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How Mail Order Marriages Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is
0:16
Speaker 1: stuff you should know about mail order marriages, the murky waters.
0:25
Speaker 1: Yeah really, Uh yeah, this is one of those where
0:30
Speaker 1: we researched and researched and read and read, and I
0:34
Speaker 1: think it's it's one of those deals for me that's
0:37
Speaker 1: like and this is just my opening statement where it
0:43
Speaker 1: can be a a positive thing, like a dating service
0:48
Speaker 1: in some ways, but there is certainly a darker side
0:54
Speaker 1: to the whole situation. Uh. I already know how you
0:58
Speaker 1: feel about it, and I feel like it's coming through clearly. Yeah,
1:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's very It's one of those
1:03
Speaker 1: really murky things where sometimes you hear these really great
1:06
Speaker 1: stories about people that do find are looking for love
1:10
Speaker 1: and find love with someone from another country and it
1:12
Speaker 1: works out for everybody, And then sometimes you hear about
1:16
Speaker 1: stories where it's sort of what the National Organization for
1:21
Speaker 1: Women's Sonya Sario calls a softer version of human trafficking,
1:28
Speaker 1: or even worse, occasionally someone turns up murdered. Yeah, that's
1:32
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the truest dark side. So uh, that's
1:36
Speaker 1: just me level setting and we can talk about the good,
1:39
Speaker 1: the bad, and ugly. I think that was a great
1:41
Speaker 1: level saying. I generally agree with it, But for me,
1:45
Speaker 1: the jury is still out in thinking about it as
1:48
Speaker 1: a whole because there's so little hard data on this stuff.
1:53
Speaker 1: Almost everything is anecdotal, and when like you condemned something
1:57
Speaker 1: based on anecdotal data, you've got there is a moral hannock,
2:00
Speaker 1: not necessarily something in in reality. So I'm a little
2:04
Speaker 1: hesitant to go all the way. The jury is still
2:06
Speaker 1: out for me, but I definitely recognize the same stuff
2:09
Speaker 1: you do. For sure. It's definitely there. It exists. It's
2:11
Speaker 1: just for me, the question is how much does it
2:13
Speaker 1: exist and does the good outweigh the bad? And I
2:15
Speaker 1: don't know, So we we should probably like actually define
2:20
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, because most people I would
2:23
Speaker 1: guess are familiar with mail order brides, they're more um
2:27
Speaker 1: more recently they're they've come to be called mail order
2:30
Speaker 1: marriages because they've been extended to same sex couples in
2:33
Speaker 1: the United States. But then also like even more generally
2:36
Speaker 1: it's called um international marriage brokerage. Right, Yeah. I mean
2:41
Speaker 1: there's a full industry built around this, with thousands of
2:46
Speaker 1: websites and agencies that are brokering these marriages. And you know,
2:51
Speaker 1: from looking into it, it it seems like there are some
2:53
Speaker 1: really above boardwines that kind of act like uh an
2:59
Speaker 1: international dating surface in some ways UM where they group
3:04
Speaker 1: you know, match like people together. And then it seems
3:07
Speaker 1: like there are a lot of really sketchy ones that
3:10
Speaker 1: charge people a ton of money and aren't looking out
3:14
Speaker 1: for the men or the women, And I know that
3:17
Speaker 1: money is sunk back into making their website. Look at
3:21
Speaker 1: all nonlu that saw some really really bad websites so
3:27
Speaker 1: man like comic sans at one point. Yeah, it's hard
3:32
Speaker 1: to see those and not think, well, A, this is
3:34
Speaker 1: a scam or b this is a front for some
3:37
Speaker 1: sort of ceed trafficking operation. Right, yeah, it is tough
3:40
Speaker 1: not not to think like that. But but what we
3:43
Speaker 1: are talking about generally is UM A a marriage UM
3:48
Speaker 1: where the husband and the wife are generally unknown to
3:53
Speaker 1: each other, maybe have met once, but if they did,
3:56
Speaker 1: it's possible it was just a day or two before UM.
