March 1, 2010 • 24 mins
Mail-order brides may seem like a quaint and old-fashioned concept, but international marriage brokering is big business today. Molly and Cristen explore the topic of mail-order brides from multiple angles in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to step mom? Never told you?
From house to works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to podcast.
This is Molly. I'm Kristin. Kristin. You want to hear
(00:20):
some movie news? Sure? Um, I was reading the internets yesterday,
and um, I saw some movie news involving two of
our our favorites. I think if I can be so
bold as to say these people are your favorites to
Tina Fee and Steve Carrell, they've got a movie coming
out in April called Date Night, but they might work
together again, because right now they're working on this thing
called Mail Order Groom, and it's gonna feature you know what,
(00:46):
sound too happy about it, and I just keep going.
It's gonna feature Tina Faye as a woman who's unlucky
in love, so unlucky that she orders a groom from
the Ukraine to be played by Steve Carrell and Hilaria
You will hopefully ensue. Hopefully in sue. I don't know,
but let's I think that you always find humor in
(01:08):
income in uh situations that already exist. And so then
I tried to see if I could mail order a room. Yeah,
I didn't get no one come in. I didn't get
any options. I couldn't find I couldn't really find good site.
You couldn't mail order a groom in this day and age.
I couldn't find any that I wanted. I mean, maybe
I didn't maybe I wasn't searching far and wide enough.
But I googled. I saw my results and I was like,
But then I was like, well, mail order brides are
(01:30):
they still a thing? And they are and they are
big time there are. This is going to an article
to be found UM two thousand six article in Harper's.
It is estimated that well over a hundred thousand women
across the world are listed on the Internet as available
for marriage to Western men. So it's not really you know,
like the mail we think of mail order brides. You
(01:51):
know the old West, old plane, the airplane and tall. Yeah,
farmers would have to write off for a wife. Yeah,
get to get a wife shipped in from from the West.
But now with the magic of the interweb, uh, it
is mail d brides are robust business. It's the boom
and business. But whereas you know, in the wild West.
(02:12):
We have this this vision of very proper ladies who
probably already had maybe a small fortune to their name,
coming out to this brand new land. It's sort of
the reverse now. Now it's more women who lack resources
hoping to come to men who already have them. So
there's a different sort of um money dynamic that plays
into it. Yeah, because you obviously have to pay for
(02:35):
these brides. I mean, it's not like going on doing
online dating where you know, you can just like meet
up with someone and hope you hit it off. You Uh,
there's some fees to go along with this. Like for
this Harper's article, the author sort of did a mail
order embedded mission and he paid four thousand dollars to
(02:56):
a company called a Foreign Affair that basically took a
group of men to the Ukraine for a bride hunt.
Who would have all these women come to these social
events kind of like it reminded me of millionaire Matchmaker
on Bravo on steroids, Yeah, because you would be like
five guys and then two women would come in hordes
(03:20):
of women, and they would have these dossiers with photos
of all the women and their names and everything, so
they could kind of pick out who they liked and
remember their names. Then they would have little slips of
paper that they could, you know, write their phone numbers
down and then maybe take them on a date later.
But they would literally meet hundreds and hundreds of women
and then a week later, hopefully leave the Ukraine with
(03:42):
a fiancee. I mean, if that's what I call romance. Okay, Well,
you know we were being these articles. I think that
it's very easy to get judgmental. We were talking about
this before we came in. How you know, we like
to be non judgmental about all our topics, but it
is kind of hard to divorce yourself from a little
and the creepiness of five guys going to the Ukraine
(04:03):
and meeting these hundreds of women, and you know this hardper't.
Archical by Christopher A. Garon points out that, you know,
some of these guys treat it as a little bit
of a sex tour that you know, they meet these women.
They're kind of auditioning women for the role of wife.
And like you said, it is kind of a reality
show on steroids in terms of the opportunities they get
(04:25):
and um their attitude tour. But let's let's back up
a little bit and let's try and be a little
non judgmental about it. Let's maybe talk about a little
bit about the history of mail order brides in the
United States. We mentioned the idea of the kind of
the Old West mail order brides, but even before that,
Louis the fifteenth actually sent over women referred to as
(04:47):
casket girls from France to marry Louisiana colonists in the
early eighteenth century, and they were referred to as casket
girls because of the I guess the shape of the
chests that they were into to bring all their belongings.
And now this article points out that, you know, while
we have this vision of wild West Miller bride's happening
(05:09):
all the time, it probably was not you know, that
omni present. It wasn't like every man was writing home.
But I think we mentioned this in our Online Dating podcast.
There were, you know, many magazines of the day that
would have, you know, a bride option in the classified.
So it was a way to meet people. And as
we mentioned online dating, Internet, as you already said today, Kristen,
(05:29):
it it really it really expands the business just because
it opens it up to everyone with an Internet connection.
