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Mail-Order Brides
Francis T. McAndrew
Knox College, Galesburg, IL, USA
Synonyms
International brides;Internet brides;Picture brides
Definition
Mail-order brides are women who are explicitly
seeking marriage and advertise themselves with
agencies that publicize their availability.
Introduction
The term “mail-order bride”originated on the
American frontier in the nineteenth century. At
that time, the number of men on the frontier far
outnumbered the number of available women, and
lonely farmers and ranchers would seek wives
from “Back East”by placing ads in newspapers
and magazines. Interested women would write
back and send photographs, and the couple did
not usually meet in person until the woman
showed up for her wedding.
The Modern Mail-Order Bride Industry
Twenty-first-century mail-order brides advertise
themselves through international marriage agen-
cies. These agencies have names such as
AnastasiaDate.com,Loveme.com,
RussianBrides.com, and GlobalLadies.com.
What distinguishes mail-order brides from other
mate-seeking women is that they are trying to
expand their pool of eligible mates across national
borders, and they do so in a way that preserves a
freedom of choice that would be greatly dimin-
ished if they were to employ more traditional
matchmakers. Most mail-order brides now come
from Southeast Asia (especially Thailand and the
Philippines), Latin America (often Colombia and
Brazil), and Russia and the Ukraine. The prospec-
tive husbands they seek come primarily from the
United States or Western Europe, although there is
a market for foreign brides in South Korea and
Japan as well (Johnson 2007; Ordoñez 1997). As
Wilson (1998) has observed, the photographs of
these women that are placed on an agency’s
website are in some sense “passport photos for
foreign eyes and a ticket out of Southeast Asia”
(p. 117) or wherever else from which they
might hail.
Another factor that may influence a woman to
seek a husband as a mail-order bride is family
pressure, especially when she has already reached
an age by which she is supposed to have been
married. Kojima (2001) identified this pressure to
escape the social stigma attached to single women
#Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_137-1
in Korea as a primary motive for Korean women’s
emigration to Japan in search of a husband.
Recent Research on Mail-Order Bride
Mating Strategies
Although the motives of women seeking Western
husbands are often driven by economic concerns,
this is not always the case (Johnson 2007;
Minervini and McAndrew 2006); mail-order
brides are drawn from throughout the social spec-
tra of their respective societies. In two studies,
Minervini and McAndrew (2006) examined the
mate preferences of mail-order brides from
Colombia, Russia, and the Philippines. They
conducted in-depth interviews with several
“brides,”husbands of mail-order brides, and the
proprietor of a mail-order bride agency in Colom-
bia. These interviews revealed that a wide range of
factors play a role in the mail-order bride mating
strategy. When asked why American customers
seek Latina women, the proprietor of the match-
making service said that American men prefer
Latina women as wives because they are believed
to take better care of their husbands and are more
tender, warm, and dedicated to their home than are
American women. The matchmaker also reported
that his American customers sought women who
were younger than themselves and those who had
stereotypically Latin features such as tan skin and
long, dark hair. Latina women, he believed, are
interested in American men because they are
thought to be more faithful, less jealous, and less
chauvinistic than Latino men. The interviews cap-
tured the irony of situations in which women who
were attempting to escape from traditional con-
straints were being matched with men who were
attempting to find a wife whom they believed
would embrace these very constraints.
For example, an American man who married a
mail-order bride had this to say about family life:
The husband and wife are equal partners in the
family structure,though not the same. Men and
women are different in physical and mental abili-
ties. I feel that the wife has her place in the family
structure,such as giving more care to children,the
house,and things of that nature. The husband
should take care of income and things of that
nature.
Similarly, another former husband (age 65) of a
mail-order bride stated that he felt that American
women:
were too interested in what I was worth
[economically]. With women’s liberation in the
USA,I had them calling me,coming to my house.
Before,the man called the woman when he wanted
to date her;the woman was not the initiator. Now is
so different from what I grew up with,so I thought
that the best thing to do was to meet someone that
can’t just come to my house.
A woman now living in the United States
explained her reasons for becoming a mail-order
bride:
I met men in Colombia,I was married,I had my
experience. I decided to look for something differ-
ent,try men from another culture that might be
better than ours. American men are more serious;
[they]worry and respect their wife.
