The term mail-order bride is defined by Webster’s dictionary as a woman who publishes herself, intending to marry someone from another, usually more developed nation. Women who publish themselves on websites and magazines on an intent to marry a complete stranger are found throughout the globalized world. Some of these women are found in countries such as Canada, but most are in less developed countries such as Vietnam, Philippines etc. The reason why there is such a large migration of (Mail Order Brides) MOB’s from the “southern” to “northern” nations is because women in these developing countries have a hard time finding employment so that they may take care of their family. These women are very vulnerable to economic changes in their home country, such as local companies being bought by transnational corporations, limited jobs, governmental policies being influenced by more developed nations etc. For these reasons, women in countries like the Philippines look for alternatives to employment, such as becoming commodities, and having to sell themselves to whom ever, so that they may put food on the table. A major trend for unemployed women in the Philippines is of them becoming migrant workers of unpaid and paid labor. This migrant work can includes MOB’s, trafficking, prostitution and so on.

Many women in developing countries have had no choice but to do work they do not desire nor are they payed well. MOB’s are one of these jobs, because that is what it is, a job. MOB’s from the Philippines are helpless and have no other choice than emigrate to other countries in hopes of finding a better life, and because they do not meet the admission criteria to emigrate to developed nations alone, they become MOB’s. Since it gives rise to organized, large-scale economic activity, it should be known as an industry (unpac.ca). This industry also involves the buying, selling and exchange of goods, which in this case would be the brides and their lives would be sold to their husbands in exchange for economic stability. Overall women are the commodities that are traded in this industry, the purchase and sale of the brides themselves . To the Filipino government, the population is just another commodity. Like rice and sugar people are encouraged to be “exported” which the government believes will take care of the high unemployment rate in the Philippines (http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca).

Filipino MOB’s do not have the full knowledge of what actually goes when they marry a complete stranger, and move to a new country, new culture, new language etc. MOB’s are naive to think that their previous problems will go away once they move to a place full of opportunity. In a way it is true but they must battle many obstacles to achieve their goal. Some of these major obstacles consist of Canadian policies for new immigrants, getting used to a new culture, facing racism, and common stereotypes, as well as possible exploitation. Once these newly wed wives come to Canada, most often than not they see that their husband is in a bad situation as the MOB was back in the Philippines. There have been many cases where the wives find out about their husbands gambling problem, pornographic addiction, being an alcoholic or they are in a abusive relationship. “She was following in the footsteps of her sister, Nela, who had herself immigrated as a mail-order bride and was living comfortably with her husband and two young children. But soon after Nika arrived, things began to fall apart. For one, she learned she was his fifth wife. He beat her, restricted her right to use the phone, stopped sending money to her family and even controlled her diet.”(http://www.humantrafficking.org). This example is just one of hundreds of cases where MOB’s are lied to and must live in misery or be deported back to their home in the Philippines.

If, in fact the husband is sincere and dear to their MOB’s then there are still other problems they must face. When they arrive they learn that even though their husbands are caring, the brides must still do all of the unpaid work in the home, they learn that these Canadian men wanted to marry an Asian woman because of the common stereotype that asian women are easy to dominate and control, they will do whatever the husband tells them, such as cooking cleaning, taking care of the children etc. They also face racism not only from their husband but from the community they live in. Since they came to Canada, the stigma of them being an MOB is still there. “Aside from the personal racism of name calling, slurs and harassment, Filipino mail-order brides are further marginalized through systemic racism embedded within the immigration and legal systems.” (http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca). These immigration and legal systems see the Filipino MOB’s as commodities and therefore do not provide the same level of care that they provide Canadian citizens with. There have been many examples where these new immigrants have enough courage to leave their abusive husbands, but end up fighting with the Canadian government to stay in Canada and even to fight for custody of their children. These controversial issues of Canadian immigration policies along with all of the other issues have brought forth a great burden that the MOB’s must tackle.                            

