ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to locate the debate about “fictitious marriages” in Austria in a broader context, considering both the evolution of binational marriages in the country more generally while also discussing the trajectory of official Austrian debates on immigration and integration and the place of Scheinehen within this discourse. It then looks at the various ways in which the different constituencies in this debate—the government, the media, as well as advocacy groups for people in binational and bicultural partnerships—have interpreted the persistence and even rise of binational marriages. Even those fighting for the rights of binational couples base their arguments on a concept of marriage weighted with aspirations of love and companionship and mutual care and the “human right of marriage and family.” Overall then, the phenomenon of the fictitious marriage can offer us a more intimate look at Austrian national self-understanding.
