By HEATHER THIBDEAU
Women’s Initiative
Published September 13, 2011
There exists today certain realities we would prefer be banished to the far reaches of history: poverty, famine, child labor and disease to name a few. However, one practice is still legal and booming in America right now, with real women and men, willingly selling themselves across the world to a stranger they have only met through letters or online communication. No, it is not prostitution or eHarmony: it is the mail order bride industry.
According to Jezebel.com, a radio station in Edmonton, Canada is holding a contest for one lucky male to receive a paid two-week trip to Russia to meet a Russian woman, courtesy of an American mail-order bride company. Assuring the public that all potential contestants must send questionnaires and appropriate photos, the top five candidates will undergo a “live on air…character assessment from friends and family, as well as psychometric testing and suitability for marriage testing by a psychologist” until the winner is selected via an online poll. In other words, after an (allegedly) strict selection process, the final guy will be chosen à la reality television, meaning that naturally only the most colorful character will be chosen for the greatest “LOL” outcome.
Enter the highest rated applicant, who claims that American and Canadian women “are too spoiled, always want their way and will take everything from a man if they are not happy and leave the man.” Good, so women with opinions and—I don’t know, standards?—are spoiled, selfish, and undesirable? How many women did he date before making blanket statements for all North American women? If this is the best the radio station can find, I have serious concerns about the outcome of the “lucky girl.”
Yet this still does not answer the question: why are 3,500 American men ordering brides each year? Can they not be bothered with conventional dating methods? Do they want a submissive wife to agree to anything to gain a green card? And why do women promote themselves this way?
It began during America’s colonization, when the land was so rugged and untamed that men worked incessantly to clear trees, start businesses, and simply survive. Once things settled down, so did the men, as they wrote home asking for a respectable, well-off wife. Contrast that to the sheer number of impoverished women today, trying to wed a rich Western man. In fact, all of the former Soviet Union states are very popular for mail order bride services, as economic conditions remain destitute for many citizens. Moreover, Duke University found that in Russian culture women strive to marry by 23, or else they are considered “too old.”
Naturally, every country that allows mail order brides (including ours) has strict stipulations and protections for both bride and groom, yet I still consider it slavery: slavery for the females who feel inadequate among their own people, slavery for the women who are too poor otherwise, and slavery for the fact that it is still the sale of a human being under the impression that the buyer will still assert control, even if it is for “love.”
