History of Russian Mail Order Brides

Chances are that if you had a relative that was a gold miner during the gold rush days, you either have or know of a family member that was a Russian Mail Order Bride. As the men went west to pursue their fortune in the gold mines, the women stayed home. Over time there were more men in the west than women.

The men were lonely and wanted comfort and company. More comfort and company than an hour or so with a saloon girl. Many of these men still had friends and family in the old countries of origin and began to correspond relating their loneliness. Soon well meaning friends and family were suggesting that their lonely friends meet their lonely sisters and her friends and thus the Russian Mail Order Bride was born.

Marriage was everything to these women and being from a culture where arranged marriages was the norm nothing was thought of the new mail order system. Sometimes they would correspond with their intended and other times it was just simply arranged and the women were on their way to America to meet their new husbands.

With little knowledge of the intended occasionally the women ended up with someone else and did not realize it until too late.

In the 1980’s Russian Mail Order Brides made an amazing comeback as a trend in society. Men were curious about the foreign women that always seem to look so beautiful. Coming from a different culture these women were more intriguing to the men than the local women who many had grown up with.

Though the women in Russia are brought up to want to marry and have children some use this system simply to get out of Russia and go to a foreign country. Some come from large families and simply want to be out on their own and cannot afford it. Using the Mail Order Bride system is a way for them to escape from this reality and perhaps even in the end to get other family members to America where they can be free to worship and live as they choose.

As with any arranged marriage, many things can go wrong. The intended can change his mind and basically leave the bride at the altar in which case the woman could be deported or simply have to somehow make a life on her own in a foreign country. Perhaps the intendeds family rejects the woman. The contracts have become stricter in order to prevent things like this from happening.

With the internet the Mail Order Bride business has grown phenomenally and transformed what was once a few letters exchanged with perhaps a simple photo to a thriving internet business for some. Beware though, the photo’s you see on the internet could be pictures of a well paid model to pose for the Mail Order Bride. A man would be wise to actually fly over to his intendeds country and retrieve her himself. He would be more likely to really know what she looked like then.

Though society has changed over the last century, Mail Order Brides are a thriving business and the stigma of being a Mail Order Bride has less and less impact on society as a whole.