Selects: How Mail Order Marriages Work

Everybody knows mail order marriages are at best a last resort for jerks looking to boss a foreign spouse around or, at worst, a front for human trafficking. Or are they? Yes and no. Mail order marriage comes with nuance and a surprisingly long history. Learn all about it in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:48Josh Clark?

  You may not know this, but the original purpose of Stuff You Should Know was to change people's minds about mail order marriages. And we certainly did with this episode. We were so successful that we decided to keep the podcast going. I'm just kidding for those of our listeners who have trouble detecting that kind of thing. What is true is that it's a surprisingly interesting episode and it may very well change your mind about mail order marriages. I was serious just now for those of our listeners who always think I'm kidding. How about we all just enjoy this episode, shall we?

• 2:24Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:34Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And this is Stuff You Should Know about mail-order marriages.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  The murky waters.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, really.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is one of those where we researched and researched and read and read. And I think it's one of those deals for me that's like, and this is just my opening statement.

• 3:04Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Where it can be a positive thing, like a dating service in some ways.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  But there is certainly a darker side to the whole situation.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  I already know how you feel about it, and I feel like it's coming through clearly.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's very, it's one of those really murky things where sometimes you hear of these really great stories about people that do find, are looking for love and find love with someone from another country, and it works out for everybody.

• 3:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  And then sometimes you hear about stories where it's sort of what the National Organization for Women's, Sonia Osorio, calls a softer version of human trafficking.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  Or even worse, occasionally, someone turns up murdered.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that's the truest dark side. So that's just me level setting, and we can talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

• 4:04Josh Clark?

  I think that was a great level set. I generally agree with it, but for me, the jury is still out in thinking about it as a whole because there's so little hard data on this stuff.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:16Josh Clark?

  Almost everything is anecdotal.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  True.

• 4:19Josh Clark?

  And when like you condemn something based on anecdotal data, what you've got there is a moral panic, not necessarily something in in reality. So I'm a little hesitant to go all the way. The jury's still out for me, but I definitely recognize the same stuff you do for sure. It's definitely there. It exists. It's just for me, the question is, how much does it exist? And does the good outweigh the bad? And I don't know. So we should, we should probably like, actually define what we're talking about here because I, most people I would guess are familiar with mail order brides. They're more, more recently, they've come to be called mail order marriages because they've been extended to same sex couples in the United States. But then also like even more generally, it's called international marriage brokerage. Right?

• 5:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, there's a full industry built around this with thousands of websites and agencies that are brokering these marriages. And, you know, from looking into it, it seems like there are some really above board ones that kind of act like an international dating service in some ways. Where they group, you know, match like people together. And then it seems like there are a lot of really sketchy ones that charge people a ton of money and aren't looking out for the men or the women.

• 5:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, none of that money is sunk back into making their website look at all non-cluji.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  I saw some really, really bad websites.

• 5:50Josh Clark?

  I mean, so bad, man. Like, I think I saw Comic Sans at one point.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's hard to see those and not think, well, A, this is a scam, or B, this is a front for some sort of seedy trafficking operation.

• 6:03Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah. It is tough not not to think like that. But but what we are talking about generally is a, a, a marriage where the husband and the wife are generally unknown to each other. Maybe have met once, but if they did, it's possible it was just a day or two before. Or maybe they've met once or twice and have done some correspondence back and forth for an extended period of time. But that's pretty new. And in the classical definition, it's they're generally unknown to one another.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  And one of them, usually the bride, travels a very long distance from home to move to the husband's home and make a life there and be married. That's not the Webster's definition. There's a lot more stumbling in my definition, but I think that generally gets it across.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know, the kind of the classic thing that you think of is lonely American man who has a little bit of money in his 40s or 50s, can't find an American woman, and ends up getting a young, beautiful, young Ukrainian woman who doesn't speak much English and would love to live in the United States and fall in love with an American man. And that's sort of, and you know, of course, it happens from all countries, but a lot of times you think of Russia and the Ukraine, or maybe in Southeast Asia or something like that. That is sort of, I feel like when people say that term, most people, that's probably what pops into their head.

• 7:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or I think you're being rather generous. I think a lot of people would be like, you know, some sad sack who can't like find a woman in America has to go look elsewhere to get really judgy about it. And I think people are really judgy about mail-order marriages. I think there's a longstanding tradition in the United States of considering people who go outside the traditional channels of marriage and basically take it into their own hands, like through mail-order marriage, are, they're very much judged harshly and criticized. Maybe, maybe fairly, maybe not. But I think there's another component too, especially these days, is that the men who

• 8:15Josh Clark?

  are looking for women, for mail-order brides, are also dominant, domineering, possibly abusive, and they're looking for docile women who will do whatever they say because they're the husband. So they have to go to other cultures where that might be more prevalent, and where they can select from women who might respond to that kind of thing a lot better than an American woman who wouldn't put up with his guff.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that is certainly a part of what happens sometimes, and some of these agencies promote that, the submissive nature. There was one that literally said that these young women are, quote, "unspoiled by feminism", and you have potential homemaking savings of $150 a week. Because you're essentially getting a, you know, sort of a live-in domestic servant.

