A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage. In the twentieth century, the trend was primarily towards women living in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...
seeking men in more developed nations. The majority of the women making use of these services in the late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century are from
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, the countries of the former
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, and to a lesser extent
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
. Since the collapse of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, large numbers of eastern European women have advertised themselves in such a way, primarily from
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
,
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...
,
Lithuania,
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to t ...
and
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnist ...
. Men who list themselves in such publications are referred to as "mail-order husbands", although this is much less common.
The term ''mail-order bride'' is both criticized by owners (and customers) of international marriage agencies and used by them as an easily recognizable term.
International marriage agency
An international marriage agency (also called an international introduction agency or international marriage broker) is a business that endeavors to introduce men and women of different countries for the purpose of
marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...
,
dating
Dating is a stage of romantic relationships in which two individuals engage in an activity together, most often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the category ...
, or
correspondence. Many of these marriage agencies are based near women in developing countries (such as Ukraine, Russia, Colombia, Brazil, China, Thailand, and the Philippines). International marriage agencies encourage women to register for their services, and facilitate communication and meetings with men from developed regions of North America, Western Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. This network of smaller international marriage agencies is often affiliated with web-based international dating sites that are able to market their services on a larger scale, in compliance with regulations such as the
International Marriage Broker Regulation Act. Experian, a market research firm, reports that the top 10 international dating sites attracted 12 million visitors in March 2013, up 29% from March 2012. International dating sites provide a wide variety of online communication, including instant messaging, email letters, webchat, phone translation, virtual gifts, live games, and mobile-based chat. International marriage agencies are frequently referred to as "mail-order bride" agencies. However, many consider the term "mail-order bride" derogatory and feel it demeans foreign women by comparing them to commodities for sale and by falsely implying that (unlike local women), they exercise no judgment over the men they meet and would marry anyone from a relatively wealthy country.
Services offered by marriage agencies typically include:
*Introductions
*Translation of correspondence between clients not speaking a common language
*Excursions, in which a man is introduced to several women interested in marriage
History
In 1620, the
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Mai ...
recruited mail-order brides for the
Jamestown colony
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was ...
, sponsoring the emigration of 140 women in hopes of reducing desertion by the settlers and to avoid the men marrying women from the local Native American tribes. They were sometimes referred to as "tobacco wives", because each male colonist who married a mail-order bride had to reimburse the company for her passage at a cost of 120 pounds of "good leaf tobacco". The women who were brought over by the company were free to marry whomever they chose, even men who were too poor to pay their passage fee. The average age of these brides was 20.
France took a similar tactic in the mid-1600s, recruiting and sponsoring approximately 800 women to emigrate to
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to King ...
. These mail-order brides were known as the
King's Daughters (french: filles du roi or french: filles du roy, label=none in the spelling of the era). The New France colony had problems similar to Jamestown's: male settlers returning to France or marrying Native American women and leaving the colony to live with their wives' tribes. For the King's Daughters, the government not only paid to recruit and transport them, it also provided each woman with a dowry of at least 50
livres
The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France.
The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 ...
. As with the "tobacco wives" of Jamestown, the King's Daughters had the right to choose their partners and could refuse any suitor. The success of the program is indicated by genetic studies of modern
French Canadians
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fre ...
which found that the King's Daughters and their husbands were "responsible for two-thirds of the genetic makeup of over six million people".
When New France began its
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...
colony in 1699, it requested more mail-order brides. These were known as
Pelican girls (for the first ship that brought women to the colony, ''
Le Pélican
''The Pelican'' (french: Le Pélican) is a 1973 French drama film directed by and starring Gérard Blain. It was entered into the 24th Berlin International Film Festival.
Plot
As a jazz pianist, Paul Boyer (Gérard Blain) has lots of free time ...
''). This program was not successful; the women had been recruited with false descriptions of the struggling colony and had many complaints about their treatment. When women in France heard of the terrible conditions and of how the Pelican girls had been treated, the government was unable to recruit many more mail-order brides. France had to resort to shipping over thieves and prostitutes, known as "correction girls".
