Abstract

Contrary to popular belief, mail-order marriage is not left behind in history. With technological advancement, globalism, and capitalism, mail-order relationships in the modern world have become a capitalist venture through the form of a global marriage market with Internet websites (Starr & Adams, 2016, pp. 968-969). Currently, the common practice operates internationally in between different nations and ethnicities (Merriman, 2012, p. 87). However, the mail-order bride market is distinct from the regular intercultural dating business: a clear power structure exists between the grooms (capitalist along with mail-order marriage companies) and the brides (commodities). This paper examines how this dating market serves Western men (I will be using this term interchangeably with American men) to reinforce traditional Western masculine hegemony and ethnic dominance in a global setting (Starr & Adams, 2016, p. 972).

Highlights

  • Mail-order marriages are cross-cultural relationships facilitated by international matchmaking websites, usually positioning women from developing countries as brides and men from developed countries as grooms (Amy, 1997, p. 368)

  • The desire to find a match overseas has grown, and mail-order bride services are gaining immense popularity (Date4u, 2021). Traffic to their websites has tripled for the last ten years, and they currently have "over 2 million visits a month, while the number of mail order bride marriages only in the US has reached around 10,000 a year," making American men the most active grooms amongst all (Date4u, 2021)

  • "but aren't they supposed to present themselves as domestic and sexually passive to be the opposite of independent American women?" this is where we see the hypocrisy of the foreign women having to be sensual and passionate in bed and modest and nurturing for Western men to desire them (Starr & Adams, 2016, p. 966)

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Summary

Introduction

Mail-order marriages are cross-cultural relationships facilitated by international matchmaking websites, usually positioning women from developing (or third-world) countries as brides and men from developed countries as grooms (Amy, 1997, p. 368). Mail-order marriages are cross-cultural relationships facilitated by international matchmaking websites, usually positioning women from developing (or third-world) countries as brides and men from developed countries as grooms Not many women from the colonies wanted to immigrate and start a family in the unpromising, struggling land in this early stage of America, so the colonists would bring mail-order brides to stabilize the country's population The desire to find a match overseas has grown, and mail-order bride services are gaining immense popularity (Date4u, 2021) Traffic to their websites has tripled for the last ten years, and they currently have "over 2 million visits a month, while the number of mail order bride marriages only in the US has reached around 10,000 a year," making American men the most active grooms amongst all (Date4u, 2021). The agencies claim to make "as much as $6,000–$10,000 per client," making them "an enormous profit while operating with minimal costs" considering the increasing number of mail-order bride demands (Branagan, 2019)

American Dominance in Global Society
The Paradox of Domestic Exotic
Contemporary Issues for Grooms
Contemporary Issues for Brides
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