So for a while this was very popular in just
Southeast Asia, and then in the ninth mid nineties there
was just this huge boom of women when the Soviet
Union collapsed, of women hoping to make a better life
(05:50):
for themselves in America and so um, that's sort of
where the main team markets for this occur in Southeast
Asia and the and the old Soviet Union. Now. The
interesting thing too, when we're looking at the history of
male order brides is also the resurgence in the United
States that takes place in the nineteen seventies, because it
(06:13):
kind of dies out for a little while in the
twentieth century once, I guess probably once you know, the
United States starts to fill up in their available men
and women around when there's no more Wild West. Yes,
when the Wild West was one. But then in the
seventies we have more men returning to this mail order system.
(06:33):
And they largely blame it on the feminist movement. Yes,
apparently US American women got to do upity for our
own good. Too, many wacky women just throw in their
aprons away and going off to work. How dare we
think it could be equal? It really affected male female relations,
I mean, but That's why I think where we're starting
(06:53):
to bring in our own perspective on it. Christ. I mean,
it's impossible not to because I feel like every article
we read on this phenomenon the shured some quote from
a guy that would kind of just rub you the
wrong way, Like I just wanted a woman who would
cook my dinner and take care of my kids. I
think the phrase traditional values comes up, but that's not
two distraditional values. But I think that, you know, they
(07:14):
there was just sort of this. I mean, I think
it's wrong to pinpoint that all American women have thrown
away traditional values and that all um Southeast Asian or
Ukrainian women have them. You know, That's where it gets
kind of, you know, it rubs you the wrong ways
that we're relying on these mass cultural stereotypes of how
(07:35):
feminism works in the world. But I mean it's valid.
Seems to be why these men go over there as
they want, you know, the opposite of what an American
woman is portrayed to be. But the modern male order
broad industry really started as just a simple business venture.
The New York Times. This is an article we found
from Nino Actually, uh, The New York Times attributes it
(07:56):
to a man named John Broussard, who in nineteen seven
four expanded his import business of bulls and vases to
uh to women, to Asian women. Yeah. I mean if
you like their handicrafts, will probably like their women. Yeah.
But um, but you know now there are hundreds of
(08:18):
these firms online. What started with that? With that simple
import business. Now, basically you can sign up with a
service like the popular one that the Harper's art called
deals with is called a foreign affair. But if you
just a simple Google search will turn up tons of them,
things like Russian wives dot com, Asian wives dot com,
you know, all sorts of variations on that theme. And
(08:40):
basically Harper says that that a foreign affair could take
a man from the from sign up to wedding for
about ten thousand dollars, from your membership fees to the
fees of ordering the addresses for these women, um, to
the dates, to the trip over there to meet her,
(09:00):
et cetera. Ten grand. Hey, now all right, let's have
some feminist sensibilities clicking and say, hey, women are for sale.
That's that's not good. And some organizations will classify this
as human trafficking. But you know what these people would
say in return is that, hey, the women sign up
to do it, they get to say yes or no.
(09:22):
It's not like, you know, the man kidnaps the woman,
she says, yes, I will marry you. Of course, you
could argue that if she doesn't speak English, that maybe
maybe the uh, the distinction is is small. But you know,
it's basically a glorified form of online dating. You know,
two people meet via the internet. It's just that you know,
one of them paid an awful lot of money to
(09:43):
to do so. But once the mail order brides are
united with their prospective husbands in the States or in
other countries, there's actually uh, it's very very popular for
Filipino women to um kind of go over to uh
what was it, South korearea, and once the marriage is finalized,
things can can definitely go wrong, as you can imagine
(10:06):
culture shop, yeah, culture shock with these situations, um, and
sometimes there is domestic violence that happens. These women will leave,
the men will go crazy, who knows. And so the
US is actually instituted laws in two thousand five to
protect provide more protection for these women and kind of
(10:27):
make sure that nothing shady is going on in these
in these essentially marriage deals that are being brokered. And
A President Bush signed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act
or IMBRA in two thousand five. And under this new law,
um any i m b s UH International marriage Yes
(10:49):
under U S jurisdiction would be required to provide prospective
brides with detailed information any client requesting their information, including
a search of federal and state sex funder registries and
a be the client stated marital and criminal background to
basically make sure that these women are not marrying some devions. Yeah,
because there were a number of unfortunate cases where you know,
(11:11):
not only was their domestic violence, but actually the women
were murdered. Probably most notable I think UM is a
case the case of Anastasia King, who's um who she
was the second um male or bride that this man
had brought over. The first one had a restraining order
against him, and he had I started the process of
finding a third one. So they were saying that you know,
this process is a little bit like a one way
(11:32):
mirror where the guy gets, like you said, a dossier
on these women and the women just show up and
hope that they're picked because you know, they're in a
country where there are a few educational opportunities. The men
that they're talking about, the Ukrainian men, you know, they drink,
they have shorter lifespans, they smoke, they don't treat women
with respect that you know, they do have these traditional
values that men seek. But it's not like you know,
(11:54):
they are they're getting something out of it too, you
I mean, they're they're far more economic opportunities to be
in the US compared with the place, you know, like
the Ukraine. Right, So things like embrod designed to give
a little bit more transparency these women who, yes, they're
eager to get out of a bad situation, um, but
you know they don't want to step right into another
bad situation. Yeah. And as you can imagine in our
(12:17):
post nine eleven uh environment home, the Department of Home
in Security has become more vigilant on running background checks
on Americans who are petitioning for a fiance or spousal
visa to I guess, crackdown on a little bit more
on people coming into and out of the country. So
(12:37):
regulations are being tightened some, but there it's still a
very common, I guess, relatively common thing I think one
article made the point that instead of becoming more of
a fringe thing, it might become more commonplace as time
goes on, because, like I said it, sometimes it can
just seem like a glorified form of online dating. But
(12:57):
sometimes it does seem like this very seedy sex to
our kind of thing. Well, let's talk a little bit
about maybe the like, who who are the men who
are ordering these brides for uh? And Well, the I
will say these statistics are a little bit dated. However,
they I'm going to guess that they probably still apply.