Thus, the mail-order bride business as it now
operates may be in the perverse position of
attempting to match independent, nontraditional
women with very traditional Western men, a situ-
ation which frequently leads to dissatisfaction for
both parties.
Minervini and McAndrew (2006) surveyed a
group of Colombian women who were attempting
to become mail-order brides, and they compared
them with a group of Colombian women who
were not pursuing a husband in this way. In addi-
tion to asking about their preferences for a hus-
band, they also asked them what they thought men
were looking for in a wife. The responses of the
two groups to open-ended questions about mating
were much more similar than different, and the
items relevant to what they wanted in a prospec-
tive husband were the ones that showed the least
difference. Both groups emphasized the impor-
tance of sexual fidelity and commitment as traits
to look for in a mate as well as traits to advertise
about one’s self. These results line up nicely with
the responses to a third question in which the
women shared what they thought men sought in
a wife, as they believed that these were the two
most important qualities that men were after. In a
second study, Minervini and McAndrew also
2 Mail-Order Brides
found a high degree of agreement among mail-
order brides from Russia, Colombia, and the Phil-
ippines. Across the board, they found a preoccu-
pation with the very same characteristics (e.g.,
ambition, commitment to a relationship and chil-
dren, sexual fidelity, a mate that is somewhat
older) that have been documented by evolutionary
psychologists in a great many studies.
Mail-Order Brides and Domestic
Violence
It must also be acknowledged that there is a very
dark side to the mail-order bride experience.
Women who travel to a far-off country to marry
a stranger are putting themselves at great risk, and
grim statistics confirm the danger. Many incidents
of violence (including murder) against mail-order
brides have been well documented, especially in
the United States and South Korea (Crandall
et al. 2005; Osipovich 2005). It is not unreason-
able to assume that awkward or sinister men are
overrepresented in the pool of males who choose
to pursue mates from so far away, and women
should proceed with great caution if they choose
to explore mating opportunities in this fashion.
Conclusion
Women willing to become mail-order brides do
not appear to have a different agenda than other
mate-seeking women; they simply have discov-
ered a novel way to expand their pool of prospec-
tive husbands. However, the mail-order bride
mating strategy may be putting women at risk
for sexual and physical violence, and it may not
be the ideal way of connecting with men who
value independence in a mate.
Cross-References
▶Increased Mating Success/Access
▶Intimate Partner Violence
▶Marriage
▶Mate Preferences
▶Mate Selection Strategy
▶Mate Value
▶Mating Strategies in Conflict
▶Mating Systems
▶Opposite-Sex Relationships
▶Power Shifts in Male-Female Relationships
▶Relationship Satisfaction and Commitment
▶Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence
▶Women Marry Up
▶Women’s Long-Term Strategies
▶Women’s Mate Preferences
References
Crandall, M., Senturia, K., Sullivan, M., & Shiu-Thornton,
S. (2005). “No way out:”Russian-speaking women’s
experiences with domestic violence. Journal of Inter-
personal Violence, 20, 941–958.
Johnson, E. (2007). Dreaming of a mail-order husband:
Russian-American internet romance. Durham: Duke
University Press.
Kojima, Y. (2001). In the business of cultural reproduction:
Theoretical implications of the mail-order bride phe-
nomenon. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24,
199–209.
Minervini, B. P., & McAndrew, F. T. (2006). The mating
strategies and mate preferences of mail order brides.
Cross-Cultural Research, 40, 111–129.
Ordoñez, R. Z. (1997). Mail order brides: An emerging
community. In M. P. P. Root (Ed.), Filipino Americans:
Transformation and identity (pp. 121–142). Los
Angeles: Sage.
Osipovich, T. (2005). Russian mail order brides in US
Public Discourse: Sex, crime and cultural stereotypes.
In A. Štulhofer & T. Sandfort (Eds.), Sexuality and
gender in post-communist East Europe and Russia
(pp. 2131–2241). New York: Haworth Press.
Wilson, A. (1998). American catalogue of Asian brides. In
J. B. Cole (Ed.), Anthropology for the nineties
(pp. 114–125). New York: Free Press.
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