4:01
Speaker 1: Or maybe they've met once or twice and have done
4:03
Speaker 1: some correspondence back and forth for an extended period of time.
4:06
Speaker 1: But that's pretty new. And and in the classical definitions,
4:10
Speaker 1: they're generally unknown to one another. Um, and one of
4:14
Speaker 1: them usually the bride travels a very long distance from
4:18
Speaker 1: home to move to the husband's home, uh and make
4:22
Speaker 1: a life there and and be married. Um. That's not
4:26
Speaker 1: the Webster's definition. There's a lot more stumbling in my definition.
4:30
Speaker 1: But I think that generally gets it across. Yeah. And
4:33
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of the classic thing that you
4:35
Speaker 1: think of is lonely American man who has a little
4:39
Speaker 1: bit of money in his forties or fifties, can't find
4:43
Speaker 1: American woman and ends up getting a young, beautiful, young
4:48
Speaker 1: Ukrainian woman who doesn't speak much English and would love
4:52
Speaker 1: to live in the United States. Uh, and and fall
4:56
Speaker 1: in love with an American man. And that's sort of
4:59
Speaker 1: and you know, of course it happens from all countries,
5:01
Speaker 1: but a lot of times you think of Russia and
5:03
Speaker 1: the Ukraine or maybe in Southeast Asia or something like that. Uh.
5:07
Speaker 1: That is sort of I feel like when people say
5:10
Speaker 1: that term, most people, that's probably what pops into their head. Yeah,
5:14
Speaker 1: or I think you're being rather generous. I think a
5:16
Speaker 1: lot of people would be like, you know, some sad
5:19
Speaker 1: sack who can't like find a woman in America has
5:22
Speaker 1: to go look elsewhere to get really judge you about it,
5:24
Speaker 1: And I think people are really judging about mail order marriages.
5:28
Speaker 1: I think there's a long standing tradition in the United
5:31
Speaker 1: States of considering people who who go outside the traditional
5:35
Speaker 1: channels of marriage and basically take it into their own hands,
5:38
Speaker 1: like through mail order marriage, are they're they're very much
5:42
Speaker 1: judged harshly and criticized, maybe maybe fairly, maybe not. But
5:46
Speaker 1: I think there's another component too, especially these days, is
5:49
Speaker 1: that the men who who are looking for women for
5:53
Speaker 1: mail order brides are also dominant, domineering, possibly abusive, and
5:59
Speaker 1: their look king for docile UH women who will do
6:03
Speaker 1: whatever they say because they're the husband. So they have
6:06
Speaker 1: to go to other cultures where that might be more
6:08
Speaker 1: prevalent and where they can select from women who might
6:12
Speaker 1: respond to that kind of thing a lot better than
6:14
Speaker 1: an American woman who wouldn't put up with his guff. Yeah.
6:17
Speaker 1: I mean, that is certainly a part of what happens sometimes,
6:20
Speaker 1: and some of these agencies UH promote that the submissive nature. UM.
6:25
Speaker 1: There was one that literally said that these young women
6:29
Speaker 1: are quote unspoiled by feminism, and you have potential homemaking
6:33
Speaker 1: savings of a hundred and fifty dollars a week because
6:36
Speaker 1: you're essentially getting a you know, sort of a live
6:38
Speaker 1: in domestic servant. So you know, that's the underbelly in
6:42
Speaker 1: the dark side. But we you know, I did find
6:44
Speaker 1: some that do seem very above board, and people that
6:47
Speaker 1: do genuinely look like they're looking for love and have
6:51
Speaker 1: struck out at home, so they're looking elsewhere. So I said, Chuck,
6:54
Speaker 1: and we should also say one other thing to like,
6:56
Speaker 1: you know, um, it's pretty like it's a pretty well
7:00
Speaker 1: own thing in America. It's not like on everybody's lips.