(13:18):
And and since these companies are loath to give out
who actually comes to them, there aren't more updated statistics.
And these are from immigration services. And the men are
generally white at the time, politically and ideologically conservative, they're
generally pretty well off. Their median age is thirty seven
(13:40):
and fifty seven percent had been married at least once,
and most had been divorced after an average of seven
years of marriage. And that was one thing that came
up in the Harper's article was that a lot of
the men who were on this Ukrainian bridal tour, we're
kind of bitter about their their divorce. A lot of
(14:01):
them more divorces, and they just wanted, you know, they
wanted a woman to come in there and take care
of their house and just be sweet on them and
not question them about money, not question them and you know,
just just take care of things, take care of the house,
right because they've been burned in the past by these
feminist American women. Yes, um and uh, you know, kind
(14:23):
of going back to you, I said that traditional values
is something that comes up a lot, and this is
something mentioned in the Immigration Services report. It says most
of the persons person most of the personal reports from
American men who have married women through these agencies talk
about traditional values. That is, American women are thought, uh,
not content to be wives and mothers, but seek personal
(14:44):
satisfaction through their own careers and interest, whereas these foreign
women are just happy to come and be good housewives.
So who are these women who will be in the
good housewives? From the same immigration Immigration Services report and uh,
there were one study that looked at five of the
most popular catalogs offering Asian women and seventy percent of
(15:05):
those women were Filipino. Despite the fact that UM in
the Philippines, they have passed Republic Act Number six nine
five five, which makes these listings illegal. And you may remember, UM,
I think it was a year year and a half
ago Alec Baldwin made some joke about getting um a
Filipino mail order bride and it caused all sorts of drama.
I think he's not allowed to go step from the
(15:26):
Philippines now, just because that country has had a lot
of problems with their women being sold into sex slavery, UM,
into situations where their domestic violence. UM, you know there there,
it's been sort of a big source of culture shock,
and the women don't fare as well as maybe some
of these other cultures do. So it's outlawed, but they're
still getting into these listings. UM. Seventy percent of them
(15:47):
in that study, we're Filipino, sixteen percent were Indonesian, eight
percent were tied, two percent Malaysian and Japanese, and one
percent Chinese and Korean. But as we said, there was
UM this huge influx of women from the former Soviet Union,
and the difference between the Asian women and the Soviet
Union women is that, UM, the Asian women are usually younger. Yeah,
forty one percent of the Asian women are generally between
(16:09):
twenty one and twenty five. And remember that the median
age for the men who are essentially buying these women,
if you will, there's thirty seven, So there's usually a
very large age yet, right, And you know the Harper's
arkical talked about going to one of these socials where
are these women are circulating and trying to get the
males attention, and that you know, when the women weren't there,
(16:31):
the men amongst themselves would say, you know, I want
a partner, I want an equal, Like, yes, she can't
have any money, but you know, I do want to companion.
They're trying to, you know, maybe class up their reasons
a little bit. And the writer says that, you know,
the forty year old women who perfectly met their description
would circulate and get no attention, perfectly attractive women, and
the men would just flock to these very young women.
But the Immigration Services stats do point out that UM women,
(16:56):
the brides who come from forber Soviet Union countries tend
to be a little bit older, where the majority of
them are between twenty and thirties. So still not I
mean there's still o their twenties, um, but a little
bit older, a little bit older and most of them,
you know, do you say they want a better life
and that they find American and attractive? They are the
(17:17):
movie stars of the world. Yeah, I will say once
again from that Harper's article, the author did not do
any of those men any favors. They didn't sound It
wasn't like a bunch of Brad Pitt's head never to
the Ukraine check out a why. But the problem I
think is, um, are are the examples like the ones
(17:39):
posted in the Harper's article? Are they the norm? Are
they the exception that make a good story? Because we
did find one two thousand six New York Times article
um that was going over the impact of EMBRA after
President Bush signed it into law, and there was this
one guy. I mean, they seemed to have, you know,
a fairly sweet love story. He'd fallen in love with
a girl from Latin America and he's I think it
(18:00):
would be easier to get a bag of heroin into
this country than to get you know, the woman I
love into this country. Yeah, He's like he's gone over
there to visit her. I mean they maintain a long
distance relationship through UM, through phone and video chats. So
I mean I think that you know, that was sort
of an example that's not often seen where this story
is um presented of you know, quote unquote normal guy,
(18:25):
normal girl falling in love. Because I will say, I
mean we probably have been uh, you know, judging these
these men pretty harshly saying oh, you know you have
to pay for a wife, and why are you doing this?