New policies aimed at increasing productivity and transnational corporations taking advantage of poor people in developing countries has led to many difficulties for women. For this reason,  the poor have been looking at alternatives to survive and feed their family. Reasons brides decide to enter the MOB market is to try to improve their living conditions. Canadian prosperity is a great attraction for women living in the Philippines who have the courage to give themselves a fresh start. In fact, the brides experience serious difficulties meeting their basic needs, let alone providing for the needs of their family. In such circumstances, marriage to a consumer husband in a First World country such as Canada is one way of guaranteeing the survival of their families. After immigrating to Canada, most of these MOB’s find themselves caught in a trap of lies, deceptions, troubles. The women are often isolated and scared, many become virtual slaves in their own homes. Sometimes these “marriages” work out, though more likely than not they don’t and sometimes there are disastrous consequences. They face racism from the community they live in, find out their “prosperous” husband is a poor, abusive alcoholic. By running away from their husbands, they face an even greater dilemma, they must fight the government to stay in Canada as well as to keep custody of their child.

I already wrote an article regarding this phenomenon; the commoditization of the female sex. On that article “Filipina Bride”, I addressed the demand for a compliant Filipina bride by foreigners, mostly Caucasian males.

In a 1988 article, ‘American Catalogues of Asian Brides’, Ara Wilson, an associate professor of women’s studies at Duke University in the US, notes that the catalogues “encourage a voyeuristic objectification of Oriental women as ‘other’” in contrast to the liberated attitudes of western women.

In another study, Rona T. Halualani, associate professor of communication studies at San José State University, goes further, claiming the catalogues create a “collage of economic, sexual, and racial hegemonic discourses that celebrate dominant, Anglo, patriarchal, capitalist ideology by fashioning an ideal product – the colonized Filipina ‘Oriental Butterfly’ doll.”

Nicole Constable’s 2003 book Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and “Mail-Order” Marriages takes a deeper look at the phenomenon and, most importantly, includes dozens of interviews with both “mail-order” brides and their husbands.

image from www.wolfonline.com

How many studies are needed to persuade people to marry for love and not just to fulfill some sexual dreams or to alter their economically disadvantaged position? This is the core of many people’s poor image of Asian women.

Whenever a male Caucasian and an Asian woman marry, itchy tongues start wagging. “Do you think she is a mail-order bride?”

related article:

http://gomestic.com/personal-finance/filipina-brides/

While researching for my article on mail order brides I got to wondering if there were any sites offering male order husbands. After all, it seems like fair should be fair and if a middle age balding man can find with a beautiful blonde sexy woman named Ona, then shouldn’t a middle aged spreading woman find a nice looking beefy male called Ari or Sven? Of course she should! And so my search began.

There didn’t seem to be much in the way of mail order husbands sites out there which was kind of disappointing given the number of mail order sites available to our mail counterparts. However, all was not lost as I did come across one site for mail order husbands.

Ladies I have to tell you if you are tired of being lonely and looking for a husband or simply want to turn in the old model for someone new and different this may just be the site you have been looking for.

The men on this site can only be described as truly unique and interesting. Their looks are ….well simply indescribable. You will have to see them to believe them.

There profiles really caught and held my interest. Here a few tidbits from a few of these profiles to really give you an example of the quality of men that is available out there.

“Live in a crappy basement apartment and am interested in going somewhere sunny.”

“I prefer a woman that has insurance and a car would be great as I need to make occasional trips to Mexico to pick up “souvenirs”

“I got booted off match.com for cyber stalking but I am better now.”

“Ever drank paint thinner?”

And these quotes are just from the cream of the crop! If that isn’t enough to get your juices flowing or you can’t choose which of these delightful men to share your life with you can take the compatibility test and they will instantly match you up with the man of your dreams. Bad dreams that is!

While this is a delightful and amusing website I wouldn’t recommend it for any woman who is seriously searching for the man of her dreams unless her dream is too be paired with someone on death row or soon to be there.

So for now ladies, I guess we will just have to be content with the husbands and boyfriends we now have. Unless you really are dying to take a ride on the wild side!

History holds so many stories that are fascinating. Some of these excited our imaginations, or fire our sense of patriotism, others simply strike a romantic cord within us all. I have always loved to read about the history of this country. Not so much the battles, the wars, and the politics as those stories of individuals who one way or another shaped history by the decisions they made.

Being a woman I particularly are drawn to stories about women, whose daring and strength and courage we can only imagine today. While some of these women became famous and their names are frequently mentioned in the histories books, and their achievements noted for posterity, there are others who remain nameless, their words and actions, lost in the pages of time. It is one of these groups of women who most fascinate me. These women are the mail order brides of the American west.