The
Órfãs do Rei
The Órfãs do Rei (, ''orphans of the king'') were Portuguese girl orphans who were sent from Portugal to overseas colonies during the Portuguese Empire as part of Portugal's colonization efforts. The orphans were married to native rulers or Portu ...
(''orphans of the king'') were Portuguese girl orphans who were sent from Portugal to overseas colonies during the
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...
as part of Portugal's colonization efforts. The orphans were married to native rulers or Portuguese settlers. Their fathers were Portuguese men who died in battle for the king. Both noble and non-noble girls were in the ''órfãs do rei''. Many were sent to the
colony of Brazil, and they ranged from 12 to 30 years of age.
There are at least two historical roots of the mail-order bride industry that emerged in the 1800s in the
American frontier:
Asian workers in the frontier regions (although Asian workers were scattered throughout the world), and American men who had headed west across the United States to the frontier.
Asian men worked through mail-order agencies to find wives as they worked overseas in the 1800s. Key variables determining the relationship between
migration
Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration
* Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another
** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum l ...
and marriage were demographics, legal policies, cultural perceptions and technology. Imbalances between the number of available women and the number of men desiring partners created a demand for immigrant women. As a result of this imbalance, a new system of "picture brides" developed in predominantly male settlements. In the early 20th century, the institution of "
picture bride
The term picture bride refers to the practice in the early 20th century of immigrant workers (chiefly Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean) in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Brazil selecting brides from their ...
s" developed due to immigration restrictions. The
Japanese-American Passport Agreement of 1907 allowed Japan to grant passports to the wives of immigrants to America.
[Waldo R. Browne (ed.), "Picture Bride," in ''What's What in the Labor Movement: A Dictionary of Labor Affairs and Labor Terminology.'' New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1921; pg. 375.] As immigration of unmarried Japanese women to America was effectively barred, the use of "picture brides" provided a mechanism for willing women to obtain a passport to America, while Japanese workers in America could gain a female helpmate of their own nationality.
European American men sought financial success in the migration West, but few women lived there at this time, so it was hard for these men to settle down and start a family. During the
California gold rush in 1849, there were at least three men for every woman, and by 1852 the ratio had increased to nearly seven men for every woman. They attempted to attract women living back East; the men wrote letters to churches and published personal advertisements in magazines and newspapers. In return, the women would write to the men and send them photographs of themselves. Courtship was conducted by letter, until a woman agreed to marry a man she had never met. Many women wanted to escape their present way of living, gain financial security and see what life on the frontier could offer them. Most of these women were single, but some were
widow
A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died.
Terminology
The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word can ...
s, divorcées or
runaways
Runaway, Runaways or Run Away may refer to:
Engineering
* Runaway reaction, a chemical reaction releasing more heat than what can be removed and becoming uncontrollable
* Thermal runaway, self-increase of the reaction rate of an exothermic proce ...
. Mail-order marriages gave Black women an escape from the crushing racial restrictions in the South. In 1885, a group of married Black women in
Arizona Territory formed the Busy Bee Club to advertise for wives for Arizona miners, hoping to reduce violence in the mining camps and encourage Black women to move to the area.
To recruit mail-order brides for
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
, area bachelors combined funds to send two brothers east. The Benton brothers began their search in
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...
, posting "Brides Wanted" flyers. They held meetings at which they described the territory and promised free passage west. More than 100 women accompanied the Bentons back to Oregon.
Asa Mercer performed a similar recruiting role for Seattle. Only 11 women accompanied Mercer back on his first trip, but his second was more successful, with more than 100 women travelling to Seattle, accompanied by a ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' journalist to chronicle the journey. These prospective brides were known as
Mercer Girls.
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...
welcomed sixty women from Britain, mail-order brides recruited by the Columbia Emigration Society, in 1862. Another twenty women from Australia were bound for
Victoria but were convinced to stay in San Francisco when their ship docked there.