I mean, you pay to join e harmony. That's why
I keep saying, a glorified form of online dating. And
I do think that those cedy men make a better
(18:45):
story than you know, a perfectly normal guy who just
happened to you know, fall in love with the Gulf
from Latin America. But along a lot of times, so Molly,
these male order marriages don't really last very long. They not, surprisingly,
I mean, even though there's not violence, um or death unfortunately,
you know, and those normal guys would say that those
(19:07):
are just the unfortunate things that make the headline. But
according to Immigration Services, who of course, you know, they
do have reason to worry about this. The most common
times for male order brides leave the marriage are immediately
three months after marriage when they get a green card,
or two years after marriage when they get their receipt
of nonconditional permanent residents. So if you're if you're concerned
(19:29):
about immigration it, you know, if you've seen the movie
Green Card, so you know, well maybe maybe in this sense, okay,
maybe we shouldn't be judging these these unions, these brokered
marriages too harshly because the men are paying for something,
but the women in a way of probably using the
men for something as well. They want American citizenship, they
want to be able to stay over here and make
(19:50):
a life for themselves, and someone's gonna pay their way
to do that. And even in the Harper's Arcle, some
of the women just wanted to get the free champagne
at the at the socials. They you know, go out
on dates in order really expensive dinners, which caused the
men to say some really jerky things, but you know,
it's it's quid pro quo. Yeah, it seems like these
(20:10):
men just can't escape crafty women just looking out for
their own. Feminism will make its way around the world eventually.
Uh so, Yeah, Mail Order Bride's still going strong. Simple
Google search. I did not do the Google search for
it because because she didn't want to get in trouble
with our internet. All those ties and I've got all
(20:31):
sorts of things in my search history now. Um, but yeah,
what do you guys think? Is it? Is it just
a form of online dating that shouldn't be judged? Or
is there or a women being bought? Is it? Is
it creepier? It creepier? Yes? Or are you a mail
or a bride yes? Or a guy who's ordered a male?
Any anybody? Just email us. It's a mom stuff at
(20:52):
how stuff works dot com. And we got a little
bit of listener mail to share with you guys. So
to start things off, I've got an email here from
Diana and she wrote us about the episode we did
on placento phagi a k a. Eating your own placenta,
And she said, you said that lower mammals eat their placenta's,
(21:15):
but all placental mammals eat their placentas, even great apes
like chimps. One good reason that humans or other animals
would eat placenta in the wild is because it smells
of blood, which attracts predators. However, placenta has been eaten
by so many animals for so many millions of years,
it would be surprising if it's just a way to
transmit nutrients between the mother and the fetus, and did
(21:37):
not also evolve as an important food and nutrient source
after a physiologically traumatic event, even not to mention how
many calories the mother will soon be expending on breastfeeding.
One other small thing that you all have said a
few times is quote the good of the species, As
has been laid out in popular books like The Selfish Gene.
It's really the individual, the carrier of a glomeration of
(22:00):
genes that the selection acts on. If adaptations were for
the quote good of the species, we would all be
much nicer to each other, not trying to out reproduce
each other. So thank you, Diane. All Right, I have
one email that's not signed, but I'll just read it says,
looking back at my childhood, I have to say without
question that I was a brat and complete bully. So
this is about our bullying podcast that probably should have
(22:22):
specified that, um my main ways have slowly disappeared over
the years. But to help with those who need dealing
with bullys, I could probably help with my experience, standing
up for yourself is the most effective way to get
a bully to stop. Whenever someone stood up to me,
I was like, oh hey, they're sticking up for themselves.
No fun. Now I got to find someone new. Also,
being witty and smart helps too. There's no better way
to make a bully seas than to make them feel
(22:42):
incompetent without them really knowing what you just did. My
advice is limited since this was years ago. And one
more thing, have confidence in your own capabilities. Bullys are insecure,
and I had plenty of insecurities growing up. Knowing how
amazing you are definitely helps and defeating bullies because you
know that they can't be and won't be as strong
as you are. I hope this helps your younger readers,
So thank you, former bully. And then the clothes stings out.
(23:05):
I've got a short email from Layton, she says, and
this is in response to our episode on do kids
need a mother and a father? And she said, I'm
thirteen years old and my mom is a single mom,
and I spend of my time with her. I do
go visit my father every other weekend for two days,
but I go to a private school and get the
(23:26):
best education possible, all thanks to my mom. While my
dad helps out. I live a very good life just
with my mom. My mom does the work of two
parents with the energy of one. Mom does a very
good job all by yourself. So to make a point,
I believe that any kid will be raised correctly, whether
raised by gay, lesbian, one, two or sixteen parents. So
thank you Layton, and again, our email is mom Stuff
(23:50):
at how stuff works dot com. And during the week
we would love for you guys to head over to
our blog. It's called how to stuff And if you
want to read other articles that molle I have written,
you can go over to our little home it's called
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
(24:14):
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
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are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to step mom? Never told you?