After the Civil War many men struck out and headed West to start new lives for themselves. Some had families that accompanied them, but many more were single, struggling their way across a yet untamed land to places that most people on the east coast had seldom heard about and new nothing about. Some became farmers in Kansas and other states, other prospected for gold, or built ranches and raised cattle. Eventually, there came a time when these men wanted more that the land and the hard work they faced on a day to day basis. Some wanted helpmates, some wanted to start families and have children of their own, still others simply wanted a woman to cook, clean, and do his mending. However, women in these areas were scarce. The ones that were available were often married and even young girls became engaged early their attentions sought by amble men.

Eventually, the idea of transporting women from the East occurred to these men. Advertisements were placed, letters were written and promises were made. A man name Asa Mercer even traveled East and brought back cargoes of brides to Seattle, these women became known as the Mercer girls and most married and settled in the West. However, there were other brides as well, some traveling in groups, some alone to marry men they had never set eyes on and build a life in an area far removed from the streets of Boston, New York, Chicago, and other cities. Just what made this women give up the lives they knew to come to this strange land fraught with danger and marry men they had only corresponded with a few times?

The answer lies the the roles assigned to women of the time, and in their own hearts and minds.

There were not many options for women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth. Women who did not marry mainly could only hold jobs as school teachers and domestics. Women were plentiful in the East and the men in these regions could have their pick of wives more or less. Single women were low on both the social and economic ladder. Not wholly accepted because of their single state they were often left to fend for themselves their earnings meager and not much chance for a change of fortune. The advertisements for mail order brides promised if not exactly riches, a home of their own, and food on the table.

Other women who were widows with children to feed, saw marrying a man a chance to help her children survive and grow while providing her with a helpmate she desperately needed.

So these women went west. Some were ill prepared for the journey ahead and died along the way. Others made the trip only to discover that things were not as they had been lead to believe or their husband was less prosperous than promised. Some found themselves in abusive relationships, and some found a good life, with a good man and felt blessed for having the courage to make the journey.

No matter what their reasons, or what their fate, these women had courage and determination if because of them this country grew and thrived faster than it might have otherwise done. So, while they are seldom mentioned in the history books, and most of these women’s names have been long forgotten, their actions and their lives are as much a part of history as the generals, the explorers, and the politicians.

Of course, personal ads and marital agencies are far from being a modern concept. In fact, it could be argued that these avenues of finding love draw their roots from the millennia-old custom of arranged marriages which is still in use in many parts of the world. They’re all essentially forms of blind-dating, meeting a potential partner through a third party. And the wealthy and privileged, often too occupied with far more pressing concerns to venture out and find someone on their own, have been utilizing newspaper personal ads and matchmaking services since the latter half of the 1800’s. To further protect their privacy and to be more selective to prevent embarrassing public break-ups, many of the wealthy found personal ads far more preferable than meeting at social functions.

The early 20th Century also gave rise to another interesting twist to the personal ads – the so-called “mail-order bride” agencies. Like the regular personal ads before them, mail-order bride agencies were used mainly by the rich and wealthy. Acquiring a wife possessing a more traditional mindset toward marriage from poorer Latin American and Asian countries became preferable among many wealthy men who were wary of increasingly independent western women.

It wasn’t until the mid-1960’s that personal ads began developing a somewhat more mainstream appeal. More and more middle-class income-earning professionals began turning flipping to personal ads in newspapers. Nevertheless, most of society looked upon personal ads with great suspicion and even scorn. People who posted and responded to personal ads were perceived as weird and geeky people who wouldn’t dare approach someone at a party. Younger people still preferred to meet at parties and older people still preferred meeting at church. Placing the personal ads sections in the very back of newspapers was probably intended to illustrate how society views their usage.

Nevertheless, the use of personal ads continued to grow and 1970’s and 80’s saw the use of dating and matchmaking services skyrocket. This helped lead to the creation of even TV shows such as The Dating Game and Love Connection although due the adult content of these shows they were usually aired late-night on syndication which resulted in low viewership.

The arrival of the internet towards the end of the 20th Century placed even greater attention on personal ads, marital agencies and matchmaking services as these companies found another outlet to reach millions of potential clients. The quick rise in the number of internet users only made it inevitable that the use of dating services would become more popular and more acceptable. Speedy email and even speedier instant messaging brought forth greater curiosity into this intriguing way of meeting people. According to most surveys, fewer than 20% of adults submit and respond to personal ads but this number is most likely much higher. Lingering doubts and suspicions about personal ads and marital agencies makes most somewhat reluctant to admit to using them.