• 9:03Josh Clark?

  Good lord.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  So, you know, that's the underbelly and the dark side. But we, you know, I did find some that do seem very above board and people that do genuinely look like they're looking for love and have struck out at home, so they're looking elsewhere.

• 9:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So I said, Chuck, and we should also say one other thing, too, like, you know, it's pretty, like, it's a pretty well-known thing in America. It's not like on everybody's lips. You don't hear it in every monologue on the late-night talk shows or anything like that. But like, generally, people in America are familiar and know about mail-order marriages. But it turns out, it's even bigger in other countries, like Taiwan and South Korea have huge mail-order marriage industries that may even dwarf the United States. And it's pretty, I don't want to say it's huge in the United States, but it's not like just some small speck sliver of like arcane group of people. Like, it's bigger than you'd think. But it's even bigger in some other Asian countries as well.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, and Dave Ruse helped us put this together, and this was a tough assignment for him. But he used a lot of information from a book by a legal professor, originally from the University of South Carolina, named Marsha Zug, called Buying a Bride, insert colon, music, Jerry, An Engaging History of Mail Order Matches, where it seems like she gives a, you know, a fair but fairly full-throated defense of its history through the ages, as far as, and we'll get into this, but as far as an opportunity for a lot of women to gain more agency and to gain more rights at a time when they might not have

• 10:44Speaker 04

  any, all the way up through today, where she still defends it to a certain degree and, and says, you know, like, sure, these situations can be bad, but what's really bad is what undocumented immigrants have to suffer through in this country because they have no legal rights. They can't go to the police. They can't leave their, their spouse or their partner for fear of deportation. And it's an interesting take, I think, and I'm glad that Dave. Found this book, you know, because I don't, I'm not sure that I would have been as fair.

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, no, she definitely almost, I get the impression that she is defensive on behalf of the industry just because of how mistreated it's been and in her opinion unfairly in large part.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, because you know, I think it very much has an anti feminist rap for good reason, but she does make some compelling arguments that throughout history, it wasn't that way at all. And I guess we can go ahead and dive into some of that.

• 11:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  In the early days of male order marriages in the American colonies.

• 11:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 04

  There was a, a, a lack of women problem in the, in the early colonies.

• 11:57Josh Clark?

  I mean, like the earliest colonies, we're talking like Jamestown here.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, you know, the Puritans and pilgrims, they may have come over with their families, but there were a lot of single men that came over. And a lot of them, uh, some of them may like run off with an indigenous woman and live with among her tribe. And be like, you know what, I'm kind of done building things for Jamestown. I'm out of here.

• 12:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  So that's no good. Uh, if they're looking for young men to like, kind of help build up these young colonies. And then other ones were just lonely and said, hey, like, I, there are no women over here. What are we supposed to do? So very early on, uh, they started, um, sort of advertising and bringing, uh, women, you know, supposedly volunteers over who wanted to come to the colonies and, and sort of have maybe even more rights than they had back home.

• 12:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And this is a really good example of kind of like a, a thread that ran through the first couple centuries of America's founding. Which was government sanctioned and supported, um, male order marriages in order to help build more stable communities, right?

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:10Josh Clark?

  The, the, um, legislatures did things like create laws that made it more attractive for a woman. To become a mail order bride in this area. Like, um, apparently in England, uh, if you became a widow, you, you got a third of the estate and that was it. And in places like Virginia and I think Maryland as well, they set up laws that basically said, hey, you're gonna keep a lot more than that. You can run your own business afterward, like being a widow's gonna rock. And did we mention also, the men are dropping dead like flies over here. So your husband's probably gonna die pretty quick. So if you don't like him, who cares? You still get to keep all this inheritance and you get to keep the business. And you can't do quite that well for yourself under those circumstances back in England.

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  So that attracted people and that was like the government saying like, please come over here and marry these strangers that you've never met before.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know, it made sense for a lot of these young women because many of them were, uh, you know, they were from like the servant class, let's say. So they were looking at years of servitude, uh, in England. And then they basically were like, well, hey, forget all that. Why don't you just come over here, get married? And like you said, I think the stat is even, uh, one in three marriages lasted 10 years.

• 14:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:25Speaker 04

  So they did kinda sell them on the fact that, yeah, if it's not so great, he'll probably be dead soon enough.

• 14:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  And then you can have his stuff.

