How brides are bought these days: the grimaces of international pandering

These days, it takes a minimum of effort to start a relationship. Many dating services offer their services, where you can find both a one-time sexual partner and a life partner. But, obviously, this is not enough, as the industry of selling brides in many countries continues to develop dynamically.

It may seem strange, but there are many well-to-do men in the world who are ready to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to get themselves an almost unknown spouse from a distant poor country. This is especially true for potential brides from Asia and Latin America, where socio-economic problems are truly inexhaustible.

For women, such a willing to pay groom is a chance to break out of poverty and help their family, and for men, “buyers”, there may be even more reasons for such a marriage. It should be noted that loneliness is far from the most common of them. Why is this strange business still running and what are the risks for brides agreeing to such a deal?

In the United States of the 19th century, owners of remote ranchers published advertisements in newspapers that they were looking for a woman who was ready to move from inhabited places to the wilderness. There were those who wanted to, because it is better to live a well-fed life somewhere in Utah than to live on bread and water in New York.

A few decades ago, the first international dating agencies appeared. At first, men chose their brides in printed catalogs, which the service had to retake on a regular basis. But after the advent of the Internet, everything was simplified as much as possible and this business reached serious proportions.

Today there are both universal sites and those specializing in girls and women from certain regions of the planet, for example, from South and Latin America, Southeast Asia or the CIS countries. On these resources you can find a bride of any age, including a very young one.

The clients of these sites are mostly men from the US, Western Europe or the Middle East. You can also meet suitors from Asia, for example from China and South Korea. Asian men marry women from Vietnam and Cambodia, and their women, in turn, look for husbands in the US, Canada or the UK.

Many of these online agencies are hugely popular. For example, the site AnastasiaDate.com, which offers dating women from Eastern Europe, is used by about 20 million people. Considering that most dating services are paid, you can imagine what kind of turnover this industry has.

Men pay for chatting with girls, pay a subscription fee for visiting a resource, or purchase various additional services, such as providing a VIP status or being able to watch videos of the +18 category. The Guardian, which was interested in this topic, reports that many wealthy suitors spend thousands of dollars annually on such virtual communication.

Often, agencies do not stop at providing information services and arrange for men to go “on the bride” to other countries, for example, to Russia, Ukraine or Kazakhstan. This is reminiscent of tours to foreign car markets, well known in our country.

Bride brides are held on a grand scale - the company rents a restaurant or a large office so that the grooms can chat with hundreds of applicants at once. Services are valued differently. For example, one of these agencies in Singapore offers to organize a trip to Vietnam with the choice of a bride and a simple wedding for only 5 thousand dollars. The whole trip, according to the company's managers, will take no more than a week. Another month will have to wait so that all the necessary documents are processed and the new wife can enter Singapore on a completely legal basis.

For women in the post-Soviet space, the desire to get married in order to leave their country, although somewhat faded since the 90s, has not completely disappeared. Most often, ladies who place their profiles on dating sites simply want to improve the quality of their lives. For many, even the appearance of the future and its age do not matter - they want to have a prosperous life for themselves and their children.

But not everyone is looking only for material well-being. Many see men from the USA and Western Europe as more faithful, caring and less aggressive life companions than their compatriots. Psychologists have found that an important reason for looking for a husband in other countries is an attempt to escape from traditional society.

Foreign suitors expect a little different from the girls. Here is how one of the most popular sites for foreign dating in the USA advertises Russian brides:

In addition, many men from developed countries are tired of women's emancipation and manifestations of feminism. They are saddened by the typically businesslike approach to marriage that is characteristic of many women in the United States, Britain and Germany. They also do not like the fact that the ladies in their countries are too active, for example, they invite themselves to visit or invite the first ones on dates. Sometimes the requirements for the bride explicitly state that she must not be "corrupted by feminism."

At the same time, grooms get the opportunity to marry girls who are 20 or even 30 years younger than them. They avoid peers from their countries, as they are too reminiscent of their previous marriages. Young compatriots are not too interested in elderly suitors and choose only very rich men.

The bridegroom of their rich country gets a young, obedient and devoid of ambition spouse, moreover, the most attractive and energetic. These wives hold on to their spouse, cook well and willingly perform any, even the most unpleasant, housework.

Unfortunately, the coin also has a downside. It is the “imported” wives who most often become the heroines of the criminal chronicle, suffering from violence. A 47-year-old South Korean man recently killed his 20-year-old Vietnamese wife. Prior to this, the couple lived together for only a week.

In Australia, where foreign wives are very popular among single men, Filipinas are the most affected. Among married women from Asia aged 20 to 39 years, victims of domestic violence are 6 times more than among local ones.

Many countries are trying to regulate the bride market or even protect their residents from such experiments. In Cambodia, a law was in effect for a year in 2008 banning tours for foreign grooms. In the country itself, there were fewer problems with this, but at the same time, the demand for girls from Vietnam increased.

In the Philippines, advertising for such agencies and dating sites has been banned since the mid-90s. Such measures were taken by the country's authorities after several horrific cases of mistreatment of Filipinas in other countries. But the dating sites themselves are not banned in the country, so thousands of women in the country annually leave for a new husband, putting themselves at risk.

More seriously approached the issue in the United States. There, in 2005, dating agencies were obliged to check potential suitors for a criminal record, as well as for sexual offenses. This paid off, but also did not solve the problem of domestic violence in families with foreign wives.

But even if the foreign husband turned out to be a decent and attentive person, “discharged” brides are rarely happy in such marriages. The fact is that they find themselves in a kind of vacuum in another country, whose traditions, and sometimes even the language, are unfamiliar to them. In this case, the only friend and interlocutor is the husband, whom the woman had seen before, at best, several times.

An unpleasant surprise for the brides is the fact that their hopes for family equality fail in the very first days. We have already mentioned that wealthy European and American suitors are looking for obedience in their wives.

All this leads to the fact that very soon the relationship between the spouses becomes cool and detached, with all the ensuing consequences. Husbands cannot understand what has changed in the new spouse, why she does not express joy at the sight of him and perform marital duties as another routine housework.

But it cannot be said that the injured party in such cases is always women. The Guardian journalist specially traveled to Odessa to attend the next bride-to-be hosted by a major international agency. He was surprised to find that many girls are not at all going to marry a rich foreigner and leave their native country.

Brides make every effort to extract more money and valuable gifts from men on their first dates. This fact allows us to say that the market works in both directions, supporting the consumer attitude both on the part of men and the fair sex.

By the way, there are quite happy ones among such marriages. There are cases when, thanks to such a dubious method of marriage, a girl found her happiness by marrying a rich, intelligent and kind man. Alas, but this is rather an exception, one in dozens, if not hundreds of tragic failures.

But all these stories are based on the conscious choice of adults. Much worse are the cases when children are sold to suitors.