Widespread use of personal ads, marital agencies and matchmaking services have turned love-finding into a big business and more such agencies and outlets for personal ads have been created to cash in on the growing industry. As of this writing, there are as many as one hundred personal ad columns in newspapers and magazines and marital agencies and online dating sites catering to as many 300 million available singles and, unfortunately, married people pretending to be single.

Generally, posting a personal ad in a newspaper or local weekly magazine is free, usually up to the first 30 words. Extra space is typically 30 cents to one dollar per word depending on the newspaper or magazine. For safety reasons they typically won’t print phone numbers although they will allow email addresses. Ads usually run for a week after which you can re-submit the ad. Some newspapers and magazines, if specifically requested, will run the ad for up to four consecutive weeks.

Most major cities also have dating hotlines and telephone personals in which you call a number and listen to the personals. When you open an account with them you are given a pin number which you use whenever you wish to check and see if someone has responded to your telephone personal ad. This service is generally free although some charge as much as $2 per minute to listen to other people’s personal ads. You can find such numbers in most major newspapers and magazines in the ad section.

Many of the online dating sites very happily claim to be free but most really aren’t. True enough, they’re usually free to join and post profiles but you have to be a premium-paying member in order to respond to other people’s profiles. So, in a sense, they’re not free at all. Saying that they’re free is merely a marketing ploy.

These are some of the more popular sites for finding love:

Yahoo Personals: Membership in the millions, with hundreds of new profiles posted daily. Free to join and post a profile but must be a premium-paying member to send a response to another member. Have 1-month, 3-month and 6-month membership packages. If you do not wish to have to pay for love Yahoo also has an extensive network of chat rooms and online groups, many which focus mainly on finding that special someone, which you can join. Of course, this route isn’t very affective.

Friend Finder Network: Includes friendfinder.com, adultfriendfinder.com, seniorfriendfinder.com, asiafriendfinder.comand many other sites with a collective worldwide membership of nearly 50 million. Adultfriendfinder.com, the largest of the network, has nearly 30 million members alone. Free to become a Bronze member but other than posting a profile, you really have no privileges as a Bronze member. You can only send email to another member if that member contacts you first and you’re limited to sending only 3 emails a day. You can view, though you can not respond to, five profiles a day. Look but can’t touch! You must be a premium-paying Silver member to take advantage of more of their services or a Gold member in order to enjoy total unrestricted access to all of their services. So, free? I don’t think so! But, among the thousands of online dating services, they have one of the best customer service systems.

eHarmony.com: Everyone who watches primetime TV is familiar with this company. Commercials that feature couples telling America about how they met through eHarmony to the tunes of Natalie Cole. Essentially a matchmaking service in every since of the term, when you join eHarmony you fill out a questionnaire telling them the kind of person you are and they match you with another member “based on 29 dimensions of compatibility.”

Match.com: Believed to be the world’s largest online dating agency, boasting a worldwide membership exceeding 20 million. Like most online dating sites, it is free ONLY TO JOIN! Membership packages come 1-month, 3-month and 6-month deals. They also have excellent customer service.

Matchmaker.com: Also free to join but must be a premium-paying member in order to enjoy full benefits. Millions of members.

SinglesNet.com: One of the most popular online dating sites. Like most, it claims to be Free to join, post profiles and respond to profiles but there is no doubt a cost somewhere in enjoying full advantages

Date.com: Has thousands of profiles. Also “free” to join. One thing unique about date.com is that they offer tips for finding potential mates in the off-line world such as how to attract someone at a bar or party.

alt.com: As the largest online community for fetish personals, it is perhaps also the most notoriously-renowned source for online personals. Its million-plus membership has included the likes of John Robinson, a serial killer who used the site to lure many of his victims to their gruesome deaths as well as many other sex offenders. It is free to join though you must be a premium-paying member to have full access to the services.

Aforeignaffair.com: The largest online agency specializing in introducing western men to foreign brides, the vast majority coming from the former Soviet Union and a very sizeable number from Latin America. Has a wide range of plans you can take advantage of in meeting a prospect such as paying a monthly membership for a certain number of addresses per month, purchasing a lady’s address individually or discounted rates for the more you purchase or paying as much as $3,000 for romance tours which covers air and hotel fare to the country of your choosing and to attend large socials featuring the ladies from the agency. Has very good customer and tech support.

