Mariage blanc (from the French language, literally "white marriage") is a marriage that is without consummation.[Alan Bliss (1996) A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases in Current English. Routledge, London. ] The persons may have married for a variety of reasons, for example, a marriage of convenience is usually entered into in order to aid or rescue one of the spouses from persecution or harm; or for economic, social or legal advantage. Another variety is a lavender marriage, one undertaken to disguise the homosexuality of one or both partners. A sexless marriage, on the other hand, may have begun with the standard expectations.
It could also be that the persons chose to get married but are both Asexuality. A variation on this could be where some form of sexual activity takes place but not intercourse.
Etymology
The expression may derive from the absence of
blood on the couple's wedding-night bed-sheets.
[Ayto, John. (1993) Euphemisms. Bloomsbury, London. .] However, the French word
blanc can also be translated to English as 'blank', as in the sense of empty. For example,
cartouche à blanc translates as a
blank cartridge, or a cartridge that is lacking a bullet.
Cases
An example is of a
Gentile marrying a
Jew to protect that person during times of extreme anti-Semitism such as during the lead-up to World War II in areas of Europe menaced by
Nazism: "Baron Federico von Berzeviczy-Pallavicini
... during the thirties ... made a
mariage blanc with the niece of Demel's Jewish owners, which allowed her to enter a convent under his name and survive the war."
[a footnote in The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman, edited by Stephen Pascal]
In Iran white marriages are the opposite of a traditional mariage blanc, meaning a couple cohabiting and having sex without being married. The practice is illegal in Iran,
Other reasons
A
mariage blanc may also result if one or both partners discover after their wedding that they are either incapable of, or unwilling to take part in, sexual intercourse resulting in reproduction. Reasons can include asexuality,
impotence or hypoactive sexual desire disorder, chronic illness or
disability in either or both partners. The marriages of
Thomas Carlyle,
[Harris, Frank. (1973) 'My Life and Loves'. London, Corgi. p232 -243. ed. John F. Gallagher. Author Frank Harris claims that Carlyle had confessed his impotence to him personally, and records an account by Mrs Carlyle's doctor, who had examined and found her to be a virgin after 25 years of marriage. Harris's information is doubted by several scholars, the editor John Gallagher noted in a footnote.] John Ruskin,
Freya Stark and
Max Beerbohm are alleged to have not been consummated through
impotence. The brief marriage of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to Antonina Miliukova might be described as a "lavender marriage".
See also
Notes