From house to works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to podcast.
This is Molly. I'm Kristin. Kristin. You want to hear
(00:20):
some movie news? Sure? Um, I was reading the internets yesterday,
and um, I saw some movie news involving two of
our our favorites. I think if I can be so
bold as to say these people are your favorites to
Tina Fee and Steve Carrell, they've got a movie coming
out in April called Date Night, but they might work
together again, because right now they're working on this thing
called Mail Order Groom, and it's gonna feature you know what,
(00:46):
sound too happy about it, and I just keep going.
It's gonna feature Tina Faye as a woman who's unlucky
in love, so unlucky that she orders a groom from
the Ukraine to be played by Steve Carrell and Hilaria
You will hopefully ensue. Hopefully in sue. I don't know,
but let's I think that you always find humor in
(01:08):
income in uh situations that already exist. And so then
I tried to see if I could mail order a room. Yeah,
I didn't get no one come in. I didn't get
any options. I couldn't find I couldn't really find good site.
You couldn't mail order a groom in this day and age.
I couldn't find any that I wanted. I mean, maybe
I didn't maybe I wasn't searching far and wide enough.
But I googled. I saw my results and I was like,
But then I was like, well, mail order brides are
(01:30):
they still a thing? And they are and they are
big time there are. This is going to an article
to be found UM two thousand six article in Harper's.
It is estimated that well over a hundred thousand women
across the world are listed on the Internet as available
for marriage to Western men. So it's not really you know,
like the mail we think of mail order brides. You
(01:51):
know the old West, old plane, the airplane and tall. Yeah,
farmers would have to write off for a wife. Yeah,
get to get a wife shipped in from from the West.
But now with the magic of the interweb, uh, it
is mail d brides are robust business. It's the boom
and business. But whereas you know, in the wild West.
(02:12):
We have this this vision of very proper ladies who
probably already had maybe a small fortune to their name,
coming out to this brand new land. It's sort of
the reverse now. Now it's more women who lack resources
hoping to come to men who already have them. So
there's a different sort of um money dynamic that plays
into it. Yeah, because you obviously have to pay for
(02:35):
these brides. I mean, it's not like going on doing
online dating where you know, you can just like meet
up with someone and hope you hit it off. You Uh,
there's some fees to go along with this. Like for
this Harper's article, the author sort of did a mail
order embedded mission and he paid four thousand dollars to
(02:56):
a company called a Foreign Affair that basically took a
group of men to the Ukraine for a bride hunt.
Who would have all these women come to these social
events kind of like it reminded me of millionaire Matchmaker
on Bravo on steroids, Yeah, because you would be like
five guys and then two women would come in hordes
(03:20):
of women, and they would have these dossiers with photos
of all the women and their names and everything, so
they could kind of pick out who they liked and
remember their names. Then they would have little slips of
paper that they could, you know, write their phone numbers
down and then maybe take them on a date later.
But they would literally meet hundreds and hundreds of women
and then a week later, hopefully leave the Ukraine with
(03:42):
a fiancee. I mean, if that's what I call romance. Okay, Well,
you know we were being these articles. I think that
it's very easy to get judgmental. We were talking about
this before we came in. How you know, we like
to be non judgmental about all our topics, but it
is kind of hard to divorce yourself from a little
and the creepiness of five guys going to the Ukraine
(04:03):
and meeting these hundreds of women, and you know this hardper't.
Archical by Christopher A. Garon points out that, you know,
some of these guys treat it as a little bit
of a sex tour that you know, they meet these women.
They're kind of auditioning women for the role of wife.
And like you said, it is kind of a reality
show on steroids in terms of the opportunities they get
(04:25):
and um their attitude tour. But let's let's back up
a little bit and let's try and be a little
non judgmental about it. Let's maybe talk about a little
bit about the history of mail order brides in the
United States. We mentioned the idea of the kind of
the Old West mail order brides, but even before that,
Louis the fifteenth actually sent over women referred to as
(04:47):
casket girls from France to marry Louisiana colonists in the
early eighteenth century, and they were referred to as casket
girls because of the I guess the shape of the
chests that they were into to bring all their belongings.
And now this article points out that, you know, while
we have this vision of wild West Miller bride's happening
(05:09):
all the time, it probably was not you know, that
omni present. It wasn't like every man was writing home.
But I think we mentioned this in our Online Dating podcast.
There were, you know, many magazines of the day that
would have, you know, a bride option in the classified.
So it was a way to meet people. And as
we mentioned online dating, Internet, as you already said today, Kristen,
(05:29):
it it really it really expands the business just because
it opens it up to everyone with an Internet connection.
So for a while this was very popular in just
Southeast Asia, and then in the ninth mid nineties there
was just this huge boom of women when the Soviet
Union collapsed, of women hoping to make a better life
(05:50):
for themselves in America and so um, that's sort of
where the main team markets for this occur in Southeast
Asia and the and the old Soviet Union. Now. The
interesting thing too, when we're looking at the history of
male order brides is also the resurgence in the United
States that takes place in the nineteen seventies, because it
(06:13):
kind of dies out for a little while in the
twentieth century once, I guess probably once you know, the
United States starts to fill up in their available men
and women around when there's no more Wild West. Yes,
when the Wild West was one. But then in the
seventies we have more men returning to this mail order system.