Craigslist.org: I on purposely saved possibly the worse source for online dating for last. Granted, Craigslist’s personals are totally free, making it perhaps the most completely unrestricted source for meeting people. Personal ads can contain up to 5,000 characters and you can post up 6 photos with almost no restrictions on the content. And if you’re very crafty with words you can post as many personal ads you like, which is often necessary since some sections add up to 50 new personal ads every hour, pushing yours further down to the bottom. But Craigslist relies almost entirely on users to watch for and erase illegal ads and many users routinely abuse this privilege and delete ads simply to eliminate competition. Since one does not need login credentials to view and respond to the more than three hundred thousand personal ads posted on the site at any given time there is no way of telling who deleted your ad. And you can forget about making a formal complaint about it or for any other problem you’re having with Craigslist – customer and tech support is virtually non-existent.

Wish you all the luck in finding that special someone! Check out the following related articles by this author: Advantages of Meeting Online, Avoiding Fake Online Correspondence, Posting a Proper Ad or Profile, Properly Responding to Personals, Safe Online Dating Tips.

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.

When one hears the term mail order bride, it is hard not to picture a woman being sold like the slaves of old. But that is not how mail order marriages work. In this paper, the term mail order bride will be used to identify a woman that has agreed to a marriage with little or no physical contact with their future husband and traveled to a distant region, especially a more industrialized nation to live. I have never heard of a man who has admitted ordering a bride; in the sense that they exchanged money for her, and then had himself a marriage. And the same would be true for the women. No woman thinks of herself as a commodity that can be sold. The very act, under U.S. law, is illegal and the marriage contract would become null and void. Li Ming a Filipino mail order bride is quoted as saying, “What’s a mail-order bride? [laughs] I never heard of that…I’m not selling myself [sounds offended] No! Of course not. That would be like a prostitute! (Constable 72)

History

Many think that mail order brides are something new. It is true that the popularity of such marriages have exploded in recent years with the rapid growth of the internet. In the 90’s most people probably thought of South East Asians as the stereotypical mail order bride. Filipinas were the most popular, even serving as the cast of the movie Mail Order Wife. But with the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Russian women (Russian serving as a label for women from the former Soviet Union) are quickly becoming the most popular mail order bride. In 1999 Filipinas were granted the most fiancé marriages with Russians quickly behind. (Luehrmann 873 footnote 14). It is my assumption that Russians have taken over as the most populous of mail order brides, or at least they are the most advertised, especially on the internet.

The phenomenon of the mail order bride did not start in the last few decades though. We would have to trace the origin back at least a century or two. In one form or another, the mail order bride has been part of American life since colonial days. Even today, many of New Orleans’ older families claim to be descended from the “casket girls” Louis XV sent from France to wed Louisiana colonists in the early eighteenth century. The term derived from the chests the women were given to carry their few belongings. (Garin 3)

Many old wild westerners also ordered brides. The promise of riches was too great and many men moved west. In the 1850’s and 1860’s, in many territories, like Washington, men outnumbered women 9 to 1. (Enss xi) In Arizona, shootouts over the few eligible females led to the establishment of clubs devoted to arranging marriages. (Enss xii) Eliza Farnham, recognizing that she was no beauty, nevertheless was astonished to be the target of admiring eyes wherever she went in the Gold Country in 1849. Shocked at the dissolute lives of the largely male inhabitants of California, she conceived a plan to bring proper ladies to the West. She saw the West in desperate need of the civilizing hand of women. (Enss xi) And she also saw it as a financial opportunity, no doubt. She went on to import many brides from different parts of the country, and even from the old world, for the single men of California.

Many in the Old West saw the lack of women as an arbitrage opportunity and tried to capitalize financially on the phenomenon. The men’s magazines of the Western days advertised the services of marriage brokers right alongside ads for snake-oil miracle cures and such cutting-edge mechanical marvels as the chain-driven bicycle. (Garin 3) And just as there are scams today there were scams back then. In the 1890’s, in Chicago alone, Detective Clifton Woldridge broke up as many as 125 fraudulent marriage agencies. He seized wagon loads of photographs and burned them along with papers. He also saw that the people who ran them were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. (History Detectives) Today, marriage brokers with less-that-reputable reputations can be found here.