7:02
Speaker 1: You don't hear it in every monologue on the late
7:04
Speaker 1: night talk shows or anything like that. But like, generally
7:08
Speaker 1: people in America are familiar and I know about mail
7:12
Speaker 1: order marriages, but it turns out it's even bigger in
7:16
Speaker 1: other countries like Taiwan and South Korea have huge mail
7:20
Speaker 1: order marriage industries. Um that may even dwarf the United States.
7:25
Speaker 1: And it's pretty I don't want to say it's huge
7:27
Speaker 1: in the United States, but it's not like just some
7:29
Speaker 1: small speck of sliver of like arcane group of people
7:32
Speaker 1: like it's bigger than you think, but it's even bigger
7:35
Speaker 1: in some other Asian countries as well. Yeah, and Dave
7:39
Speaker 1: Ruce helped us put this together, and this was a
7:41
Speaker 1: tough assignment for him, but he used um a lot
7:44
Speaker 1: of information from a book by a legal professor originally
7:50
Speaker 1: from University of South Carolina and Marcia's zug called Buying
7:53
Speaker 1: a Bride insert colon music Jerry and engaging history of
8:00
Speaker 1: mail order matches, where it seems like she gives a
8:05
Speaker 1: you know, a fair but fairly full throated defense of
8:08
Speaker 1: its history through the ages as far as and we'll
8:12
Speaker 1: get into this, but as far as an opportunity for
8:14
Speaker 1: a lot of women to gain more agency and to
8:17
Speaker 1: gain more rights at a time when they might not
8:20
Speaker 1: have any, all the way up through today, where uh
8:24
Speaker 1: she still defends it to a certain degree and and says,
8:29
Speaker 1: you know, like sure, these situations can be bad, but
8:32
Speaker 1: what's really bad is what undocumented immigrants have to suffer
8:37
Speaker 1: through in this country because they have no legal rights.
8:40
Speaker 1: They can't go to the police, they can't leave their
8:43
Speaker 1: their uh spouse or or their partner for fear of deportation,
8:48
Speaker 1: and uh, it's an interesting take, I think. And and
8:52
Speaker 1: I'm glad that Dave found this book, you know, because
8:55
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not sure that I would have been
8:56
Speaker 1: as fair. Yeah, yeah, no, she definitely almost. I get
8:59
Speaker 1: the impression that she um is defensive on behalf of
9:04
Speaker 1: the industry just because of how mistreated it's been, in
9:08
Speaker 1: her opinion, unfairly in large part, yeah, because you know,
9:12
Speaker 1: I think it very much has an antifeminist rap for
9:15
Speaker 1: good reason. But she does make some compelling arguments that
9:18
Speaker 1: throughout history it wasn't that way at all. And I
9:21
Speaker 1: guess we can go ahead and dive into some of
9:23
Speaker 1: that in um the early days of male order marriages
9:26
Speaker 1: in the American colonies, there was a lack of women
9:31
Speaker 1: problem in the in the early colonies, I mean like
9:33
Speaker 1: the earliest colonies. We're talking like Jamestown here. Yeah, like
9:37
Speaker 1: you know, the Puritans and Pilgrims. They may have come
9:40
Speaker 1: over with their families, but there are a lot of
9:42
Speaker 1: single men that came over, and a lot of them,
9:46
Speaker 1: Uh some of them may like run off with an
9:48
Speaker 1: indigenous woman and live with among her tribe and be like,
9:52
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm kind of done building things for
9:54
Speaker 1: James down. I'm out of here. So that's no good
9:58
Speaker 1: if they're looking for young into like kind of help
10:01
Speaker 1: build up these young colonies. And then other ones were
10:04
Speaker 1: just lonely and said, hey, I like, uh, there are
10:08
Speaker 1: no women over here. What are we supposed to do?
