Many statistics would suggest that a mail-order bride will, although having never met the man she is about to marry, stay with him (and he with her) for longer and with a greater success rate than most marriages in the United States. The divorce rate is reported to be significantly lower, with 80% of marriages lasting at least four years and often much longer. Various studies done with between four to six thousand couples supported this claim of a lower divorce rate, but also revealed something else. It was shown in these studies that the cultures of both man and woman could determine the success of the marriage. Brazilian or Thai women, for example, attained a divorce rate of lower than 30%, while men marrying women from the Dominican Republic or Philippines could enjoy a divorce rate of nearly 60%. One possible reason for marital retention amongst Brazilian and Taiwanese women could be due to cultural beliefs. Time magazine, for example, in a September 1951 article, states, “In most Western nations divorce is legal on grounds of adultery or desertion…Brazil has always prohibited-divorce for any reason whatever. Its constitution makes a legal marriage an-indissoluble contract.” Little has changed sixty years later, where “because Brazil is 95% Roman Catholic, the disagreement over divorce was within the religious family.” It is important to note, however, that longevity in marriage does not necessarily guarantee happiness in marriage. Brazilians, in attempt to escape the stringent laws, have paid considerable sums to become divorced and remarried abroad, and “those who cannot afford to travel often get Uruguayan and Mexican divorces through Rio lawyers.” Various other Brazilians who separate from their spouses simply introduce a new ‘wife’ into the household without any sign of a new marriage or divorce.” In any case, however, the predominantly Catholic country has a history of life-long marriages, representing a continent-wide trend. Colombian women, for example, who boast a record low divorce rate of less than 20%, certainly have a religiously based wariness of divorce culture.
Concerning the Thai culture, one might attribute the low divorce rate to a “fatalistic” sort of mindset, in which one’s life events are taken at face value and accepted, whether those events are positive or negative. In any case, it seems that American men hope to stay with the brides, while the bride’s decision seems to be based more on the culturally based mindset they have developed. Another reason for staying could be financial dependability. Of course, all mail-order brides, given their situation, are at first going to be financially dependant. The rate at which they stay after a few years, when this dependability may weaken its grip, may be based on how the culture sees couples of a more equal social status.
Although divorce rates in America are particularly high when compared to the rest of the world, it is by no means an enjoyable process. A positive light is hence shed on the prospect of the typically enduring mail-order marriage. Yet the reasons why men choose a mail-order bride remain controversial, as evidenced with the banners and slogans of such growing websites as Dream-Marriage.com, Goodwife.com and Mailorderbrides.com. Upon opening Dream-Marriage.com, for example, a hopeful bachelor might think he ventured into a porn site. Bursting with scantily clad women and neon banners, the website seems like more of a red-light district than a place to find a wife. Goodwife.com claims, amongst other things: “Are there any good women left in the West? Sure there are. Are they easy to find? Not on your life!” Such a motto suggests that mail-order brides are a last way out, a sort of last-place trophy. However, the truth is not so black and white. Goodwife.com also claims that, aside from there being a scarcity of available Western women, a solid reason for choosing a “Cross-Cultural” marriage is that they “suffer divorce at a substantially lower rate than the U.S. domestic divorce rate.” As stated previously, the reasons behind this are unclear and could be due to anything from cultural expectations to the traditional mindsets of the bride and her respective country. Regardless of the reason, many websites that are aware of the unusually high U.S. divorce rate capitalize on this alluring notion.
Other sites expand upon this positive image, perhaps making it seem more socially acceptable—if not to the general public, then at least to eligible bachelors. Planet-Love.com, for instance, claims that through its use of an Internet community in which prospective couples can learn about each other prior to arranging the marriage, it has “helped countless people find the path to success and the lifetime love they have dreamed of and desired.” Perhaps the most obvious of names, Mailorderbrides.com, which specializes in Russian women, suggests that they are invaluable as lifetime partners: “Many beautiful Russian women actually downplay their beauty dressing conservatively with a minimum of make up. These women don’t attract that much attention but are nonetheless beautiful and will appreciate your attention more than those who are flaunting their beauty.” And Russianwomen.ca even goes so far as to list its credentials and a laundry list of its safety features. It informs visitors that those living in America who wish to marry a Russian bride must first comply with IMBRA, the “International Marriage Broker Regulation Act” law. Warning that many “sites featuring Russian brides” are unlawful, the company proceeds to proudly flash its IMBRA membership badge across the page. The website’s warnings reflect a common illegality in the business. This illegality perhaps explains the reason for the mail-order marriage system’s popularity rollercoaster: the facilitation of the internet in selecting prospective brides is downplayed by harsh gubernatorial restrictions placed in many countries from which mail-order brides originate.