(06:33):
And they largely blame it on the feminist movement. Yes,
apparently US American women got to do upity for our
own good. Too, many wacky women just throw in their
aprons away and going off to work. How dare we
think it could be equal? It really affected male female relations,
I mean, but That's why I think where we're starting
(06:53):
to bring in our own perspective on it. Christ. I mean,
it's impossible not to because I feel like every article
we read on this phenomenon the shured some quote from
a guy that would kind of just rub you the
wrong way, Like I just wanted a woman who would
cook my dinner and take care of my kids. I
think the phrase traditional values comes up, but that's not
two distraditional values. But I think that, you know, they
(07:14):
there was just sort of this. I mean, I think
it's wrong to pinpoint that all American women have thrown
away traditional values and that all um Southeast Asian or
Ukrainian women have them. You know, That's where it gets
kind of, you know, it rubs you the wrong ways
that we're relying on these mass cultural stereotypes of how
(07:35):
feminism works in the world. But I mean it's valid.
Seems to be why these men go over there as
they want, you know, the opposite of what an American
woman is portrayed to be. But the modern male order
broad industry really started as just a simple business venture.
The New York Times. This is an article we found
from Nino Actually, uh, The New York Times attributes it
(07:56):
to a man named John Broussard, who in nineteen seven
four expanded his import business of bulls and vases to
uh to women, to Asian women. Yeah. I mean if
you like their handicrafts, will probably like their women. Yeah.
But um, but you know now there are hundreds of
(08:18):
these firms online. What started with that? With that simple
import business. Now, basically you can sign up with a
service like the popular one that the Harper's art called
deals with is called a foreign affair. But if you
just a simple Google search will turn up tons of them,
things like Russian wives dot com, Asian wives dot com,
you know, all sorts of variations on that theme. And
(08:40):
basically Harper says that that a foreign affair could take
a man from the from sign up to wedding for
about ten thousand dollars, from your membership fees to the
fees of ordering the addresses for these women, um, to
the dates, to the trip over there to meet her,
(09:00):
et cetera. Ten grand. Hey, now all right, let's have
some feminist sensibilities clicking and say, hey, women are for sale.
That's that's not good. And some organizations will classify this
as human trafficking. But you know what these people would
say in return is that, hey, the women sign up
to do it, they get to say yes or no.
(09:22):
It's not like, you know, the man kidnaps the woman,
she says, yes, I will marry you. Of course, you
could argue that if she doesn't speak English, that maybe
maybe the uh, the distinction is is small. But you know,
it's basically a glorified form of online dating. You know,
two people meet via the internet. It's just that you know,
one of them paid an awful lot of money to
(09:43):
to do so. But once the mail order brides are
united with their prospective husbands in the States or in
other countries, there's actually uh, it's very very popular for
Filipino women to um kind of go over to uh
what was it, South korearea, and once the marriage is finalized,
things can can definitely go wrong, as you can imagine
(10:06):
culture shop, yeah, culture shock with these situations, um, and
sometimes there is domestic violence that happens. These women will leave,
the men will go crazy, who knows. And so the
US is actually instituted laws in two thousand five to
protect provide more protection for these women and kind of
(10:27):
make sure that nothing shady is going on in these
in these essentially marriage deals that are being brokered. And
A President Bush signed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act
or IMBRA in two thousand five. And under this new law,
um any i m b s UH International marriage Yes
(10:49):
under U S jurisdiction would be required to provide prospective
brides with detailed information any client requesting their information, including
a search of federal and state sex funder registries and
a be the client stated marital and criminal background to
basically make sure that these women are not marrying some devions. Yeah,
because there were a number of unfortunate cases where you know,
(11:11):
not only was their domestic violence, but actually the women
were murdered. Probably most notable I think UM is a
case the case of Anastasia King, who's um who she
was the second um male or bride that this man
had brought over. The first one had a restraining order
against him, and he had I started the process of
finding a third one. So they were saying that you know,
this process is a little bit like a one way
(11:32):
mirror where the guy gets, like you said, a dossier
on these women and the women just show up and
hope that they're picked because you know, they're in a
country where there are a few educational opportunities. The men
that they're talking about, the Ukrainian men, you know, they drink,
they have shorter lifespans, they smoke, they don't treat women
with respect that you know, they do have these traditional
values that men seek. But it's not like you know,
(11:54):
they are they're getting something out of it too, you
I mean, they're they're far more economic opportunities to be
in the US compared with the place, you know, like
the Ukraine. Right, So things like embrod designed to give
a little bit more transparency these women who, yes, they're
eager to get out of a bad situation, um, but
you know they don't want to step right into another
bad situation. Yeah. And as you can imagine in our
(12:17):
post nine eleven uh environment home, the Department of Home
in Security has become more vigilant on running background checks
on Americans who are petitioning for a fiance or spousal
visa to I guess, crackdown on a little bit more
on people coming into and out of the country. So
(12:37):
regulations are being tightened some, but there it's still a
very common, I guess, relatively common thing I think one
article made the point that instead of becoming more of
a fringe thing, it might become more commonplace as time
goes on, because, like I said it, sometimes it can
just seem like a glorified form of online dating. But
(12:57):
sometimes it does seem like this very seedy sex to
our kind of thing. Well, let's talk a little bit
about maybe the like, who who are the men who
are ordering these brides for uh? And Well, the I
will say these statistics are a little bit dated. However,
they I'm going to guess that they probably still apply.