• 14:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it actually, I mean, like that, that actually did, um, uh, like attract some women. I think at least, uh, I don't, I don't know if we have the number, but there definitely were what they called tobacco, uh, wives, uh, who came to marry new tobacco planters who were setting up their own fortune. And I, I actually had to prove that they were a financial means by donating 150 pounds of Gold Leaf tobacco to the Virginia company to, to take part in this, right? And so, um, that, that lasted as long as it lasted or as long as it needed to. And as the eastern colonies started to like, become more self-sufficient, um, became less rowdy, became more family oriented as far as the Europeans were concerned,

• 15:17Josh Clark?

  um, the, the need for like those mail order schemes, um, kinda went away. But then as America kind of expanded further and further west. The frontier kept recreating itself in different places. So, you know, it went from the eastern colonies to, you know, along the Mississippi, and then further and further out west. And every time it did that, this new iteration of the frontier was settled by rowdy men. And they would have to figure out a way to get women, to attract women to come out to marry the rowdy men, so they would stop beating each other up in bar fights and, and become more productive citizens. And that kept going on throughout the, the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know, if you're already thinking, guys, this, this already sounds terrible, these marriages based on these financial arrangements.

• 16:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  And, you know, despite these promises of a better life, like, that's kind of what we're talking about. Like, welcome to marriage in the 17th and 18th century.

• 16:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, don't be so naive.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's not, that's kind of what it was. And, and Dave made a, a good point, like, the notion of marrying for true love, that's a very much like a 20th century proposition.

• 16:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  Uh, even if it wasn't a mail order bride situation, it was someone's dowry, or, or parents sort of arranging marriages and saying, these family, this family should marry this family, which still goes on today, I should point out, among like, the blue chip in the high society.

• 16:47Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  Like, and Arthur had to marry Susan, you know, let's not forget that.

• 16:52Josh Clark?

  Everybody with a Habsburg jaw was in an arranged marriage, I'm guessing.

• 16:56Speaker 04

  He couldn't marry Liza Minnelli.

• 16:58Josh Clark?

  Oh, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were making the, uh, movie reference. I thought you were, I thought you were using-

• 17:04Speaker 04

  What other Arthur and Susan?

• 17:05Josh Clark?

  I thought you were using like, Biff and Muffy, like, general, uh-

• 17:08Speaker 04

  Oh, Arthur and, okay, sure.

• 17:10Josh Clark?

  Blue blood.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:12Josh Clark?

  I got it now, I got it.

• 17:13Speaker 04

  But the point is, is that marriage was a financial arrangement many and most times back then. I'm, I'm not saying no one ever married because they were in love, I'm sure that happened. But they had to tick a lot of boxes back then. So it was just sort of the way it was. And so this solved problems for early settlers and for westward expanders. They made things really attractive in California for women. They made it easier to divorce your husband if you wanted to. They made it easier to, or just legal to own and sell, buy and sell land, which is not something you could do at other places in the country. So they were trying to make it an attractive situation for women to move west because they needed men and women out there.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  And I think the, between 1850 and 1860, the, the population of women in California increased from 3% to 19%,

• 18:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 04

  of the total population. So it was working.

• 18:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was. And it wasn't just California, but Washington State also participated. I think Oregon may have as well. And there would be, there, the, the schemes, and I don't mean scheme like, you know, like dastardly scheme, but like a, a plan.

• 18:27Speaker 04

  A good scheme.

• 18:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Where like a guy would go around to the bachelors out in like Washington territory and be like, give me a hundred bucks, or I think 300 bucks, which is about five grand today. And I will bring you a suitable wife. And at least one guy did this. Asa Mercer was a marriage broker. And he would go back east, say, hey, there's like this great booming economy out west. Why don't you come with me? And like, he would return with like a hundred women. And some of them would get married immediately. Some would wait. But it was like another, it was another thing where there was a need for women to stabilize an out of control male population.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. And you know, Zug points out very fairly in her book that some of these Mercer girls from, as they were called, from Asa Mercer's operation, became abolitionists, some became women's rights advocates and social reformers. One of them's name was, it's a great name, Mehitable Haskell Elder.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  And she organized the 1871 Women's Rights Conference in Olympia, Washington, and recruited one Susan B. Anthony as the Territory Delegate for the National Women's Sufferings Association Convention.

• 19:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  So, you know, in a lot of cases, these women did find agency and they did get out of a better situation than they were in back east.

• 19:51Josh Clark?

  Hey, so you want to take a break and then we'll talk about the, probably what was the real birth of mail-order marriages?

• 20:00Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 20:01Josh Clark?

  Okay, we'll be right back.

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• 22:44Josh Clark?