In the early 20th century, answering matrimonial ads was a route to entering the United States after immigration limits became more restrictive. It was also a means of escaping war-torn regions. In 1922, two ships docked in New York with 900 mail-order brides from
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
,
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...
,
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ...
, and
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...
, fleeing the
Greco-Turkish War.
Motivations and reasons
Eastern Europe
Women in Russia, Ukraine,
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
, and other Eastern European countries are common mail-order bride candidates. Economic and social conditions for women in Russia and other
Post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
are a motivational factor in finding foreign arrangements. Finding a foreign husband gives a woman a chance to leave her country and find better economic opportunities. In testimony before the United States Senate, Professor
Donna Hughes said that two thirds of Ukrainian women interviewed wanted to live abroad and this rose to 97% in the resort city of
Yalta
Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Cri ...
.
Russia
52 percent of Russia's
workforce
The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic regio ...
is made up of women, yet according to some sources they often hold low positions of prominence in their home country and work jobs with less respect and lower wages (such as teaching or physician positions); and women earn 43 percent of what men do.
Marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...
is a substantial part of
Russian culture
Russian culture (russian: Культура России, Kul'tura Rossii) has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and Western influence. Russian writers and phi ...
, with 30 years being the age at which a woman is considered an "
old maid". With 4,138,273 more females than males from the ages of 15 to 64, marriage opportunities are slim at home and worsened by the
life expectancy
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
difference between men (64.3 years) and women (73.17 years), as well as the fact that a large portion of successful males are emigrating out of Russia.
Asia
Many international brides come from developing countries in Asia, particularly East Asia and Southeast Asia, and occasionally South Asia as well. The countries the women come from are faced with
unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refer ...
,
malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...
and
inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...
.
[Meng, Eddy. "Mail-Order Brides: Gilded Prostitution and the Legal Response." ''Journal of Law Reform''; 28 (1994): 197.] However, economic factors are not the only driving factor for women in Asia to enter the mail-order industry. In some cases women were recruited based on their physical appearance, with an emphasis placed on
youth
Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Y ...
and
virginity
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
.
This is found among boutique agencies, most of which cater to wealthy men from other Asian nations. The majority of Asian mail-order brides come from the developing nations of
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
,
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...
,
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
, and
China.
Philippines
Filipino women often entered the mail-order industry in the hope of marrying abroad, and then sponsoring their family for
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
.
Country-specific information
Australia
Since 2003, the
Government of Australia's resolve to decrease what was deemed "inappropriate immigration" by then-
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the ...
has gained momentum. Initial reactions to the program were mixed. However, during the January 2004 visit to
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...
by the
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection,
Philip Ruddock
Philip Maxwell Ruddock (born 12 March 1943 in Canberra) is an Australian politician and the current mayor of Hornsby Shire.
Ruddock is a member of the Liberal Party of Australia and currently the state president of the party's New South ...
, Australian-Russian relationships were strengthened while both nations committed to a timetable for reductions in Russian
human trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extr ...
into Australia. The Australian public further embraced its government's new policies following the
media circus
Media circus is a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event for which the level of media coverage—measured by such factors as the number of reporters at the scene and the amount of material broadcast or published—is perceived t ...
of the Jana Klintoukh case. This case first exploded into the public's view when current-events program ''
Today Tonight
''Today Tonight'' is an Australian current affairs television program produced by the Seven Network. It aired from January 1995 to November 2019 in Adelaide and Perth. Editions in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were previously produced befor ...
'' aired footage of a young Russian-born Australian, claiming she was imported via an Internet site and was kept as a
sexual slave by her "husband" while being confined to his
Sydney home.
Belarus
In 2005, President
Alexander Lukashenko
Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (as transliterated from Russian language, Russian; also transliterated from Belarusian language, Belarusian as Alyaksand(a)r Ryhoravich Lukashenka;, ; rus, Александр Григорьевич Лука ...
attempted to regulate "marriage agencies" in
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
and make it difficult for them to operate. He believed that Western men were draining his country of women of child-bearing age. However, as most agencies are being run from outside Belarus (either in Russia, other European countries or the United States), he has been unable to stop (or otherwise regulate) this activity.
Cambodia
Thousands of women from Cambodia were mail-order brides to men in South Korea. Viewing the practice as a form of human trafficking, in the 21st century the Cambodian government passed a number of laws, such as prohibiting marriage between Cambodian women and men over the age of 50, a ban on marriage between Cambodian women and Korean men, and a ban on marriages with foreigners (which was rescinded after six months).
Canada
Canadian
immigration law
Immigration law refers to the national statutes, Primary and secondary legislation, regulations, and Precedent, legal precedents governing immigration into and deportation from a country. Strictly speaking, it is distinct from other matters such a ...
s concerning mail-order brides have traditionally been similar to (but slightly less restrictive than) their U.S. counterparts; for instance, previously not requiring the Canadian citizen to prove minimum-income requirements (as has been a long-standing requirement of United States immigration laws). While there is still no formal requirement for a minimum salary, the sponsor must provide evidence of income (such as the T4 income tax slip from an employer) with their IMM 5481 Sponsorship Evaluation. Until 2001 Canada's immigration policy designated mail-order brides under the "family class" to refer to spouses and dependents and "fiancé(e)" class for those intending to marry, with only limited recognition of externally married opposite-sex "common law" relationships; same-sex partners were processed as independent immigrants or under a discretionary provision for "humane and compassionate" considerations. In 2002, the Canadian Immigration Law was completely revised. One of the major changes was conjugal partner sponsorship, available for any two people (including
same-sex couples) who have had conjugal relations together for at least one year. Canadian immigration authorities frown upon conjugal-partners sponsorship for heterosexual couples, and now require the couple to marry before a visa is granted (unless serious reason can be demonstrated why the couple is not yet married).
There have been reported instances in which foreign spouses have abandoned their Canadian sponsors upon arrival in Canada or soon thereafter, often collecting
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
, which the sponsor is obligated to repay. In some of the cases, federal immigration authorities have made no attempt to revoke fraudulently-obtained landed immigrant status or deport the claimants, treating cases where one spouse is duped by the other as low-priority and difficult to prove.
A two-year conditional residence requirement (like that in force in Australia and the United States) was proposed in 2011 and is now applied to new arrivals.
China
China is one of the main source countries of East Asian mail-order brides.
Vietnamese women are traveling to China as mail-order brides for rural
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive v ...
men to earn money for their families and a rise in the standard of living, matchmaking between Chinese men and Vietnamese women has increased and has not been affected by troubled relations between Vietnam and China. Some Vietnamese women from
Lào Cai
Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city borders Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southwest ...
who married
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive v ...
men stated that among their reasons for doing so was that Vietnamese men beat their wives, engaged in affairs with mistresses, and refused to help their wives with chores while Han men actively helped their wives carry out chores and care for them.
Cambodian women
Women in Cambodia, due to the influence of the dominant Khmer culture, are traditionally expected to be modest and soft-spoken. They are to be well-mannered, industrious, and hold a sense of belonging to the household. It is expected that the ...
also travel to China as mail order brides for rural men. In the majority of cases, young women are persuaded by friends and relatives with an offer, and at least 5 percent of Vietnamese women in marriages to Chinese men are victims of human trafficking. There is no established bilateral cooperation between China and Vietnam to deal with the problematic aspects of undocumented, transnational marriages, since the Chinese marriage market crisis has been significantly alleviated by female immigrants. Despite prohibition, illegal border crossing and de facto marriage are common and uncontrollable.
Colombia
According to immigration statistics from the
United States Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the I ...
, Colombia has ranked in the top 10 of countries since 1999 from which fiancées have emigrated for the United States. As well, the number of Colombians being admitted to the United States between 1999 and 2008 using fiancé visas (including children) has increased 321 percent.
A dissertation by Jasney E. Cogua-Lopez, "Through the Prisms of Gender and Power: Agency in International Courtship between Colombian Women and American Men", suggests various reasons for this growth, including continuing cultural inequality between the sexes despite equality being codified in the country's laws (
honor killing
An honor killing (American English), honour killing (Commonwealth English), or shame killing is the murder of an individual, either an outsider or a member of a family, by someone seeking to protect what they see as the dignity and honor of ...
s were not made completely illegal until 1980).
