‖ mariage de convenance
(marjaʒ də kɔ̃vənɑ̃s)
[Fr., lit. ‘marriage of convenience’; cf. convenience n. 6.]
A marriage arranged or contracted from motives of convenience (sense 6) or expediency. Also fig. Cf. marriage of convenience (marriage 8).
| 1854 Thackeray Newcomes I. xxviii. 275 What the deuce does a mariage de convenance mean but all this. 1864 Trollope Small House at Allington I. ix. 83 I'm only a half sort of lover, meditating a mariage de convenance to oblige an uncle. 1912 I. Nitobé Jap. Nation vi. 163 The sorrows of mariage de convenance in Europe. 1923 J. S. Huxley Ess. Biologist vii. 295 Some men are pragmatic and utilitarian in regard to Truth; by others she is worshipped as fanatically as any goddess. So some men deliberately make mariages de convenance. 1955 Bull. Atomic Sci. Mar. 97/3 History suggests that the evil partnership between Communist China and the Soviet Union may yet develop the brittle quality of a mariage de convenance. 1957 L. Durrell Justine iv. 235 Someone trapped into a mariage de convenance. 1974 M. Cecil Heroines in Love iv. 91 The fashionable world, with its ill-bred ideas about money and mariages de convenance. |