  All right, Chuck, so we've been talking to this point about basically like government sanctioned schemes to kind of stabilize male populations. There was also at the same time, beginning in the 19th century, I think starting in England, actually in the 18th century, that was kind of simultaneously unfolding. And that was the matrimonial advertisement industry, which to me is like the real birth of the mail order marriage industry that we understand today. But it was basically the personal ads.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was the birth of personal ads, the birth of dating services. It's really interesting in that women would put ads in London and then later on in the United States, ads in the paper, basically saying, you know, hi, this is who I am, this is what I'm looking for. I mean, much like you would see these days in like a dating profile. And it was a way for them to, you know, to take some agency over avoiding the arranged marriage that their parents had set up for them and maybe get a little bit of choice of suitors.

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  Right. And I mean, like that is like taking control of your own. Of your own marriage prospects and it was, I guess radical is probably a pretty good word, but it picked up, it caught on, especially in the US by the end of the 19th century, it really started to catch on to where there were like magazines that were like dedicated just to matrimonial advertisements, right?

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  Like there was the matrimonial news, which is actually the most straight ahead of all of them.

• 24:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like Cupid's Messenger, that sounds like a cute one.

• 24:24Josh Clark?

  What about Heart and Hand?

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Heart and Hand, and then to me, this one, I guess they were just trying to play it really safe, the Standard Correspondence Club.

• 24:34Josh Clark?

  Right, good day to you.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Right, exactly.

• 24:38Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, so these things were like kind of popular by the end of the 19th century. But then, it's like you said earlier, the, by the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, our ideas about what constituted marriage or the reasons for marriage had transitioned from financial arrangements into love in America, right? And so, there was simultaneously a popularity of matrimonial advertisements and people taking control of their own marriage prospects. And at the same time, a criticism and a, like, society generally looking down upon people who did that kind of thing. So, there would be stories in the paper of people like sad sack bachelors or lonely

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  heart widows getting conned or swindled or getting fooled, catfished, basically is what you'd call it today. And people love to read that kind of stuff and laugh at their misfortune and look down on these people. And that, that's where like the root of what people still do today to the mail order marriage industry, at least in America, really finds its roots in the 20th century.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, and this is when things started transitioning to overseas. When American men started bringing in women from foreign countries. And that's when, I think that's when it became a bit more of an industry. And this is when Congress got kind of full on racist in trying to control this thing.

• 26:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  Cause there was, you know, there were women saying, I don't want these women coming into our country and disrupting our feminist agenda that we're trying to push. There were men saying, we don't want this, people from China or Japan coming in here. And, you know, they can, they can have babies once a year and they like, there were senators literally saying these things.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 04

  And so they would enact laws, like, you know, we're going to be overrun, basically. So they would enact laws, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to ban Chinese immigration. There was a loophole for Japan with the 1907 Gentleman's Agreement, which basically said, if you, that a Japanese woman and their kids could come over if they were married. So there were Japanese, single men already in the United States that immigrated over here, that would get married sight unseen from like a catalog, basically, in order to gain immigration status for the Japanese women.

• 27:08Josh Clark?

  And then that ultimately got shut down in 1924 with the Immigration Act. And they just said, no Japanese immigration of any, any kind now, after that. So there was a huge anti-Asian thread from the late 19th century and the early 20th century, based on immigration. And a lot of that kind of centered on mail order marriages. But then, one of the other things that, that really kind of cropped up as a result of mail order marriages going from like, women back east, or women coming from Europe, to women coming from Asia to marry white, American men, was there, there was this idea

• 27:48Josh Clark?

  that the women were nothing more than like, looking for a green card, basically, American citizenship, trying to escape their own country. And you run into that criticism today, I mean, just as much as you would have back in 1924, when they passed the Immigration Act against Japanese people.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, because, you know, and this is from Zug's book. She talks about, you know, Mexican women, Greek women, Asian women, Jewish women, Italian women, they were much more likely to be deported under an LPC charge, which is a person that is likely to become a public charge, basically, like to come over and sort of live off the government. If they were from these countries and a way around that was to get married and get that green card, so that criticism like came pretty straight away, I think.

• 28:39Josh Clark?

  Right, and then the other one is that, that they were basically all just sex workers in disguise, coming over under the guise of being

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 28:48Josh Clark?

  mail order brides, but really they were coming over here to prostitute themselves and behave immorally. And again, this is another accusation that you see today, except the, the, the onus has, or the, the focus, the empathy, I guess, has evolved from being put on society, being attacked by these immoral women

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 29:12Josh Clark?

  to the women themselves being trafficked by international criminals. But it's still generally the same accusation, it's just been, it's just altered itself some, you know what I'm saying?

• 29:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, that sort of anti feminist charge from American women, saying that, you know, these women from other countries are coming over here and they, they do whatever their husbands tell them, and this is setting us back. They would say the same thing, though, about war brides. If you were a soldier in Korea or Vietnam and, and brought a woman back over, they would have that same kind of charge levied against them, saying the only reason you're bringing these women back is because of the power imbalance that is, is now gained.