Because of the large number of Colombians wishing to leave their country by marrying foreigners, a
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...
for marriages to foreigners has developed, with some people allegedly paying as much as 20 million pesos ($10,000) to illegal groups.
According to Colombia Decrees No. 2668/88 and 1556/89, passed in 1988, foreigners are allowed to marry nationals in the country provided they supply the proper paperwork, including a birth certificate and proof that both parties are not already married. A notary is required, but because the laws are open to interpretation, the requirements can vary from notary to notary.
Japan
During the 1980s and 1990s, local authorities started government-led initiatives encouraging marriage between women from other Asian countries and Japanese farmers due to the lack of Japanese women who wanted to live in the countryside.
These Asian brides came from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and South Korea.
The phenomenon of marrying women from other Asian countries later spread to urban parts of Japan as well.
Philippines
The Philippines prohibits the business of organizing or facilitating marriages between Filipinas and foreign men. The Philippine congress enacted the
Anti Mail-Order Bride Law on June 13, 1990, as a result of stories in the local media about Filipinas being abused by their foreign husbands. Because of this, Filipinas often used "reverse publications" – publications in which ''men'' advertise themselves – to contact foreign men for marriage to Filipina women.
Successful prosecution under this statute is rare or non-existent as widespread deployment of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
in the mid-1990s brought a proliferation of websites operating outside the Philippines which legally remain beyond the reach of Filipino law. One
Montana
Montana () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West List of regions of the United States#Census Bureau-designated regions and divisions, division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North ...
site profiled in an
ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs
ABS-CBN Integrated News and Current Affairs, known on-air as ABS-CBN News (formerly known as ''ABS-CBN News and Public Affairs'' and later ''ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs''), is the news and current affairs production and distribution divis ...
report entitled "Pinay Brides" circumvented the restrictions by characterising its role as that of a
travel agency
A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinat ...
. Thousands of Filipina women marry Americans each year.
South Korea
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reports, "Every month, hundreds of South Korean men fly to
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
, the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
,
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...
and
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
on special trips. An agent escorts each man to see many women in a single day, sometimes all gathered in the same hall".
Although these marriages can be successful, in some cases immigrant wives are mistreated, misunderstood and separated from their Korean husbands.
One method men use when choosing young girls as wives is "Like a judge in a beauty pageant, the man interviews the women, many of them 20 years younger than he, and makes a choice".
The British newspaper ''The Independent'' reports, "Last year it was reported that more than 40,000 Vietnamese women have married South Korean men and migrated there."
Cambodian women are also popular with Korean men seeking foreign brides, but in March 2010 the Cambodian government banned marriages to South Korean men.
''
The Korea Times
''The Korea Times'' is the oldest of three English-language newspapers published daily in South Korea. It is a sister paper of the '' Hankook Ilbo'', a major Korean language daily; both are owned by Dongwha Enterprise, a wood-based manufacture ...
'' reports that every year, thousands of Korean men sign up for matches with Filipina brides through agencies and by mail order. Based on data from the Korean government, there are 6,191 Filipinas in South Korea who are married to Koreans. After contacting a mail-order agency, the majority of Filipina mail-order brides met their husbands by attending "show-ups", a meeting in which a group of Filipina women are brought to meet a Korean man who is looking for a wife. At the show-up the Korean man picks a prospective wife from among the group, and in a matter of days they are married.
An anthropological study on Filipina wives and Korean men by professor Kim Min-jung of the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Kangwon National University found that these Korean men find it difficult to marry Korean women, so they look for girls in poorer countries with difficult economic circumstances.
The Korean men feel that because of the difficult circumstances from which the Filipina women come, cultural differences and the language barrier, they "will not run away". Further, she said, Korean men characterize Southeast Asian women as friendly, hardworking (due to agrarian backgrounds), "docile and obedient, able to speak English, and are familiar with Korean patriarchal culture".
