misalliance

plural misalliances

1. An unsuitable alliance, especially an unsuitable marriage.First known use 18th c.

   A misalliance is more shocking to a Frenchman than to an Englishman, and Talleyrand was very French in his appreciation of the importance of family, and in his insistence upon outward correctness of behaviour.

   1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, published 2010, page 97

   1 more example

   That twice-flung taunt rankled still. It was monstrous to have been called a snob. A snob!—he, whose readiness to form what would certainly be regarded as a shocking misalliance ought to have stifled the charge, not merely vindicated him from it! He had forgotten, in the blindness of his love, how shocking the misalliance would be. Perhaps she, unloving, had not been so forgetful?

   1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC