Marriage of convenience

On 31 March 2010 two students were publicly and legally married on the University of Adelaide's lawn so that they could both receive full Youth Allowance.

[3][4][5] The term "contract marriage" is used by U.S. military personnel to describe marrying mainly in order to receive extra pay and housing benefits that the couple would not otherwise be entitled to.

Another common reason for marriages of convenience is to hide one partner's homosexuality in places where being openly gay is punishable or potentially detrimental.

Marriage equality played a major role in princely families, less in England and Scotland than in the monarchies of the continent.

The topic was treated literary through Thomas Mann's 1909 novel Royal Highness, which describes a young unworldly and dreamy prince who forces himself into a marriage of convenience that ultimately becomes happy.

The story was modeled after Mann's own romance and marriage to Katia Mann in February 1905, which was to be blessed with six children, although it was not reasons of state or equality that motivated this marriage of convenience, but rather the author's homosexuality which made him want acceptance and starting a family (along with, incidentally, the prospect of a rich dowry) at a time when homosexuality was still punishable and ostracized.