10:10
Speaker 1: So very early on, uh, they started UM sort of
10:16
Speaker 1: advertising and bringing uh women, you know, supposedly volunteers over
10:21
Speaker 1: who wanted to come to the colonies and and sort
10:24
Speaker 1: of have maybe even more rights than they had back home. Yeah,
10:27
Speaker 1: And this is a really good example of kind of
10:29
Speaker 1: like a thread that ran through the first couple of
10:33
Speaker 1: centuries of America's founding um, which was government sanctioned and
10:39
Speaker 1: supported UM mail order marriages in order to help build
10:44
Speaker 1: more stable communities. Right, So, the the UM legislatures did
10:48
Speaker 1: things like create laws that made it more attractive for
10:51
Speaker 1: a woman to become a mail order bride in this area,
10:55
Speaker 1: like um, apparently in England, Uh, if you became a widow,
10:59
Speaker 1: you you got a third of the estate and that
11:01
Speaker 1: was it. And in places like Virginia and I think
11:04
Speaker 1: Maryland as well, they set up laws that basically said, hey,
11:08
Speaker 1: you're gonna keep a lot more than that. You can
11:10
Speaker 1: run your own business afterwards, like being a widow's gonna rock.
11:13
Speaker 1: And did we mention also the men are dropping dead
11:17
Speaker 1: like flies over here, so yeah, your husband's probably gonna
11:20
Speaker 1: die pretty quick. So if you don't like them, who cares.
11:22
Speaker 1: You still get to keep all this inheritance and you
11:25
Speaker 1: get to keep the business and you can't do quite
11:28
Speaker 1: that well for yourself. And those circumstances back in England,
11:31
Speaker 1: so that attracted people. And that was like the government
11:34
Speaker 1: saying like, please come over here and marry these strangers
11:36
Speaker 1: that you've never met before. Yeah, and you know, it
11:39
Speaker 1: made sense for a lot of these young women because
11:41
Speaker 1: many of them were you know, they were from like
11:45
Speaker 1: the servant class, let's say, so they were looking at
11:47
Speaker 1: years of servitude uh in England and then they basically
11:51
Speaker 1: were like, well, hey, forget all that, why don't you
11:54
Speaker 1: just come over here get married. And like you said,
11:56
Speaker 1: I think the status even one in three marriages last
12:00
Speaker 1: a ten years. So they did kind of sell them
12:03
Speaker 1: on the fact that yeah, it's not so great, they'll
12:06
Speaker 1: probably be dead soon enough and then you can have
12:09
Speaker 1: a stuff. Yeah, and it actually I mean like that
12:11
Speaker 1: that actually did um like attract some women, I think
12:16
Speaker 1: at least, uh, I don't. I don't know if we
12:18
Speaker 1: have the number, but there definitely were what they called
12:21
Speaker 1: tobacco wives who came to marry new tobacco planters who
12:26
Speaker 1: were setting up their own fortune. And I actually had
12:29
Speaker 1: to prove that they were a financial means by donating
12:32
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty pounds of gold leaf tobacco to
12:35
Speaker 1: the Virginia Company to to take part in this right
12:39
Speaker 1: and so UM that that lasted as long as it lasted,
12:42
Speaker 1: or as long as it needed to. And as the
12:44
Speaker 1: Eastern colonies started to like become more self sufficient, um
12:48
Speaker 1: became less rowdy, became more family oriented. As far as
12:52
Speaker 1: the Europeans were concerned. Um, the the need for like
12:56
Speaker 1: those mail order schemes, UM kind of went away. But
13:00
Speaker 1: then as America kind of expanded further and further west,
13:04
Speaker 1: the frontier kept recreating itself in different places. So you know, UM,
13:10
Speaker 1: it went from the Eastern colonies to you know, along
13:13
Speaker 1: the Mississippi, and then further and further out west. And
13:16
Speaker 1: every time it did that, this new iteration of the
13:18
Speaker 1: frontier was settled by rowdy men, and they would have
13:23
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to get women to attract
13:25
Speaker 1: women to come out to marry the rowdy men so
13:27
Speaker 1: they would stop beating each other up in bar fights
13:29
Speaker 1: and and become more productive citizens. And that kept going
13:32
Speaker 1: on throughout the the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the
13:36
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, and you know, if you're already thinking, guys,
13:40
Speaker 1: this this already sounds terrible, these marriages based on these
13:43
Speaker 1: financial arrangements, and you know, despite these promises of a
13:48
Speaker 1: better life, like that's kind of what we're talking about,
13:51
Speaker 1: like welcome to marriage in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
13:55
Speaker 1: Don't be so naive. Yeah, that's not that's kind of
13:58
Speaker 1: what it was. And and've made a good point like
14:02
Speaker 1: the notion of marrying for true love. That's a very
14:05
Speaker 1: much like a twentieth century proposition, even if it wasn't
14:09
Speaker 1: a male order bride situation, it was someone's dowry or
14:14
Speaker 1: or parents sort of arranging marriages and saying these family,
14:17
Speaker 1: this family should marry this family, which still goes on today.
