with a Serbian partner was much higher among the Montenegrins and the Hungarians than among the Muslims, the Slovenes, or the Albanians. The findings are largely in line with the predictions of social cohesion theory that intermarriage reduces the probability of violent conflict among social groups. Loglinear parameters are presented in addition to percentages of mixed marriages. These parameters show that percentages do not always give a good indication of the social distances among the ethnic groups. The boundaries of the largest ethnic groups, the Serbians and Croats, turn out to be less closed than their rather low intermarriage rates suggest. The social distance between the Hungarians and the Serbians, on the other hand, turns out to be larger than expected on the basis of their intermarriage rate. The results of the paper show that it makes sense to include information on ethnically mixed marriages into early warning systems for ethnic conflicts in multi-ethnic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]