THE BRIDE INDUSTRY
There are more than 200 marriage agencies in the United States that provide men with information about female citizens of other countries who wish to marry an American. Each year, up to six thousand new married couples appear in the United States who petition for the relocation of the spouse to the United States. The volume of such marital emigration amounts to 3 to 4 percent of all open female emigration to this country and 0.4 percent of all emigration to the United States.
Any marriage or wedding agency has its own huge databases. The names of potential brides, their addresses, photos, and biographies – as the candidates have chosen to present them – are provided to the client in printed form, on sheets or bound, or via the Internet. You pay for each address and go ahead: contact her yourself and write whatever you want.
Another way is free, but also via the Internet. There are dozens of electronic dating clubs on the web where anyone can post information about themselves and leave their address, indicating what type of relationship they are interested in: marriage, flirtation, adultery, or a long-term relationship without unnecessary formalities.
The names of these electronic clubs are the most romantic: 'Only You,' 'In Search of a Friend,' 'Kiss,' 'Date,' and the total number of women who have left their information on their servers exceeds 10,000.
But since not every single woman living outside the United States has a computer, as hard as it may be for an American to imagine, the information posted on the servers of electronic marriage agencies mostly belongs to women with a higher level of education. And in the process of obtaining it, as is well known, a woman does not get younger. So 'electronic club' brides, as a whole, although more educated and somewhat better off, are older and more experienced than their rivals from ordinary marriage agencies. Moreover, you won't find anything exotic, like girls from the Cape Verde Islands or from the village of Veseloye in the Ternopil region, in an electronic club.
The third way is self-promotion by women seeking a life partner and organizer of their leisure time through local newspapers and popular women's magazines, as well as through personal communication.
GEOGRAPHY
The total annual market volume of brides in the States is 100-150 thousand applicants. The composition of the market is, of course, international, but two main sources of brides are quite clearly visible: first, the Philippines, and second, the independent states of the former USSR. The leaders in supplying brides from the former Soviet Union are Russia and Ukraine.
For example, the database of one of the largest agencies, Cherry Blossoms, contains information on 6,000 women. 4,600 of them are from Southeast Asia (3,050 from the Philippines), 1,700 from the former Soviet Union (1,570 from Russia and Ukraine), and the rest from Latin and South America and European countries.
Representatives of other nations and ethnicities also marry Americans, of course, but not in such massive numbers and, so to speak, on an individual basis – without resorting to marriage agencies.
The import of brides is a highly profitable business. For instance, according to Bob Burrows, president of Cherry Blossoms, more than a thousand men come to him per month, and each leaves at least $200.
Most international marriage agencies do not work with all women indiscriminately but specialize in one direction: Southeast Asia, Latin and South America, the former USSR. All processes related to partner search are especially brisk in agencies that supply women from the former Soviet Union.
While comparable in purely quantitative terms (both are numerous), the two main 'bride-supplying' regions – Southeast Asia and the territory of the former USSR – differ sharply in the quality of the product supplied. Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, as well as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese brides wishing to find a husband in the United States are much younger than their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts.
WHY AN AMERICAN?
Foreign women choose American husbands for various reasons. But passionate love is far from the top of the list.
An analysis undertaken by the authors of the report shows: first and foremost, foreign women are driven by the desire for a better life – living in the United States is easier than in Indonesia, Korea, or Uman. It's not even that the States are more filling and peaceful, but that it's easier to find work and get an education here. This is the conclusion reached by experts who consulted the authors of the report. However, the brides themselves – if asked why they want to find a husband far away – answer that they like American men. According to the collective opinion of women who look at them from abroad, they are all so handsome and manly, all so similar to Hollywood movie heroes, all lead a proper lifestyle and do not cheat on their wives. While back home – in Indonesia, the Philippines, or Ukraine – men are generally not as interesting and courteous, and moreover, they tend to cheat...
Whether this is true or not is unimportant in this case. What matters is that women say this is what attracts them.
PORTRAIT OF A HUSBAND
It is clear that no Russian, Ukrainian, or Filipino girl would marry an American man if he did not want it. Well, if he did not consider it beneficial for himself as well. Here is a composite portrait of an American man who decided to use the services of an international marriage agency and order a wife from across the ocean.
Skin color: white – 96%.
Average age: 37 years.
Marital experience: divorced after 7 years of marriage – 7%.
Having children: 35%.