(13:18):
And and since these companies are loath to give out
who actually comes to them, there aren't more updated statistics.
And these are from immigration services. And the men are
generally white at the time, politically and ideologically conservative, they're
generally pretty well off. Their median age is thirty seven
(13:40):
and fifty seven percent had been married at least once,
and most had been divorced after an average of seven
years of marriage. And that was one thing that came
up in the Harper's article was that a lot of
the men who were on this Ukrainian bridal tour, we're
kind of bitter about their their divorce. A lot of
(14:01):
them more divorces, and they just wanted, you know, they
wanted a woman to come in there and take care
of their house and just be sweet on them and
not question them about money, not question them and you know,
just just take care of things, take care of the house,
right because they've been burned in the past by these
feminist American women. Yes, um and uh, you know, kind
(14:23):
of going back to you, I said that traditional values
is something that comes up a lot, and this is
something mentioned in the Immigration Services report. It says most
of the persons person most of the personal reports from
American men who have married women through these agencies talk
about traditional values. That is, American women are thought, uh,
not content to be wives and mothers, but seek personal
(14:44):
satisfaction through their own careers and interest, whereas these foreign
women are just happy to come and be good housewives.
So who are these women who will be in the
good housewives? From the same immigration Immigration Services report and uh,
there were one study that looked at five of the
most popular catalogs offering Asian women and seventy percent of
(15:05):
those women were Filipino. Despite the fact that UM in
the Philippines, they have passed Republic Act Number six nine
five five, which makes these listings illegal. And you may remember, UM,
I think it was a year year and a half
ago Alec Baldwin made some joke about getting um a
Filipino mail order bride and it caused all sorts of drama.
I think he's not allowed to go step from the
(15:26):
Philippines now, just because that country has had a lot
of problems with their women being sold into sex slavery, UM,
into situations where their domestic violence. UM, you know there there,
it's been sort of a big source of culture shock,
and the women don't fare as well as maybe some
of these other cultures do. So it's outlawed, but they're
still getting into these listings. UM. Seventy percent of them
(15:47):
in that study, we're Filipino, sixteen percent were Indonesian, eight
percent were tied, two percent Malaysian and Japanese, and one
percent Chinese and Korean. But as we said, there was
UM this huge influx of women from the former Soviet Union,
and the difference between the Asian women and the Soviet
Union women is that, UM, the Asian women are usually younger. Yeah,
forty one percent of the Asian women are generally between
(16:09):
twenty one and twenty five. And remember that the median
age for the men who are essentially buying these women,
if you will, there's thirty seven, So there's usually a
very large age yet, right, And you know the Harper's
arkical talked about going to one of these socials where
are these women are circulating and trying to get the
males attention, and that you know, when the women weren't there,
(16:31):
the men amongst themselves would say, you know, I want
a partner, I want an equal, Like, yes, she can't
have any money, but you know, I do want to companion.
They're trying to, you know, maybe class up their reasons
a little bit. And the writer says that, you know,
the forty year old women who perfectly met their description
would circulate and get no attention, perfectly attractive women, and
the men would just flock to these very young women.
But the Immigration Services stats do point out that UM women,
(16:56):
the brides who come from forber Soviet Union countries tend
to be a little bit older, where the majority of
them are between twenty and thirties. So still not I
mean there's still o their twenties, um, but a little
bit older, a little bit older and most of them,
you know, do you say they want a better life
and that they find American and attractive? They are the
(17:17):
movie stars of the world. Yeah, I will say once
again from that Harper's article, the author did not do
any of those men any favors. They didn't sound It
wasn't like a bunch of Brad Pitt's head never to
the Ukraine check out a why. But the problem I
think is, um, are are the examples like the ones
(17:39):
posted in the Harper's article? Are they the norm? Are
they the exception that make a good story? Because we
did find one two thousand six New York Times article
um that was going over the impact of EMBRA after
President Bush signed it into law, and there was this
one guy. I mean, they seemed to have, you know,
a fairly sweet love story. He'd fallen in love with
a girl from Latin America and he's I think it
(18:00):
would be easier to get a bag of heroin into
this country than to get you know, the woman I
love into this country. Yeah, He's like he's gone over
there to visit her. I mean they maintain a long
distance relationship through UM, through phone and video chats. So
I mean I think that you know, that was sort
of an example that's not often seen where this story
is um presented of you know, quote unquote normal guy,
(18:25):
normal girl falling in love. Because I will say, I
mean we probably have been uh, you know, judging these
these men pretty harshly saying oh, you know you have
to pay for a wife, and why are you doing this?
