While doing research for this article, I was horrified by what I found on the internet. There are just as many websites that condone mail order brides as there are articles with horror stories of slavery and prostitution of these women once they’ve entered another country. More research revealed balance between the two ends, and the results are documented here.
When immigration into other countries was at it’s peak, in the early 1800’s, men who moved to countries such as Germany and the United States often contacted their homeland once they were settled and made arraignments for their families to send them a wife. This was not considered mail order brides, but more like arraigned marriages, a practice still fairly common today.
There is another school of thought that women-particularly Russian women- advertise them selves on mail order bride websites in order to come to the US and other countries for the sole purpose of escaping financial hardship in their own countries and marry a rich American. This is also not the case, although I’m sure this has happened not only with Russian women, but women from all countries who sign up for the mail order services. The media encourages this line of thought through popular TV shows-Law and Order did an episode on exactly this topic-a Russian mail order bride service where the women went willingly into prostitution because American men had more money to pay.
There are horror stories about what happens to these women. That they are passed around by their rich husbands to friends and anyone else willing to pay, or that they are murdered for life insurance money soon after they arrive in the country, or ordered to the country by sweat shop owners for the purposes of slave labor. Some sites advertise that their women available for mail order are demure and quiet and will not argue with you or try to take all of your money- not like the loud American women!
I believe that neither one of these examples are cut and dry, that there are truths and fabrications to each side of the mail order bride story. However, I could not find realistic sounding testimony to mail order bride happiness during my research for this article. That part of the topic appears to be missing.
Close to home, Alaskan residents have their own site where they can ask for mail order brides from another country-but usually just from the mainland-simply because there aren’t a lot of women in Alaska. The same is true for other parts of the world where the weather is not conducive to anything but fishing or lumber for a living. Mail order was a very common practice when Alaska first became settled.
I suggest that if you are interested in mail order brides to do a good amount of research on the topic. Type mail order brides into your search engine and you, too, can get both sides of the story.