A Few Misbeliefs About Mailorder Brides
The idea that most of these women are poor, poorly educated, or come from the bottom of the social heap in their own countries is also a misconception.
The truth is that, with a few exceptions, exactly the opposite is true. If you look at the biography of these women you will find that the overwhelming majority are college graduates. More than a few are professionals such as doctors, dentists and the like. If you think about it this makes a lot of sense. Most of the women seeking husbands in the international bride market have to do so using a language other than their own... English. For this reason alone, most of the poorly educated women in the world are unable to play the game. In fact, this is true for virtually all countries except one. That country is the Philippines.
The Philippines is the one country where even the very poor and often poorly educated woman can still participate in the bride-by-mail game. The reason is that English is a required subject in Philippine schools beginning at a very early age. In fact, all courses in Philippine schools from high school onward are taught in English. This gives Filipinos, even the very poor ones at the bottom of the social ladder, the ability to participate in the process necessary to pursue a husband via letter writing. This is not true of other countries.
Virtually all the women from other non-English speaking countries who become involved in seeking husbands by this method are well educated. The ones who lack sufficient English language ability are usually not successful in finding a husband if they try. Most don't ever try.
The reason why the women with the best educations are often the ones seeking foreign husbands is because these are the women who have the greatest difficulty finding husbands at home. In most of the countries where these women come from, men do not want wives who are either more obviously intelligent or better educated than they are. The better educated a women becomes, the less likely she is to find a husband at home.
It has never been true that all the women who marry American men in this way are Asian. Even before the collapse of worldwide communism there were a significant number of them coming from Latin America. The reason for the misconception that they are all Asian is because, prior to the fall of the iron curtain, and the opening of east-west travel, the vast majority of these women came from the Philippines. In fact, if you look at all the available women who are Asian, even today half of them are Filipinos.
Today, however, the fastest growing segment of the bride-by-mail movement involves Caucasian women from Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe. There are many matchmaking companies whose sole business involves women from there and which do not handle Asian women at all.
This week's contribution is from Gary Clark, the author of, "Your Bride Is In The Mail."