Participants

It is estimated that brides coming to America range from 3500 to 10000. (Narayan 104) Brides are typically from economically depressed parts of the world. I have never heard of a woman from Britain, Germany, or France signing up to marry a foreigner and moving from her home country to join her husband in his, all without meeting him. The countries that seem to export the majority of brides to more industrialized countries are Russia, the Philippines and Columbia. These women are touted as great companions for their submissiveness, loyalty and strong family orientation. It is estimated that 100,000 women around the world are listed on the internet as available for marriage to Western men. The mail order bride broker A Foreign Affair lists 30,000 alone. (Garin 3)

Every woman must have different reasons to run off and marry a foreign man and intend to spend the rest of her life in a foreign land. I’m sure some have had family problems, bad relationships, bad reputations, and other assorted problems that just seemed easier to run away from. The problem in documenting that is that not many women will admit that they were former prostitutes and moved to a foreign land with a fresh reputation. But one can only assume that if she were truly happy, she would find little reason to search out a distant husband, pack up, and leave.

The majority of the motivation for women to become mail order brides seems to boil down to economic factors. Although Ling Mai wasn’t a poor China woman, compared to others in her country, her family and friends encouraged her to marry an American when the chance was presented to her. She admits that they were concerned for her financial well being and also saw it as a possible springboard for them to enter the US. So with no real marriage prospects, no hope of being financially stable, and armed with a sense of adventure, she accepted a stranger’s marriage proposal and moved to Salt Lake City. (Personal Interview Ling Mai)

Kristoffer Garin, a journalist who covertly went on a romance tour and reported his findings, describes the poor economic situation of post-socialist countries. A romance tour is where groups of men pay thousands of dollars to travel to foreign countries for the opportunity to meet hundreds of local “marriage minded” women. One night the group attended a social where 200 women came compared to a few dozen North American men. He describes the situation,

“Ninety minutes in, the music grew louder and the D.J. began to stage dance contests, party games. In the first game, he and his assistant chose several long-legged, mini-skirted ladies from the crowd to navigate a slalom of empty champagne glasses set up on the dance floor. Three finalists tried it blindfolded; the lucky winner received a cash prize amounting to more than two weeks’ pay for those in the room with jobs. “Oh my God,” one of the interpreters exclaimed, stunned. “She just got $100!” The men barely seemed to notice, but a ripple of anticipation spread through the overwhelmingly female crowd, So far out of line with the realities of Ukrainian life, the prize effectively underscored the extent to which these men held the key to another world. But the rest of the evening’s prizes–for the sexiest dancer, for the lady whose man did the best job using tinsel to decorate her like a Christmas tree–seemed to consist of chocolate bars, movie tickets, and the like. The point had been made, so there was presumably no point in going overboard.” (Garin 5)

Mike Thomas while serving as an LDS missionary in Novosibirsk, Russia taught English to many Russians. Many of his students were women preparing themselves for life in the US. When asked if he would classify the women’s decision to leave as being based on love or money he said both. He said that many women equate love and marriage with having a husband that will provide for them. One of the ways that they must provide is financially. In post-socialist Russia getting and holding a well paying job is extremely difficult. In his opinion this leads to more alcoholism, especially in men. This excessive drinking makes Russian men less appealing. So not only are times tough, but because of it the women are less interested in Russian men.

Sonja Luehrmann in her research on why women become mail order brides found that unsuitable local men were the main reason women looked abroad. She writes,

“On the other hand, women who were looking for a husband over the internet, as well as some who were not, often explained the motivation for marrying a foreigner differently. Many women-whether young and unmarried or middle-aged and divorced-talked about being lonely, wanting to have a family. They would be happy to marry a Russian, many of them said, if they could find someone who was not a drunkard and would actually be a help and support rather than a big child who needed to be taken care of. Such men, they claimed, were almost impossible to find in Yoshkar-Ola, because they either got “taken” by other women (’vse khoroshie zanyaty’-as I often heard it expressed) or moved away to find work in a bigger city.” (Luehrmann 864)

The men interested in mail order brides differ in age, race, and economic background and reasons for seeking foreign brides. Most are from the wealthy industrialized countries of Western Europe, North America and Australia. Many are looking for a more traditional wife in the sense that they want someone to stay home and look after their children and houseclean. Many feel that they are unlucky and not blessed physically or emotionally and can get a better partner abroad. (Personal Interview Mike Thomas) Some men want a woman that they can control. And for that reason they prefer younger women with a lower education. In affect, after ordering a bride they presume to own her. (Constable 77)

The American men in question believe that American women have become to emancipated, that they no longer believe in the differences between men and women and cannot show or receive tenderness. (Luehrmann 862) In contrast, the profiles on www.loveme.com and bride.ru show pictures of loving, smiling women complete with profiles of their dreams to be stay at home moms and devoted wives.

