the word is...

Languages are nothing if not efficient and adaptable. They adopt new words as needed and drop obsolete ones. Words for very specific things usually don't exist without reflecting some level of necessity, no matter how weird they sound. Medical and psychiatric terms are the most commonly added and altered ones--'giggle incontinence' as a descriptive term for 'laughing so hard you pee yourself' wouldn't exist unless it was something that happened a lot. Still, some things are so specific it seems weird that people even felt they needed a name at all. The Germanic dialect spoken in Pennsylvania Dutch communities has a specific word for the little bits of poop that get stuck around the anus--everyone has probably experienced this but it seems extremely weird that anyone felt compelled to give it a proper word.

Here's a euphemismic term you probably didn't know existed.

'Lavender marriage'.

A lavender marriage was a handy euphemism in Hollywood during the 20s to the 60s for a marriage done purely for public image maintenance. Most stars had to agree to a morality clause in their contracts, which prohibited them from publicly doing things that were seen as unwholesome and socially unacceptable--which, at the time, included any sexuality other than the red-blooded heteronormative kind. The problem is, then as they do now actors were just as subject to speculative rumours then as they are today--when an actor was suspected of being a homosexual, people didn't shut up about it. The problem is that then, as now, sometimes the rumours were true and it was extremely bad for not only the actor's image but the studio's image as well. Sometimes it just looks a little suspicious for a young, wealthy, successful, attractive, and famous actors to literally have women throwing themselves at them and not apparently showing any interest in them. People talk. Sometimes the talk contains a kernel of truth.


Simply saying 'BUT I'M NOT GAY!!' doesn't put gossip to rest. Not a lot does, not even the usual 'solution' to this problem as applied by the studio heads--the lavender marriage.

A 'lavender marriage' was a real marriage done for appearance's sake. A gay or supposedly gay star would publicly court and marry somebody (usually another movie star--nothing captures public interest quite like celebrity relationships) of the appropriate gender in order to appear straight to the public. It was basically a decoy marriage--like fake jewellery that just looks good on display and isn't genuine.

Nobody knows quite when the term was created, but people suspected of homosexuality have been marrying for appearances alone since time immemorial--usually royalty, but anybody well-known enough to have rumours circulating about them did it and generally pursued their preferred relationships on the side. (And not always secretively.) In early Hollywood, however, a gay star was a sufficiently common problem of sufficiently taboo status that a term was necessary to denote a loveless marriage that serves no purpose other than to give the appearance of dutiful, wholesome heterosexuality from people who would rather be hanging out in gay bars.

Pretty weird, huh?