A recent study by matchmaking firm Bien-Aller polled 274 single South Korean men through its website concerning motivations for marrying non-Korean women and found that men choose foreign brides primarily for one of four reasons. "According to the poll, 32.1 percent of the men said they felt the biggest benefit of marrying foreign women is their lack of interest in their groom's educational background and financial or social status. The next best reason was their belief that foreign brides would be submissive (23 percent), make their lives more comfortable (15.3 percent), and that the men would not have to get stressed about their in-laws (13.8 percent)."
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the ea ...
and
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
are sources of mail order brides to
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
.
The majority of mail order brides from China to South Korea consist of
Chinese citizens of Korean ethnicity.
Violence against foreign brides in South Korea
In June 2013, The Philippine embassy in Seoul reported that it had received many complaints from Filipinas who have married Korean men through mail-order, frequently becoming "victims of grave abuses".
The Philippine police rescued 29 mail-order brides on their way to marry South Korea men whom Chief Superintendent Reginald Villasanta, head of an organised crime task force, says were "duped into promises of an instant wealthy life through marriage with Korean gentlemen". The women were advertised in online and offline "catalogs" to South Korean men. In many cases however, victims were fed false information about the background of their future spouse and family, and suffered abuse from the South Korean men, which led to "abandonment of the marital home, separation and divorce", Villasanta said.
There have been several murders of mail-order brides in South Korea. On May 24, 2011, one South Korean man "stabbed his Vietnamese wife to death while the couple’s 19-day-old baby lay next to her. The man, a farmer, had been matched up with his foreign bride through a broker. In 2010, another Vietnamese woman was killed by her husband a week after they were married. In 2008, a Vietnamese woman jumped from an apartment building to her death after being abused by her husband and mother-in-law."
In November 2009, Philippine Ambassador to South Korea Luis T. Cruz warned Filipina women against marrying Korean men. He said in recent months that the Philippine Embassy in Seoul has received complaints from Filipina wives of abuses committed by their Korean husbands that caused separation, divorce and abandonment.
As language and cultural differences become an issue, the Filipina women are regarded as commodities bought for a price.
Malaysia
Mail-order brides travelled to Malaysia to marry Malaysian men. Mail-order brides include women from Vietnam, Indonesia, and China.
Singapore
Singapore has received Vietnamese women as mail order brides.
Taiwan
Vietnamese and Uzbek mail order brides have gone to Taiwan for marriage. Domestic violence and other problems that Vietnamese women faced during the marriages in Taiwan.
Turkmenistan
On June 4, 2001, Turkmenian President
Saparmurat Niyazov
Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov; tk, Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow, in Cyrillic: Сапармырат Атаевич Ныязов (19 February 1940 – 21 December 2006), also known as Turkmenbashi, was a Turkmen politician who ruled ...
(also known as Turkmenbashi) authorized a decree that required foreigners to pay a $50,000 fee to marry a Turkmen citizen (regardless of how they met), and to live in the country and own property for one year. Authorities indicated that the law was designed to protect women from being duped into abusive relationships.
In June 2005, Niyazov scrapped the $50,000 and the property-owning requirements.
United States
U.S. immigration law provides protection for brides once they arrive. "In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act... Section 652 of this legislation specifically addresses the mail-order bride industry".
["Russian Mail Order Bride Case Study." Welcome to American University, Washington, DC USA. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.]
On January 6, 2006, President
George W. Bush signed the
International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) as part of the
Violence Against Women Act
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law (Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, ) signed by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The Act provided $1.6 billion toward inves ...
. The requirements of the law are controversial, and some commentators have claimed that it presumes that American men are abusers.
In enacting IMBRA, Congress was responding to claims by the
Tahirih Justice Center
The Tahirih Justice Center, or Tahirih, is a national charitable non-governmental organization headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, United States that aims to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence and persecution. ...