14:20
Speaker 1: I should point out among like the blue chip in
14:22
Speaker 1: the high society, like and Arthur had to marry Susan.
14:27
Speaker 1: You know, let's not forget that everybody with a Habsburg
14:30
Speaker 1: Jaw was an arranged marriage. He could marry Liza Manelli.
14:35
Speaker 1: I didn't realize you were making the movie reference. I
14:38
Speaker 1: thought you were Arthur and Susan. I thought you were
14:42
Speaker 1: using like Biff and Muffy, like general Jenual Arthur and yeah, yeah,
14:48
Speaker 1: I got it. Now I got it. But the point
14:50
Speaker 1: is is that marriage was a financial arrangement many and
14:53
Speaker 1: most times back then. I'm not saying no one ever
14:55
Speaker 1: married because they were in love. I'm sure that happened, Uh,
14:58
Speaker 1: but it had to take a lot boxes back then.
15:01
Speaker 1: So it was just sort of the way it was.
15:03
Speaker 1: And so this solved problems for early settlers and for
15:07
Speaker 1: westward expanders. Uh. They made things really attractive in California
15:11
Speaker 1: for women. They made it easier to divorce your husband
15:15
Speaker 1: if you wanted to. Uh. They made it easier to
15:18
Speaker 1: or just legal to own and sell, buy and sell land,
15:22
Speaker 1: which is not something you could do at other places
15:24
Speaker 1: in the country. So they were trying to make it
15:27
Speaker 1: an attractive situation for women to move west because they
15:30
Speaker 1: needed men and women out there. And uh, I think
15:34
Speaker 1: the between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty, the the population
15:39
Speaker 1: of women in California increased from three percent to nine
15:43
Speaker 1: percent of the total population. So it was working. Yeah,
15:47
Speaker 1: it was. And it wasn't just California, but um, Washington
15:51
Speaker 1: State also participated. I think Oregon may have as well. Um.
15:56
Speaker 1: And there would be there these schemes, and I don't
15:59
Speaker 1: mean scheme like you know, like dastardly scheme, with like
16:02
Speaker 1: a a plan good scheme. Yeah, where like a guy
16:06
Speaker 1: would go around to the bachelor's out in like Washington
16:09
Speaker 1: Territory and be like, give me a hundred bucks or
16:12
Speaker 1: I think three hundred bucks, which is about five grand today, um,
16:15
Speaker 1: and I will bring you a suitable wife. Um. And
16:19
Speaker 1: at least one guy did this. ASA Mercer was a
16:22
Speaker 1: marriage broker and he would go back east say hey,
16:26
Speaker 1: there's like this great booming economy out west, why don't
16:29
Speaker 1: you come with me, And like he would return with
16:32
Speaker 1: like a hundred women and some of them would get
16:33
Speaker 1: married immediately, some would wait. Um. But it was like
16:37
Speaker 1: another it was another thing where there was a need
16:40
Speaker 1: for women, uh, to stabilize it out of control male population. Yeah.