• 29:56Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  And, you know, that can be fair to a certain degree. There's a lot, there is, it's really hard to talk about marriage like this without talking about inequity and a power imbalance from the beginning. Not to say that that doesn't change and that there aren't great success stories where both partners are equal and they both contribute and they both, you know, respect one another's viewpoints, but there, anytime you are

• 30:30Speaker 04

  In a situation where you are bringing someone over from another country that is escaping a bad situation and looking for a more prosperous situation, and you can provide that, and you are paying the money to the service for linking you, there's a power imbalance there from the beginning.

• 30:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, there's a power imbalance in that, like, you probably don't speak the language as the mail-order bride, you don't have any friends, you don't have any family, you don't have any social structure to depend on, the only person you have to depend on is your husband.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:58Josh Clark?

  And if he's not very nice to you, or even worse, abusive toward you,

• 31:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 31:02Josh Clark?

  you're in, you're in big trouble. And then it's also, like you said, if you are escaping poverty back home, you might show up with basically no money. And so if you just found out that this guy is not all he's cracked up to be, or he is abusive, or he's actually got a terrible criminal record, or terrible credit, or all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't have otherwise come over for, you're stuck here. And according to some human trafficking groups, that is a, that is a broad definition of human trafficking, where a person is moved from one place to another for financial means, and then ends up becoming dependent financially in a situation that they otherwise wouldn't want to be in, they would not have chosen to put themselves in. That's as much

• 31:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 31:47Josh Clark?

  human trafficking in a broad definition as somebody being kidnapped and forced into sex work.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, and even if there is no, you know, no literal violence or abuse, that doesn't mean that it's an equitable situation, because someone can essentially be a, almost a captive in their own home, like you said, if they don't speak the language, they have no advocates over here for themselves, or friends to help them and to speak up for them, and it's, you can see why it gets a bad rap, for sure.

• 32:17Josh Clark?

  So, on the flip side, though, there have to be men out there who just struck out consistently with America, or American women, or men, and took matters into their own hands and looked abroad, and the best way to do that is a marriage broker, and there's plenty of places you can do that. And then also, the other problem with just basically characterizing mail-order brides as nothing but like victims ripe for exploitation is to really miss the personalities of a lot of them, where

• 32:56Josh Clark?

  To put yourself out there as a mail order bride shows a, or demonstrates like a lot of initiative compared to just staying back home and making do with your lot in life. Like if you're a widow in some countries and you have kids, you might not be remarriable. There might not be anybody who wants to marry you. And so you're doomed to a life of solitude and single motherhood, whether you like it or not. So if you just say, okay, well, that's my lot in life. That's what I'm doing. Okay, fine. But if you say, you know what? Nope. There's another way out. And it might not be the most tasteful thing that I would have chosen for myself before, but I really want to make sure my kids are taken care of and I'm going to go seek a husband elsewhere.

• 33:40Josh Clark?

  That shows, that demonstrates a lot of self-starter-ness, I guess, that I think kind of undermines a lot of the view of mail order brides as these kind of like simple-minded, docile women that can't fend for themselves or stick up for themselves.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's also a real slippery slope to judge. I mean, we all think like, oh, you should only fall in love with love at first sight. And that should be all it is and that should be what marriage is based on, full stop. It's a real slippery slope to judge someone else's situation if it's working out for both of them. If it is a rich old guy in his 60s who is like, you know what? I want to live out the last 15 years of my life with a partner. And there's a beautiful young Ukrainian woman who's like, you know what? I've got nothing going on over here. I don't have a lot of prospects. My country is not, you know, doing me any favors.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  And so I'm going to go over and marry some rich guy and we're going to be happy for the last 15 years of his life. And they travel and they do take cruises and they have a good time together. Like it's a real slippery slope for someone to come in and say, well, no, that's wrong. Because you guys just didn't meet and fall in love, like, you know, meeting in a bar drunk one night, like all Americans.

• 35:08Josh Clark?

  Again, and again, that seems to be a longstanding criticism that stretches back at least a century here in America, too.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 35:16Josh Clark?

  Okay, so enough of that, enough of that. I feel like we should talk about some of the nuts and bolts of the mail order marriage industry. Okay?

• 35:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, let's do it.

• 35:27Josh Clark?

  Well, let's start. So I found this contemporary journalism from 1986.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  You and your CJ.

• 35:35Josh Clark?

  Right, in the New York Times, and they, they basically just checked in with the mail order marriage industry at the time. And it gave a really good snapshot of how things used to be. And one of the reasons why mail order brides were called mail order brides, because time was that you would find a mail order marriage service. You would subscribe to that service. The New York Times says anywhere between 50 to 500 dollars a year.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  A month?

• 36:01Josh Clark?