Desire to have children in the future: 75%
Education: college – 50%, M.D.s or Ph.D.s – 6%, high school – 5%.
Political views: conservative.
Position: middle and lower management – 42%.
Income: over $20,000 per year – 64%.
Place of residence: state capital (84%); California (22%).
Religion: Protestants – 48%, Catholics – 23%, other religions – 15%, atheists – 14%.
The author of this project, researcher David Yedlika, distributed an anonymous questionnaire to men who approached marriage agencies with a direct question: why do you need a non-American wife? And he received an equally direct answer: because non-American women are much more suited to family life, and most importantly, they are faithful to traditions in that regard.
First, when a U.S. citizen sets out – with the help of a marriage agency – to find a foreign wife, he is not looking for a woman, but for eternal, traditional values. The average American woman from a young age dreams and cares about not marriage and not about making the man who chose her happy. Her main concerns are education, career building, personal development, and satisfying her various interests. But a foreign woman who has submitted her information to an international marriage agency is far from all these ambitious thoughts; she is happy to be a housewife and demands nothing but a husband, a home, children, and household chores.
At least, that is what American men want to believe.
Second, based on the responses to the questionnaires, researchers conclude that mostly men who are not very confident and have had previous negative experiences with marriage or long-term relationships resort to the services of marriage agencies. By choosing a wife in this somewhat simplified way – after all, she initially offered herself – the man hopes that his dominant position will continue in the future and that in family life he will choose and direct, while she will gratefully yield and agree.
Third, by entering into a cross-cultural marriage, a man hopes that such a marriage will be stronger and that his foreign wife will love and appreciate him more – and will be less enthusiastic about using the chance to diversify the relationship (flirtation, adultery, marital infidelity).
AGE
According to Mila Glodava, only 10 percent of mixed marriages are relatively close in age – one spouse is younger (older) than the other by 4-6 years. In 90% of cases, the age difference is 20-50 years. A young wife, in terms of age, is also good because she can be raised the way you want and shaped into a life partner according to your personal ideas of what she should be like.
But these expectations of men, as a rule, are not met. They picked the wrong ones, so to speak. In psychological and emotional terms, women who put themselves on the bride market (sent their data to marriage agencies) are, by definition, uninhibited, tolerant, have no complexes, and adapt easily. One should not expect particular modesty or fidelity from them. Moreover, it is obvious that by choosing an American husband, they chose a country of residence and a way of life. The husband is merely a handy means of transportation, a kind of 'shuttle' delivering you to your destination.
ENTRY
Love is love, but a considerable number of women who marry a foreigner do so to move to their husband's country of residence and obtain the corresponding citizenship.
The husband, of course, can facilitate this. Obtaining the right to enter the United States on family grounds can be done fairly quickly, but only within certain quotas. The number of foreign spouses entering the country cannot exceed a certain ceiling. The average annual number of spouses entering the United States is 54 thousand.
How many of them are driven not by love but by the desire to acquire resident status is hard to say: another's soul is dark. But it is enough to read what they write in their resumes to prove their readiness to marry an American – and it becomes clear that they have more than just love on their minds. (You can enjoy some excerpts from this correspondence on the last page of the newspaper. Usually, we publish humor there.)
On average, from the wedding day to the day of receiving a 'green card,' three months pass. After two years of married life, the foreign spouse has the right to apply for resident status.
Thus, women immigrating to the United States through marriage arranged by international agencies make up less than 6% of all immigrants. The remaining 94% of citizens from various countries who marry Americans meet their future chosen one in a more traditional way: during vacations or holidays, at work, during studies, internships, or tourist trips.
Many marriage agencies publish catalogs containing data on hundreds of our women of various ages with descriptions of physical attributes and biographies; the catalog can be ordered by mail for $29.95. For an additional $99, interested clients can select video materials on eight potential wives.
After subscribers have identified a potential wife (or several wives), the company can organize a tour to Ukraine, during which men can meet the women whose photos they liked, as well as a wide range of other women and girls. They say our women spend almost their entire salary to attend such an introduction evening – first, the invitation is paid, and second, they need to dress up somehow. But they do not know that at this evening there will be only a dozen or two men and several hundred women. The chance that a potential groom will choose you is very small.
Agencies organize these out-of-town evenings also to film lively, dressed-up women trying to please for their catalog, as well as for a video that will air during late-night hours as 'infomercials' on cable television.
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