1. Kevin - June 10, 2009 at 5:00 pm

   I would think that the Philipino’s standard of living is likely increased by a move from the Phillipines to the United States. And it is likely that her future children’s well being is also improved. If anything, it seems the relationship would therefore reduce gender and race inequalities.

2. Jack Krevins - June 10, 2009 at 7:51 pm

   I wouldn’t do it, but I fail to see the argument against it. It is free speech and it is romance and hopefully love. People meet on Second Life and World of Warcraft and Match.com and eHarmony…what is the difference?

3. Marcia Zug - June 11, 2009 at 8:19 am

   The argument against it is that it can create a very dangerous situation for women. Women who are seeking better lives put a lot of trust in these services and the men they match them with but not infrequently the result are catastrophic. Many of the men interested in mail order brides believe they will be more docile and subservient than American women, if/when these women fail to live up to such expectations they frequently become the victims of abuse and on occasion murder. In response to the murder of one mail order bride, Anastasia King, Congress passed the International Marriage Broker regulation act, incorporated in The Violence Against Women Act, which requires background checks for all marriage visas and limits serial visa applications.

4. Kevin - June 11, 2009 at 10:16 am

   Marcia Zug: That is an interesting argument, but to evaluate it, we would need evidence concerning what proportion of women end up in these abusive relationships and how bad they are. We would then need to weigh that against the improved standard of living and quality of life that all the rest of the wives experience. We would also need to consider the value that the husbands accrue from mail-order-marriages.

   Without performing this exercise, the argument is merely anecdotal. I, for one, am not keen on restricting peoples’ freedom through paternal regulation based on anecdotes.

5. Brett Bellmore - June 11, 2009 at 10:18 am

   The funny thing is, the women think of it as getting mail order husbands. They’re generally quite enthusiastic about the whole thing, my wife is continually pestered by her cousins back home to find them husbands. You do realize that the men don’t get to pick the women, it’s little more than an international dating service, with no guarantee that any of the women, let alone the one you might prefer, will pick YOU?

   It’s the main thing that keeps internet cafes running in the Philippines, and remitances from the women are a major support to the Philippine economy. Perhaps that’s why I noticed no evidence of enforcement of this law, beyond the manditory “your rights as a foreign bride” class the women have to complete before leaving the country.

   I met my wife through such an outfit, and we’re both quite happy about it. I’d ask Marcia whether she has hard numbers to back up that “frequently”; I’ve met a fair number of such couples, and “henpecked” would be a better description of the relationships, though in a mild way. If there was any abuse going on, it might have been a patient form of immigration fraud, women who were only willing to put up with their new husbands until their status in the US was permanent.

   It’s true, the whole thing makes some people very unhappy; The American women who don’t want to compete with younger foreign women who actually look forward to being housewives, the foreign men who don’t want to compete with American machinists and engineers. But, not the men and women who are actually taking part in the arrangement.

6. Marcia Zug - June 11, 2009 at 10:44 am

   Unfortunately, there are many sources that back me up even though actual numbers are hard to find, but that is frequently a problem with domestic violence issues in general. I apologize if my comments have offended anyone. The frequent criticism of the law is that it brands all men interested in mail order brides as potential abusers. This is a valid criticism but does not address the fact that abuse in such marriages has been shown to be more likely.

   The following excerpt is from the US Citizen and Immigration Services:

   “While no national figures exist on abuse of alien wives, there is every reason to believe that the incidence is higher in this
   population than for the nation as a whole. Authorities agree that abuse in these marriages can be expected based on the men’s
   desire for a submissive wife and the women’s desire for a better life. At some point, after the alien bride has had time to adjust to
   the new environment, to make new friends, and to become comfortable with the language, her new independence and his
   domination are bound to conflict. The problem, according to Mila Glodava (Glodava and Onizuka, 1994) and Uma Narayan
   (Narayan, 1995), is largely due to the men’s unrealistic expectations. While many state a desire for a submissive wife, they find
   that such dependence becomes a burden. To provide some relief, the husband seeks ways (friends, activities) that will get the
   wife “out of the house” on occasion. The resulting independence then angers the husband who manifests the anger on the wife,
   who may have only been guilty of trying to please her husband. ”
   http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/MobRept_AppendixA.pdf