  Every, well, that was for a catalog, annual subscription was 50 to 500. And then every month, or every couple of months, or maybe twice a month, probably not twice a month, you would get a catalog that was clearly made by somebody who didn't major in catalog making in college of pictures of the, of like a prospective bride, her stats, physical stats, her likes, her dislikes, that kind of thing, basically a blurb. And you were, you'd flip through a catalog, and you'd get back in touch with the subscription service and say, I like number 8972. And I also like 3755. And you'd just give them a list of, of women that you wanted them to reach out to on your behalf.

• 36:46Josh Clark?

  And all of a sudden, you would start exchanging letters. Little by little, you would narrow down the, the women that you were talking to. And then you would eventually probably go over and meet one, and maybe in that trip, marry them, like have, have your wedding like that, the day you meet them or the day after you met them. And that was pretty standard for the, the 70s and 80s as far as mail order goes. And I think into the 90s as well.

• 37:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, and of course, it's all online now. And depending on which agency you go through, and like I said, there are thousands, they offer a range of services to, you know, bleed you of as much money as they can in the process.

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  Whether it's subscription fees, or we'll, we'll write your letters, first letters for you and translate them for a fee.

• 37:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  Or if you want to video chat or have phone calls, we can arrange that for a fee.

• 37:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Everything has a fee. Uh, I think this one, and this is from an anti-trafficking international website article. Uh, they said that estimates show, um...

• 37:53Speaker 04

  People spend about six to $10,000. Each client spends about six to $10,000.

• 38:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  And I think this is for, you know, the, I guess, more high end, more reputable ones. I think, I think some of those places are happy if they get like 500 bucks out of you and then you leave.

• 38:10Josh Clark?

  Well, I think you can be like a skinflint husband and just do it strictly online and then go meet them and marry them. But there are ones that offer like tours for like five grand. Which depending on the country may or may not be legal. Where you, like if you went to Vietnam, it would be illegal and Vietnam mail order marriages, the whole industry is illegal, but it's also rampant there.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:38Josh Clark?

  And there, there are like whole hotels that where a woman goes and stays. And then tours of like guys from Taiwan or South Korea or the United States come through and meet them. And I think human trafficking people are like, and do god knows what else for money. And then if, if you hit it off with one, maybe you like start talking to them a little more or you marry them on the spot. That kind of thing, but there's like, there's tours you can go on and depending on your view of the mail order marriage industry. It's either a tour where you're going and meeting a lot of prospective brides or it's basically a sex tour to Vietnam.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Right. And they also will do things where it's really hard to not read as a man sort of buying a woman.

• 39:29Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  Where they say like, well, you know, we'll put them up in this hotel and we'll have them go checked out by our doctors. And our psychologist, they'll have a psychological evaluation. And all of this information will be sent to you, the man with the money, to make your decision on whether or not you're gonna sort of pay for this bride. And it's, it's really hard to look at that any other way than that. Like you really gotta stretch your mind.

• 39:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  And, but then you will read a, a story about a couple that, that are deeply in love for 20 years on. And who had kids in America and who had a great life together. And it, and they were like, no, it was really more like an international dating service. And they just sort of matchmaked or matchmated, made match.

• 40:15Josh Clark?

  Matchmaked. I love it.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  So it's like, it's just, I don't know if we've ever had a topic where I was so like, all right, well, this doesn't sound too bad. And like, oh, my God, this sounds terrible.

• 40:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I got you. Yeah, I can't remember.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  And that may be the industry, you know?

• 40:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:31Speaker 04

  I think it can be both those things.

• 40:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it makes you, yes. And it surely is both of those things. Again, the question is, is one way more than the other? And if so, which way is it lopsided? And if so, do we need to like, follow Vietnam's footsteps and outlaw the marriage, the mail order marriage industry? You know what I'm saying? It's like,

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 40:49Josh Clark?

  That may be a really big red flag. Like, why did Vietnam outlaw an entire industry that's totally like, fine and legal here in the United States?

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 40:58Josh Clark?

  So,

• 41:00Speaker 04

  Should we take a break?

• 41:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think we should take a break. And we'll talk about mail order marriages in the internet age, because things have changed a little bit.

• 41:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, and some of the laws.

• 41:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  Right?

• 41:11Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 41:24Josh Clark?

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• 41:47Josh Clark?

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• 43:32Speaker 06

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• 43:55Speaker 04

  All right. Really quickly, this, the great article I found that from the Anti-Trafficking International site, they did kind of talk a little bit about what it means for your immigration status and how, because I mentioned earlier that Zug said, you know, who's really at risk are undocumented immigrants because they have no recourse. But even if you do come over as a mail-order bride, and here's basically what happens. The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendment, which was enacted in 86, is basically the husband will apply for a spouse or a fiance visa, and then the bride marries, has to marry the husband within

• 44:37Speaker 04

  three months upon arrival in the US. So there's a three-month sort of try-it-out period. But the bride only has conditional residence status for two years. So in that two-year period... At the end of which they have to apply jointly for her permanent status as a resident. In that conditional two-year period, that is the dodgy territory where they're basically like, the bride is completely dependent on the husband. He holds all the cards. They're very vulnerable at this point. They may have linguistic isolation or and/or cultural isolation. They may not have that social network that we were talking about or be completely economically dependent on the husband. And they might be afraid that he'll be like, you know what?

