Now here's a plot device which more often than not has me scratching my head: The marriage of convenience between a gay man and a woman. It's not used all the time, but still crops up with a fair regularity in m/m romance books, usually as a way of making an unfaithful hero more palatable to those readers who abhore a cheater.
Now there are many reasons why the marriage of convenience takes place, but I think these are the main ones:
1. The hero's best friend from high school gets pregnant by some guy who dumps her and the hero agrees to marry her to take away the shame of being unwed and pregnant.
Because for some reason we're still in the 1950's and being a single mother is a fate worse than death.
2. The hero's best friend gets very ill but can't afford health insurance so the hero marries her so she can go on his health insurance.
This one is very convenient because the sham wife can die and leave the hero guilt free.
3. The closeted hero marries his equally closeted lesbian friend so that everyone thinks they are straight and to stop Grandma asking awkward questions about when he's going to find a nice girl and settle down.
Of course this one doesn't stop Grandma asking about when the great-grandkids are going to arrive.
4. Of course there's always THIS reason.
*Warning - Conservative middle-class-Britain outrage alert!*
There may be others - do share!
Whilst this sort of storyline isn't the worst that could happen in a romance story, it does make me roll my eyes a little when I come across it. This is mainly because I can't actually see it happening in real life, although a quick look at Google revealed THIS site which suggests I may be wrong about point 3, and so maybe I'm wrong about the other points too. I also discovered a number of sites which discussed Muslim gays marrying Muslim lesbians in a marriage of convenience - which is more understandable, but I've not read a romance which uses this storyline. I also find that the way that the wife has to be 'dealt with' sometimes leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not always because it can be an amicable split, but sometimes I feel bad for the woman.
So what do you think? Do you find the Marriage of Convenience storyline something you enjoy? Perhaps you have no strong feelings either way, or perhaps, like me it leaves you feeling a little uncomfortable and dissatisfied at using a female character in this way as a 'complication' for the romance.
Very interesting question, Jen! I think I find the Marriage of Convenience a little creepy, partly because it's generally unbelievable like you say, and partly because the woman has to be gotten rid of at some point and I can't help feeling bad for her as our heroes are sailing off toward their HEA. It's especially bad if the author is groping for some type of conflict to keep the story afloat and resorts to using the woman in the marriage as a source of evil.
ReplyDeleteHi Val
ReplyDeleteOh yes, it particularly annoys me when the wife turns all evil and refuses to let the hero go. Alternatively, it also annoys me when it's used to show how self-sacrificial the hero is.
Looong. :-)
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't mind AS much if it's truly a marriage of convenience, like the lesbian/gay thing because in theory they both find their true loves and part happily.
However the baby thing? Even if you aren't sleeping with her, the child believes you are their father, so divorce is divorce and yeah, It's 2011, get over it. Women pay big bucks to have babies without the annoyance of man around. Annoyance? Well you know.
As for the couple who married as art? Right. Nice eyebrows too honey. That’s just stupid and if anything, it makes a point FOR gay marriage because if two people who have no interest in each other beyond becoming infamous can get married JUST BECAUSE one is male and one is female, THAT damages the institution of marriage. Not two people who love each other. Duh. Why don’t people get that? Just because you are a man and a woman doesn’t mean you respect the concept. It just means no one will blink when you show up at the Elvis chapel in Vegas. Britney anyone? I suppose being that she’s from Germany and therefore in the EU it wouldn’t be considered an illegal act, but it could be interpreted, say they lived in Canada, that she married him to allow her to stay in the country. Can you say deportation?
It’s not a storyline I care for because as you said, it’s usually very awkward to get out of and so contrived in this day and age that it’s rather farcical.
Not a fan of the marriage of convenience, either. Although hopefully, since everyone knows the score going in, it's not as messy as the marriage of denial ("I'm definitely not gay if I marry a woman")...
ReplyDeleteOuch Chris, that is a nasty reason to marry that I don't like to see in books. When the guy knows that is.
ReplyDeleteMarriage for a baby is most stupid reason of all. This is the 21st century.
Thought we had seen enough marriages of convenience in m/f.
Tam: That's exactly what I thought about that silly pretentious couple of art students. They're not making a statement about marriage, they are just demeaning what should be available for all.
ReplyDeleteThe baby thing makes me uncomfortable too.
Chris: Yeah, the denial thing can be ugly. At least if both partners go into the marriage knowing where they stand, then there isn't recriminations later.
Ingrid: The marriages of convenience in m/f books tend to be for more monetary or power reasons. Not that it makes the whole concept better, just different.
ReplyDeleteI am a Mills&Boons lover all the way and this is like one of the top five plotline in those books - so I love them..
ReplyDeleteI have to admit even in m/m I have not read alot of this plotline where the aim is for me to "like" the hero ... most of the intend is quite honorable even if silly and could have been dealt with in another way...
but other than the whole "Sanctity of marriage issues " and all that I am not really bothered by it - if the characters are developed properly and or I just like them because sometime I just do even if they are silly - marriages of convenience is not a turn off for me...
I did hear about those student getting married - I suppose in the big scheme of things no one could stop them ( with Human Rights alive and well here) it would probably have to boil down to a moral code for them not to have done it..
:)
Hi EH
ReplyDeleteI like them when it's the main hero and heroine in a romance, but not when it's used as a complication to the romance as it often is in m/m. You are right that there could have been other ways for the story to go which would have been more realistic.
I see two separate issues here - is it plausible, and does it make for a good story.
ReplyDeleteI have to grand plausible, at least for number 3, because I know of two such marriages within 50 miles of my home in southern NH.
The couple I know well enough to have actually discussed it with are a bit older - in their early 60's. The man and woman are quite devoted to each other in a platonic sort of way. He has a male relationship on the side, which they're quite open about. She hasn't in recent years, but there are health issues involved.
Does this make for a good story? Probably not most of the time. (Although I'm perversely tempted to see if I could make it work in a short, just for the challenge of it....)
Hi Kathryn
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by :)
I have to admit when I started writing this post I had a quick internet check to see whether any of it actually happens in RL and was surprised at how often gay and lesbian friends do make a go of marriage. I wonder whether it's something that happens less and less in today's society than it did when your 60 year old friends were young.