(TJC), a woman's advocacy group, that mail-order brides were susceptible to domestic abuse because they are unfamiliar with the laws, language and customs of their new home. The TJC insisted that special legislation was needed to protect them. The TJC asked Congress to consider several notable cases mentioned in the
Congressional Record
The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record In ...
. Critics of IMBRA claim that the TJC failed to ask Congress to consider the relative amount of abuse between mail-order bride couples and other couples (including the thousands of spousal murders that occurred in the US over the past 15 years).
Two federal lawsuits (''European Connections & Tours v. Gonzales'', N.D. Ga. 2006; ''AODA v. Gonzales'', S.D. Ohio 2006) sought to challenge IMBRA on constitutional grounds. The AODA case was terminated when the plaintiffs withdrew their claim. The European Connections case ended when the judge ruled against the plaintiff, finding the law constitutional regarding a dating company.
On March 26, 2007, U.S. District Judge
Clarence Cooper dismissed with
prejudice
Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification (disambiguation), classi ...
a suit for injunctive relief filed by European Connections, agreeing with Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive govern ...
and TJC that IMBRA is a constitutional exercise of Congressional authority to regulate for-profit dating websites and agencies where the primary focus is on introducing Americans to foreigners. Additionally, the federal court specifically found that: "the rates of domestic violence against immigrant women are much higher than those of the U.S. population". According to a compilation of disaggregated samples of Asian ethnicities from local communities, Asian women in the United States reported intimate physical and/or sexual violence of 21 to 55 percent in 2015. The judge also compared background checks on American men to background checks on
firearm buyers by stating, "However, just as the requirement to provide background information as a prerequisite to purchasing a firearm has not put gun manufacturers out of business, there is no reason to believe that IMBs will be driven from the marketplace by IMBRA".
Legal matters for mail-order brides in the United States
Marriage agencies are legal in almost all countries. On January 6, 2006, the United States Congress enacted
IMBRA
The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (Subtitle D of Title VIII (Sections 831–834) of United States Public Law 109-162), or IMBRA, codified at , is a United States federal statute that requires background checks for all marria ...
, which requires certain actions of some businesses prior to selling a foreign woman's address to a US citizen or resident or otherwise facilitating contact, including the following:
*The man must complete a questionnaire on his criminal and marital background
*The business must obtain the man's record from the
United States National Sex Offenders Public Registry
The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry is a cooperative effort between U.S. state agencies that host public sex offender registries and the U.S. federal government. The registry is coordinated by the United States Department of Just ...
database
*The questionnaire and record must be translated into the woman's native language and provided to her
*The woman must certify that she agrees to permit communication
*A lifetime limit of two
K-1 visas is imposed, with a waiver required for the approval of any subsequent fiancée visa
Visa regulations in the United States
In order to bring a spouse into the United States, Form I-130 must be filed, which is an immigrant petition on behalf of a relative. After that, a K-3/K-4 & V-1/V-2 Entry Visa for Spouse must be filed. The Immigration and Nationalization Service advises that "in some cases, it may be to a couple's advantage to pursue a
K-1 fiancée visa before getting married. In other cases, applicants may find that it is more cost effective to get married abroad and then apply for an immigrant visa overseas. In many cases, the K-1 visa application process takes just as long as the immigrant visa process". The cost of the visa may be around $2000. Couples must remain together at least two years. There were 849,000 female naturalized citizens between the ages of 20 and 29 and 2,084,000 women of the same age living without U.S. citizenship in 2016, accounting for 13.3% of the female population of that age bracket.
"Despite well over 2,000 mail-order marriages a year, there is no information on the amount of mail-order brides entering the United States. The purpose of this law is two-fold: to protect the safety of mail-order brides and to prevent fraud".
See also
*
Picture bride
The term picture bride refers to the practice in the early 20th century of immigrant workers (chiefly Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean) in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Brazil selecting brides from their ...
*
Romance scam
*
Cherry Blossoms (marriage agency)
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* "Romance on a Global Stage", a 2003 anthropology study by Nicole Constable, Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mail-Order Bride
Human migration
Matchmaking
Interracial marriage