   Similarly in European Connections & Tours, Inc. v. Gonzales, which concerned a challenge to the International Marriage Broker Act the district court judge stated the following:

   “The rates of domestic violence against immigrant women are much higher than those of the U.S. population as a whole and have in common with women brokered through international marriage brokers a number of factors, including the dependency of the immigrant woman on the U.S. citizen for her legal status. ( Id. at pp. 68-69.) An estimated 70% of abusive U.S. citizen spouses, including those who consummate relationships through IMBs, withhold the filing of the proper paperwork necessary to validate the legal status of their immigrant female partners to cause them to fall out of legal status and to hold the threat of jail or deportation over the woman. ( Id.) Estimates by the National Institute on Justice are that over 73 percent of domestic violence cases go unreported. (Tr. at pp. 77.)

   While many cases do go unreported, there have been notable cases of extreme violence committed by United States citizens toward “mail-order brides.” These cases have occurred across the United States, including in the states of Alabama, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. 151 Congr. Rec. S 17353 (2005). A review of the details of the cases, as presented to the Senate, indicates that many of the cases involved the drugging, isolation, stalking, sexual abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse, and, in some instances, even the murder of the female, immigrant spouse. See id. Furthermore, the United States male perpetrators of these crimes often were involved with multiple foreign women and were seeking to become involved with other foreign women at or around the time they committed the crimes.”

   See also, Michelle J. Anderson, A License To Abuse: The Impact of Conditional Status on Female Immigrants, 102 Yale L.J. 1401, 1402-03 (1993) describing the higher rates of abuse for immigrant women

7. Brett Bellmore - June 11, 2009 at 11:20 am

   What I see there is reasoning that abuse *ought* to be more common, but a lack of hard numbers. But I will agree that anybody expecting one of these women to be “submissive” is setting themselves up for disappointment.

   I just want to underscore that “mail order bride” is a very misleading term. What we’re talking about here is are online dating systems, which in no way guarantee that a marriage will ever result. All they do it provide a means for interested parties to find each other, and it ends there. In my experience, once the couples become interested, they switch to other chat services such as yahoo messenger, and the involvement of the original service ends.

   It’s about as shady as any dating service.

8. Kevin - June 11, 2009 at 3:45 pm

   All this says is that there are theoretical reasons to think that mail order brides might be abused more than home-grown wives. I, for one, would think a government should have to meet a higher burden than an unsupported theory should it want to outlaw a consensual relationship.

9. Frank Johnson - August 1, 2009 at 7:14 am

   I think Layli Miller-Muro (who drafted and propagandized IMBRA in order to get more tax dollars for her organization, the Iranian radical religious group the Tahirih Justice Center cult) as well as the U.S. government should keep their big noses out of people’s private affairs. If Uncle Sam wants to snoop, he should do a thorough investigation of Layli Miller-Muro’s lies and scams, her Iranian radical religious cult the Bahai Faith and Layli’s Tahirih Justice Center’s mis-use of huge unaudited sums of taxpayer money for fraudulent means, especially her money laundering for the Bahai Faith.

10. Delphi_Programmer - August 26, 2009 at 6:45 am

    I think claims that men seek “submissive” wives is grossly overstated. Most men are just seeking a woman who will accept them for who they are. Women in the Unites States have very high material standards. These include looks, achievement, youth, money and social status, among other things. Many men do not fit into this narrow window of expectation. The ability to expand and seek women from around the world gives men the opportunity to 1) gain increased exposure, and 2) find a woman who will be happier with what he has to offer in his present situation.

    When these men marry, I would think they’d be more appreciative of their foreign brides on the whole. I know I am. We are not looking for a made, sex servant or prostitute. We are looking for a friend and companion. What is so criminal about that?

11. Ben - November 12, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    I think all the talk about the American men being abusers and shouldn’t be allowed to marry women from another country, is untrue and far-fetched.

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