A survey of 260 responses (out of 607 questionnaires) from men who were seeking brides through correspondence, found that 94 percent were white; they were highly educated (50 percent had two or more years of college); 56 percent identified themselves as politically conservative; 91 percent said sex should be between married or live-in partners; their median age was 37; 22 percent came from California; and 84 percent lived in metropolitan areas. Over half had been married at least once and most had divorced after an average of seven years of marriage; a third had at least one child, and three quarters of them hoped to have more children. (Constable 76)

Garin describes the meeting of the men in the JFK airport shortly before the commencement of their Romance Tour, “…we were skeptical, a little scared, a little embarrassed to be here, and reasonably so. After all, what did our presence say about us? What could we possibly have in common, other than failure?” (Garin 2) He later explains what the men on the trip were looking for, “What they really wanted, and what most imagined they would find in Ukraine, was a fusion of 1950’s gender sensibilities with a twenty-first-century hyper sexuality.” (Garin 6)

My opinion is that both the men and the women who marry in such a way are desperate. The women might be more economically stressed, or want to raise families and cannot find adequate partners in their home countries. (FAQ from www.elenasmodels.com) The men are also frustrated with the local dating scene and are idealistic enough to think things will be different elsewhere. They also are well off enough to have the financial resources to do it. Some estimate that, from mouse-click to matrimony, it will cost a groom upwards of $10,000 for a mail order wife. (Garin 3)

Marriage Brokers

There are literally hundreds of mail order marriage brokers. They exist by extracting a fee, normally from the richer men, to introduce Western men with marriage minded women from Eastern Europe, Asia, or Latin America. Most of these brokers offer their services through the internet. In fact, the top 10 search results of “single women” on Google yields a result of 8 such brokers. These marriage brokers in no way enforce one side or another to marry. In fact, it would be more profitable if both sides did not marry. That way the men would have to continue to use their services to further their search for a bride.

Many internet-based marriage brokers have pictures of numerous women along with a brief biography, stats on their weight, height, whether or not they are divorced, etc. On some sites one can search for anything from age to religion and add the woman to your cart like you were ordering books online. Some sites like bride.ru will send you daily updates of the dozens of women who have recently listed on their website and whose addresses and correspondence information can be bought.

Some of the more reputable sites will have FAQ where men can find answers to questions like “How do I make contact with the women?” and “Are they real? Their photos look too beautiful” (FAQ www.elenasmodels.com) They offer services from translating letters, romance tour packages, visa help, and the ability to send your lady of interest candies or flowers. To the website’s critics these websites look just like any other commercial website, but

the difference is that the products they’re pushing are human beings!! Of course a bride isn’t a toy or something that can just be simply ordered, but these websites make you believe that with a subscription to their site you will have yourself a beautiful young bride no matter how unattractive, stupid, or old you are.

Also another revenue generating aspect of marriage brokering are the romance tours like the one that Kristoffer Garin went on undercover. Some on the internet refer to these romance tours as sex tours because the men take advantage of the women who will do just about anything for their attention with the hope of being rescued from their present situation. Romance tours that can be booked on loveme.com range from $3795 to $9995. My research on the internet found that other companies offered similar packages for about the same amount of money.

