[1] 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.
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[3] ... [d]uring 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.
"[4] 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,[5] and is heavily decried as an example of "imported western lifestyle", most famously by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who described it as "the darkest type of married life".
The marriages of Thomas Carlyle,[10] John Ruskin, Freya Stark and Max Beerbohm are alleged to have not been consummated through impotence.