• 45:22Speaker 04

  It's in that two-year frame, I can still have you sent home.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  So you better, you better be nice. And this is basically where they're saying this is just sort of a softer version of trafficking.

• 45:33Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Even though, and there is real trafficking attached to this. We're not talking about that. We're talking about women who do come over voluntarily.

• 45:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:41Speaker 04

  But they still see that as a sort of a softer version of that.

• 45:44Josh Clark?

  So, and that power dynamic and the one where you mentioned where the, the men were supplied with all the information, where the mail-order brides had basically none about the men. That, that's changed in the last few years, thanks to the internet and thanks to things like video chat and texting and Facebook and Skype. And now women are able, just through the simple tools of the internet, to, to be much more discerning and discriminating in the, the men they choose. It's not just like, I'm going to put myself in a catalog and cross my fingers. They're, they're much, they're putting themselves out there much more, at least ones that are, are members of legitimate mail-order marriage brokerages, right?

• 46:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, and there was, there were very sadly, a couple of high-profile murders.

• 46:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Leading up to the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act in 2005. And this is where things really kind of changed as far as. At least trying to help adjust that power dynamic in that if you are a legitimate brokerage agency, you're required to provide these women with a lot of information now about the men, whether or not they're on state or national sex offender registries, background on their like financials.

• 47:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Speaker 04

  They're given information on domestic violence and like what that looks like, you know, and how to go to the police and stuff like that and that you can do stuff like that.

• 47:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Arrest history, marital history, residence history, if they have kids.

• 47:21Josh Clark?

  That's a big one.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  All kinds of stuff now that these agencies have to provide about the men for the women.

• 47:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and so people who are like, hey, that's not, that's not cool, man. If you were an American woman just dating an American man, you wouldn't have access to that kind of information.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:38Josh Clark?

  That's really invasive. It is true. It's also almost basically a straw man argument because

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:45Josh Clark?

  An American woman is not going to be in the kind of isolated, completely dependent situation that a mail order bride's going to be in. And so the mail order bride needs a lot more safeguards than it just an average American woman's going to need. So, nice try, but that argument doesn't hold water at all.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I agree. You talked earlier at the beginning about a lack of data and statistics. They don't even really know how often this is happening, much less how many are successful and how many times they end like poorly or in abuse and things like that. There are a few numbers out there. I think the, how do you pronounce that?

• 48:29Josh Clark?

  I want to say Tahiri.

• 48:33Speaker 04

  Tahiri Justice Center. They estimate between 11,000 and 16,000 women immigrate each year through a marriage broker. The INS has it more like four to 6,000. So you kind of can't really tell. How much this is even going on. So it's really hard to, you know, like you said, if you don't have the data for, for noobs like us, it's kind of hard to form a hard opinion.

• 48:59Josh Clark?

  Right. But it's not just noobs like us who don't have the data. Like, no one has the data. So it's like, you know, no one can form a hard opinion. And you, if, in that case, you have to treat it on like a case by case basis. And like, if you, if you have nothing but anecdotal data or evidence, you can't just say like, yes, the mail order marriage industry is just a front for human trafficking and sex trafficking. That's, that is a moral panic that you've just started right there. So we have to go out and get the data. But at the same time, that doesn't mean you can't simultaneously offer support to

• 49:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 49:37Josh Clark?

  women who might be suffering from that. Like, what if it turns out to be true? Like, yeah, it's all just a big front for human trafficking and these women need help. Roll out the red carpet, like, get those services broadcast, like, figure out how to get them help if they need it, and see if anybody comes out of the woodwork in the meantime, while you're conducting those studies to come up with that data one way or another. Can't hurt. It's just money. And that's a pretty good thing to spend money on, if you ask me.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I agree. There are some studies that show spousal abuse rates are about three times higher. But this is just for immigrant women married to US husbands. I don't think, I think that includes all immigrant women. I don't think it's just

• 50:16Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  mail order situations.

• 50:17Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  So that's data that doesn't exactly help. But it does shine a light on that power dynamic as a whole, I think.

• 50:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I couldn't, I couldn't tell the, Dave mentioned that there were three murdered women, mail, mail order brides in the United States, I think between 2010 and 2020, maybe. And if, using the high, the high number that the Taheri Justice Center uses for how many came over every year, you get 160,000 of them. So three murders out of 160,000 population is, I think, point 18%.

• 50:58Josh Clark?

