Years ago, when Marcia Zug read a GQ magazine article about mail-order brides, she was revolted. A high-flying New York City photographer, fed up with all the demanding models he was dating, wanted to find a subservient woman to make him happy. So he ordered a pretty bride from a foreign country.
When the bride got here, he found her annoying, too, so he sent her home—pregnant with his child—and went back to dating models.
Zug never forgot that piece. And even after she left her hometown of Manhattan to become a professor of family and immigration law at the University of South Carolina, she felt she had to expose the evil men who get their brides by mail. She delved into her research and guess what?
Now she’s married to a very different narrative. “I’m not suggesting that this is the marital path for everybody,” Zug said in a phone call. But in her new book, “Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches,” she presents “the exact opposite idea” she went in with. Far from depressing and degrading, mail-order matrimony “can actually be a very good choice for certain people in certain situations.” Yes, even for the women.
The book starts at the very dawn of mail-order love: Jamestown, Virginia, circa 1600. Unlike New England, which was settled by families, Jamestown was settled by men. Not only were conditions horrendous—one settler described it as “hell, a misery, a death”—there weren’t even any English-speaking women to commiserate with.
Some men high-tailed it home; others married Native American women and went to live in their villages. (Far comfier than Jamestown!) In desperation, the Virginia Company decided to try attracting Englishwomen. The incentive was to pay their dowries. For young women toiling as servants just to save up enough to marry, the offer was liberating, and about 140 came over.
They got to choose their husbands and seem to have been treated quite well, thanks to the laws of supply and demand. In fact, real laws were written to keep them happy. They could, for instance, legally break an engagement—something they couldn’t do back in England.
Fast forward to the western frontier a couple hundred years later, when once again, American men were heading out, and women weren’t. As much as these men needed wives, some women back east needed husbands, including women appalled by the local prospects, like the gal who placed this ad in a Missouri paper in 1910:
“Attractive women, not a day over 30, would be pleased to correspond with eligible man…. Would prefer one with property, but one with a good paying position would be satisfactory. The young lady is of medium height, has brown hair and gray eyes, not fat, although, most decidedly, she is not skinny. Her friends say she is a fine looking woman. Object matrimony. Reason for this advertisement, the young woman lives in a little dinky town, where the best catches are the boys behind the counters in the dry goods and clothing stores, and every one of ‘em is spoken for by the time he is out of his short pants.”
Gosh, I’d marry her—what spunk. Zug found little evidence of exploitation or mistreatment of these brides, and if you fast-forward to the current day, the same still holds.
Today, American men seeking brides can go on the computer and meet prospects as easily as online dating. Most of the women live in Asia or Eastern Europe. And while it seems like a terrible imbalance—seemingly any schlub with U.S. citizenship can attract a desperate catch from overseas—what’s really happening is a better marriage market for everyone.
“The women come from countries where their prospects are not great,” says Zug. Some live where they’re not allowed to pursue a career. Some live where they are worthless if divorced, widowed, already have children, or are simply too old, at perhaps 25. These ladies look to America, and the path to get here is marriage.
“The part that’s overlooked,” says Zug, “is that these men are often much more attractive to them than the men they see in their countries.”
For their part, the men are not allowed to marry women sight unseen. Legally they must meet at least once before they marry, and the mail-order sites organize trips to meet the prospects.
Once here, says Zug, the brides not only have far rosier prospects than back home, they often make the men shape up, too. As in, “I’m learning a whole new language. Go get your GED!”
And unlike the GQ article, many of these couples live happily ever after—maybe even happier than most, since everyone likes to get a surprise in the mail.