Problems

Marriage is hard enough without the extra hurdles of a language barrier, differing customs, and foreign circumstances to attend to. Interestingly enough, these marriages tend to have a less than average divorce rate. (Scholes) The numbers can be misleading because there is very little traditional data and due to some social connotations on mail order marriages some couples tend to be tight lipped and not too open about the inside of their marriages. (Constable 87) Due to the nature of some of the men that search out such wives and the desperate situations that these women find themselves in and agree to a hasty marriage, there is a serious possibility for domestic violence. Such news commonly makes the headlines. In 2000, the killing of a twenty-year-old woman from Kyrgyzstan named Anastasia King, whose husband turned out not only to have had a restraining orderagainst him from a previousmail-order bride but to be seeking a new, third wife through a marriage broker; in 1995, of a Filipina named Susana Blackwell, eight months pregnant, whose husband gunned her down outside a Seattle courtroom on the last day of divorce proceedings; in 2003, of a twenty-six-year-old Ukrainian named Alla Barney, whose husband stabbed her to death in front of their young son’s day-care facility. (Garin 3)

Historically, marriage brokers have declined to provide any information about their male clients to the women with whom they seek to match them; and, in fact, this one-sidedness has been a selling point. A New York-based advocacy group called Equality Now demonstrated it in stark terms in 1999, when they sent a blanket email inquiry to dozens of marriage brokers, purporting to be from a physician who had assaulted two ex-wives. His email asked whether this history would be an issue. Out of sixty-six responses, only three marriage brokers turned him down, and only two others expressed serious reservations about taking him on as a client; a few actually praised him and commiserated him regarding the occasional need for violence when it comes to keeping women in line. (Garin 6)

In fact, President Bush signed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005. Under this new law, marriage brokers falling under U.S. jurisdiction would be required to provide prospective brides with detailed information on any client requesting their information, including a search of federal and state sex-offender registries and a copy of the client’s stated marital and criminal background. (Garin 9) The cases of abuse in the mail order industry have made headlines because they are something different than regular domestic abuse cases. It is important to remember that many more domestic abuse cases happen throughout the US not related to mail order brides. Kristoffer Garin asked his group leader about the violence in the industry on his romance tour to the Ukraine. To his question the group leader responded, “They talk about that in the media, of course–the women are being brought over from Ukraine and Russia, and they’re being treated horribly. That may be true in some cases, but why don’t you also do a story about the American men abusing the American women? It’s just not sensational enough, because it’s right there at home. So they make a big story out of this.” (Garin

Ling Mai says that she is glad that she married her husband Boa but admits that they do not really get along. They fight “a lot” but she concedes that he has changed many of his “bad habits” and now values their family. (Personal Interview Ling Mai) She stopped short of mentioning any domestic abuse to me but I personally have a low opinion of her husband. There are very few people that I have ever met that I find more repulsive. I say this in the same breath that I cannot think of a better wife for someone than my boss Ling. Although Ling is much older than I she is still pretty, very well educated, speaks 3 languages, and has an awesome sense of humor. But domestic violence, in my mind, would not be unthinkable in their marriage. As cited at the beginning of this paper Duke wants a divorce after a few short weeks of his bride arriving. There are undoubtedly many problems in mail order marriages. Many problems can be traced to culture difference that may not be shared, lack of communication due to a language barrier, or the overall social ineptness of the people (especially the men) that seek out such marriages. However, many still claim that there are more mail order success stories than there are failures. (Constable 86)

The Reality

I believe that many things in life turn out different than we expect. Many might be excited to graduate and find that they went into the wrong field of study. Others might think all of life’s problems will be solved if they simply pick up and relocate somewhere else. Young lovers might rush into marriage sure that they want to spend the rest of their lives with their spouse just to have the marriage dissolve in a few short years. I don’t think the mail order industry is any different than individuals making the most of life’s curve balls.

Mike Thomas in teaching future brides in Novosibirsk, Russia found that their glamour shots were much more attractive than the women sending them. (Personal Interview Mike Thomas) Duke Nguyen found that settling for a bride that he had never met might not have been his best idea. (Personal Interview Duke Nguyen) Ling Mai is happy that she married her American husband despite their difficulties and loves it in Utah. She considers Americans more generous and happier than her fellow Chinese. (Personal Interview Ling Mai) A bride named Sue on her marriage to her husband Jim said, “Here I am appreciated. And here I have many appliances.” (Constable 88) Many men think that a foreign bride will fulfill every spousal need of theirs. (Gavin 6) And many foreign women think that moving to America will be the answer to their economic and poor-spousal-selection problems. (Luehrmann 872) There are many reports of those that are successful and happy in their marriages and there are just as many reports to the contrary. The only conclusion that can be made is that with so many happy and so many unhappy the mail order bride phenomenon tends to not be source of martial bliss nor a cause for marital unhappiness. It just seems to many, a weird way to meet someone with whom to spend the rest of your life with.