I mean, you pay to join e harmony. That's why
I keep saying, a glorified form of online dating. And
I do think that those cedy men make a better
(18:45):
story than you know, a perfectly normal guy who just
happened to you know, fall in love with the Gulf
from Latin America. But along a lot of times, so Molly,
these male order marriages don't really last very long. They not, surprisingly,
I mean, even though there's not violence, um or death unfortunately,
you know, and those normal guys would say that those
(19:07):
are just the unfortunate things that make the headline. But
according to Immigration Services, who of course, you know, they
do have reason to worry about this. The most common
times for male order brides leave the marriage are immediately
three months after marriage when they get a green card,
or two years after marriage when they get their receipt
of nonconditional permanent residents. So if you're if you're concerned
(19:29):
about immigration it, you know, if you've seen the movie
Green Card, so you know, well maybe maybe in this sense, okay,
maybe we shouldn't be judging these these unions, these brokered
marriages too harshly because the men are paying for something,
but the women in a way of probably using the
men for something as well. They want American citizenship, they
want to be able to stay over here and make
(19:50):
a life for themselves, and someone's gonna pay their way
to do that. And even in the Harper's Arcle, some
of the women just wanted to get the free champagne
at the at the socials. They you know, go out
on dates in order really expensive dinners, which caused the
men to say some really jerky things, but you know,
it's it's quid pro quo. Yeah, it seems like these
(20:10):
men just can't escape crafty women just looking out for
their own. Feminism will make its way around the world eventually.
Uh so, Yeah, Mail Order Bride's still going strong. Simple
Google search. I did not do the Google search for
it because because she didn't want to get in trouble
with our internet. All those ties and I've got all
(20:31):
sorts of things in my search history now. Um, but yeah,
what do you guys think? Is it? Is it just
a form of online dating that shouldn't be judged? Or
is there or a women being bought? Is it? Is
it creepier? It creepier? Yes? Or are you a mail
or a bride yes? Or a guy who's ordered a male?
Any anybody? Just email us. It's a mom stuff at
(20:52):
how stuff works dot com. And we got a little
bit of listener mail to share with you guys. So
to start things off, I've got an email here from
Diana and she wrote us about the episode we did
on placento phagi a k a. Eating your own placenta,
And she said, you said that lower mammals eat their placenta's,
(21:15):
but all placental mammals eat their placentas, even great apes
like chimps. One good reason that humans or other animals
would eat placenta in the wild is because it smells
of blood, which attracts predators. However, placenta has been eaten
by so many animals for so many millions of years,
it would be surprising if it's just a way to
transmit nutrients between the mother and the fetus, and did
(21:37):
not also evolve as an important food and nutrient source
after a physiologically traumatic event, even not to mention how
many calories the mother will soon be expending on breastfeeding.
One other small thing that you all have said a
few times is quote the good of the species, As
has been laid out in popular books like The Selfish Gene.
It's really the individual, the carrier of a glomeration of
(22:00):
genes that the selection acts on. If adaptations were for
the quote good of the species, we would all be
much nicer to each other, not trying to out reproduce
each other. So thank you, Diane. All Right, I have
one email that's not signed, but I'll just read it says,
looking back at my childhood, I have to say without
question that I was a brat and complete bully. So
this is about our bullying podcast that probably should have
(22:22):
specified that, um my main ways have slowly disappeared over
the years. But to help with those who need dealing
with bullys, I could probably help with my experience, standing
up for yourself is the most effective way to get
a bully to stop. Whenever someone stood up to me,
I was like, oh hey, they're sticking up for themselves.
No fun. Now I got to find someone new. Also,
being witty and smart helps too. There's no better way
to make a bully seas than to make them feel
(22:42):
incompetent without them really knowing what you just did. My
advice is limited since this was years ago. And one
more thing, have confidence in your own capabilities. Bullys are insecure,
and I had plenty of insecurities growing up. Knowing how
amazing you are definitely helps and defeating bullies because you
know that they can't be and won't be as strong
as you are. I hope this helps your younger readers,
So thank you, former bully. And then the clothes stings out.
(23:05):
I've got a short email from Layton, she says, and
this is in response to our episode on do kids
need a mother and a father? And she said, I'm
thirteen years old and my mom is a single mom,
and I spend of my time with her. I do
go visit my father every other weekend for two days,
but I go to a private school and get the
(23:26):
best education possible, all thanks to my mom. While my
dad helps out. I live a very good life just
with my mom. My mom does the work of two
parents with the energy of one. Mom does a very
good job all by yourself. So to make a point,
I believe that any kid will be raised correctly, whether
raised by gay, lesbian, one, two or sixteen parents. So
thank you Layton, and again, our email is mom Stuff
(23:50):
at how stuff works dot com. And during the week
we would love for you guys to head over to
our blog. It's called how to stuff And if you
want to read other articles that molle I have written,
you can go over to our little home it's called
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
(24:14):
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
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