Turkmenistan, for example, poses a $5,000 fine to any foreigner wishing to marry one of its citizens, either as a caution against the practice or perhaps as a way to profit from the industry. The Philippines, which recognizes the abuse factor frequently reported in the marriages, has harsh laws curbing most of the legal aspects of the practice, although there are ways around it. This only seems to support the notion that the practice is increasingly dangerous. In 2005, the president of Belarus attempted to institute legislation curbing the practice, believing that western men were draining his country of women of childbearing age. In the United States, a man often has to complete a questionnaire on his criminal and marital background, must be screened from all mental illnesses and disorders, must not be listed under the National Sex Offenders Public Registry, and a translation must be provided to the woman. In many ways, therefore, the practice is going through many changes in safety and restrictions, in many ways portraying the system as safer and more “hard-won” and noble. Perhaps the strict policies of the process and its interviews cause the system to be seen in a more positive light. Once viewed as a system used only by desperate men unable to find a wife in America, the image is now (albeit slowly) changing.
The practice remains statistically dangerous, however, and the media frenzy following recent murders committed both to and by mail-order brides has certainly detracted from its image and added to the taboo against it. In the past decade, four gruesome murders against mail-order brides have been reported, with another one being committed by the actual bride against her husband. Alla Barney, Susanna Blackwell, Anastasia King, and Nina Reiser all made headlines after their disappearances, and all were reported as foreigners who had recently arrived in the United States to meet their fate. Tessie Buhawe Spotts was charged with the slow poisoning murder of her husband, thereby covering the other end of the spectrum and to some extent tarnishing the image of the mail-order system further. In November of 2004 Ukrainian mail-order bride Nataliya Fox was awarded nearly five-hundred thousand dollars in damages after Encounters International, a global marriage broker, arranged Nataliya’s marriage to an American man with a history of violently abusing women. The jury also found the broker liable for “misrepresenting that it screened male clients when it did not.” Given the circumstances, it is little wonder that ordering a mail-order bride has struggled in recent years to uphold any positive image it may have once had.
One particularly harsh commentary comes from an Internet article titled A License To Abuse: The Impact of Conditional Status on Female Immigrants. The article describes Dominican Republic born Maria, who married a United States citizen in hopes of obtaining a U.S. citizenship. The husband, whom she was supposed to stay with for at least two years in order to remain in the U.S., recounts the physical beatdowns she would receive from her abusive husband. “One time I had eight stitches in my head and a gash on the other side of my head, and he broke my ribs.... He would bash my head against the wall while we had sex. He kept threatening to kill me if I told the doctor what happened,” she recounts. After finally running away, she had to return once more to get her papers so she could leave the country. She tells of that terrible night in vivid detail: "He beat me on the head. He sat on my stomach. He put a knife to my throat and raped me. Then he threw me naked on the street.” Such violence is not only deplorable, but the fact that these stories are so easily obtained and given to the public has certainly added to the mail-order marriage system’s struggle to be accepted as a safe institution, despite strict international regulations.
There are indeed “plenty of fish in the sea,” and many more if you are willing to look in international waters. Each year many U.S. men (the actual number is unknown due to the large number of unregulated entries of mail-order brides into the U.S. each year) arrange marriages for themselves online, and the social acceptability of such a system is still being debated. One side would argue that such arrangements are healthy because they typically defy the odds when it comes to the divorce rate, staying strong long after the average U.S. marriage has fizzled out. Yet for every advocator there is a detractor, many of whom claim that the abuse rate is very high and that such women are taken advantage of and exploited. Recent media stories have certainly done much to deter such marriages from gaining the societal nod of approval as well. At the same time, however, many websites claim to follow international regulations and safety standards, many of which have been strengthened in recent years. It seems, therefore, that the debate will continue for some time. Ultimately, American society seems to walk a thin line on the issue, hanging in a tight balance between accepting mail-order brides either as opportunistic women who simply want a better life and stay true to their husbands or as poor victims of abusive men getting caught up in a system that never should have been allowed in America in the first place.
APA Works Cited
Land of no divorce - TIME. Retrieved February 3, 2009, from Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Web site: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815340,00.html.
Mail order brides and the abuse of immigrant women. Retrieved February 3 2009, from No Status Quo Websites. Web site: http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/anderson/brides/pg1.html
Mail-order bride's dream of a better life ends in death. Retrieved February 3, 2009 from Seattle news, sports, entertainment | seattlepi.com - Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Web site: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/brid02.shtml.
Mail order bride guide. Retrieved February 3, 2009. Web site: http://www.goodwife.com/.
Mail order brides online. Retrieved February 3, 2009. Web site: http://www.mailorderbrides.com/.
Retrieved 03 Feb. 2009. Web site: http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/051139.U.pdf.
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