  But out of all the women, all the married women in America, it's like 64 million married women, 17,250 on average died, but were murdered by their partner in that same time, which is 2.6 percent. So I probably got the math wrong, but if it is right, then that means you're actually less likely to be murdered by your husband as a mail order bride than you are just as an American woman who is married and just part of the general population.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  So that's great.

• 51:30Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:31Speaker 04

  That's one of the stats you can't feel good about.

• 51:34Josh Clark?

  No, exactly. That's a great, that is an excellent point for sure, Chuck. I mean, I think if anything, it shines a light that we need to basically do away with spousal murder. I think we can all get behind that, right?

• 51:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, what it does, though, again, is it makes you think, maybe let's concentrate on the real problems.

• 51:54Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  And if that's not, if the mail order bride situation isn't the real problem, then we just, and we all know this, but we have a real domestic violence problem in this country anyway.

• 52:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's the same thing, what was the last one we talked about? Oh, the stranger danger, where it was like, oh, no, actually, your cousin is going to, like, rape and murder you way more frequently than just some strangers, but let's all concentrate on the stranger.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:19Josh Clark?

  Your spouse is possibly going to murder you, but let's ignore that and concentrate on mail order brides being murdered instead, even if it's just a much less of a chance. Like, that's the, that's the definition of a moral panic, and you gotta sort those out because they obfuscate important things.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know, at the beginning of the episode, you mentioned LGBTQ rights. That's why we call it mail order marriages now, because in 2013, with the Supreme Court striking down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act, it allowed, and there has been a, you know, since then, a sort of a big time rise in LGBTQ people doing the exact same thing. And a lot of times, these people in other countries are literally fleeing for their life because they have no rights in their own country as, as a person from that community. So. That's one of those where you look at and you're like, they could literally be saving someone's life by getting them out of their country over here.

• 53:19Josh Clark?

  Yep, that's right.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  And men do it too. I saw there was a, I was curious about mail order husbands. And if that was even a thing. And apparently Ireland in recent years has got some of this going on where these Irishmen are putting themselves out there and saying, hey, I'm a strapping young Irishman and I'm happy to come marry you and live in your country.

• 53:42Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  It's a thing in Ireland. Did not know that.

• 53:45Josh Clark?

  I had no idea either, but leave it to Ireland to just try something new. So good for you, Ireland.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  Good for you.

• 53:53Josh Clark?

  You got anything else on mail order marriages?

• 53:55Speaker 04

  I got nothing else. I can take off my roller skates now. This one was, it was danger at every turn.

• 54:02Josh Clark?

  I thought you did great. I thought we did great. It's good. I'm pretty sure. Oh, God, I hope so. Well, if you want to know more about mail order marriages, go check it out and see what you think for yourself. Don't take our words for it. And since I said, don't take our words for it, it's time for listener mail.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Listener mail. This is a sad case. So a bit of a trigger warning here, especially if you've lost a family member to COVID. But I had a back and forth with this gentleman and he really felt strongly about reading this on the air in the name of getting people vaccinated. Hey, guys, haven't written in in quite some time. Been listening since 2008. You've been around for so many personal milestones, even though we've never met, even though I did ask you the best question ever at your live show in Phoenix. My father taught me how to play guitar. I've been playing for nearly 30 years. Because of his influence, there's never been a question of Gibson or Fender in my family. It's always been clear we're a Fender family. He played a strat and I played a telly.

• 55:04Speaker 04

  The last, this last Tuesday, I said goodbye to my father. Covid had done its job and completely overtaken his body. After he passed later that day, I went into my truck and took a few minutes and decided I needed some Josh and Chuck to get my mind off of things. And I was absolutely shocked on that day. Leo Fender and Les Paul came through in my feed.

• 55:26Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  My father and I did not have anything we bonded over more than our love of music and playing guitar, an affinity for Fender, and a dislike of all things Gibson. Sorry, Chuck. There could not have been more perfect topic to help me through one of the hardest days of my life. I look forward to someday when I might be able to shake your hands after a good hand washing and sanitization. And just thank you for being with me through so many good days and so many bad days. And he included a song that he gave his father that he wrote for him. It's great. And this is from Eddie. And Eddie said, please read this on the air. He said, my mother decided to get vaccinated because of this and they were not vaccinated.

• 56:08Speaker 04

  And he said, just please send the message out to people that it can happen to you and your family and just go out there and get that vaccination already.

• 56:17Josh Clark?

  Thanks for that, Eddie. And definitely our condolences on your father's passing. I'm really sorry to hear that, but I'm glad we could bring you a little measure of comfort at a terrible time. So thank you for letting us know about that. And also thank you for telling everybody to get vaccinated because that's a pretty good thing to use your position for. So I think like Eddie said, go get vaccinated. Yeah, we said it. Go get vaccinated. Okay?

• 56:42Speaker 04

  Okay. Agreed.

• 56:43Josh Clark?

  And in the meantime, if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 57:08Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 57:39Speaker 06

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything, because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.