A marriage of convenience is a marriage contracted for reasons other than the reasons of relationship, family, or love. Instead, such a marriage is orchestrated for personal gain or some other sort of strategic purpose, such as political marriage. In the cases when it represents a fraud, it is called sham marriage.

Marriage of convenience指不是因为恋爱、家庭或爱情而结合的婚姻，即“形式婚姻”，简称“形婚”。这种婚姻安排是出于个人利益或者某些策略考虑，比如政治婚姻。如果某些形婚意在欺诈，那就叫假结婚（sham marriage）。

Another common reason for marriages of convenience is to hide one partner's homosexuality in cases where being openly gay is punishable or potentially detrimental. A sham marriage of this type, known as the lavender marriage, may thus create the appearance of heterosexuality. Such marriages may have one heterosexual and one gay partner, or two gay partners: a lesbian and a gay man married to each other. In the case where a gay man marries a woman, the woman is said to be his "beard".

另一个常见的形婚理由是在公开同性恋者可能会被惩罚或伤害的情况下，隐瞒其中一方的同性恋倾向。这种虚假婚姻被称为薰衣草婚姻（lavender marriage），有了这种婚姻就可以制造异性恋的假象了。这类婚姻中可能有一方是异性恋，一方是同性恋，也有可能男女双方都是同性恋。如果男方为同性恋，与其结婚的女方就被称为是他的“胡子”。