16:45
Speaker 1: And you know, Zug points out very fairly in her
16:48
Speaker 1: book that some of these Mercer girls from is they
16:51
Speaker 1: were called from ASA Mercer's operation became abolitionists. Some became
16:55
Speaker 1: women's rights advocates and social reformers. One of them's name was, uh,
17:01
Speaker 1: this great name, Mehitable Haskell Elder uh, And she organized
17:06
Speaker 1: the Women's Rights Conference in Olympia, Washington, and recruited one
17:11
Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony as the territory delicate for the National
17:15
Speaker 1: Women's Suffrage Association CAN mention. So you know, in a
17:19
Speaker 1: lot of cases, these women did find agency and they
17:23
Speaker 1: did get out of a better situation than they were
17:26
Speaker 1: in back east. Hey, so you want to take a
17:29
Speaker 1: break and then we'll talk about the probably what was
17:32
Speaker 1: the real birth of mail order marriages? Sure, Okay, we'll
17:38
Speaker 1: be right back alright, Chuck. So we've talking to this
18:00
Speaker 1: point about basically like government sanctioned schemes to kind of
18:05
Speaker 1: stabilize male populations. There was also, at the same time,
18:09
Speaker 1: beginning in the nineteenth century, um, I think starting in
18:13
Speaker 1: England actually in the eighteenth century, that was kind of
18:15
Speaker 1: simultaneously unfolding, and that was, um the matrimonial advertisement industry,
18:22
Speaker 1: which to me is like the real birth of the
18:25
Speaker 1: mail order marriage industry that we understand today. But it
18:29
Speaker 1: was basically the personal ads. Yeah, it was the birth
18:31
Speaker 1: of personal ads, the birth of dating services. Uh. It's
18:36
Speaker 1: really interesting in that, Uh, women would put ads in
18:40
Speaker 1: London and then later on in the United States, ads
18:43
Speaker 1: in the paper basically saying you know, hi, this is
18:46
Speaker 1: who I am, this is what I'm looking for. I mean,
18:49
Speaker 1: much like you would see these days in like a
18:50
Speaker 1: dating profile. And it was a way for them to,
18:54
Speaker 1: you know, to take some agency over avoiding the arranged
18:57
Speaker 1: marriage that their parents had set up for him and
19:00
Speaker 1: maybe get a little bit of choice of suitors, right,
19:03
Speaker 1: And I mean like that is like taking control of
19:06
Speaker 1: your own um, of your own marriage prospects. And it
19:11
Speaker 1: was I guess radical is probably a pretty good word.
19:14
Speaker 1: But it picked up, It caught on um, especially in
19:17
Speaker 1: the US. By the end of the nineteenth century, it
19:20
Speaker 1: really started to catch on to where they were like
19:22
Speaker 1: um magazines that were like dedicated just to matrimonial advertisements. Right,
19:29
Speaker 1: Like there was the Matrimonial News, which is actually the
19:32
Speaker 1: most straight ahead of all of them. Yeah, I like
19:36
Speaker 1: Cupid's Messenger. That sounds like a cute one. What about
19:39
Speaker 1: heart and Hand, Heart in Hand And then to me
19:43
Speaker 1: this one. I guess they were just trying to play
19:45
Speaker 1: it really safe, the standard correspondence club. Right, good day
19:49
Speaker 1: to you, right exactly. So yeah, so these things were
19:53
Speaker 1: like kind of popular by the end of the nineteenth century.
19:56
Speaker 1: But then it's like you said earlier, the by by
19:59
Speaker 1: the end of the night teenth century the beginning of
20:01
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, our ideas about what constituted marriage, the
20:05
Speaker 1: reasons for marriage had transitioned from financial arrangements into love
20:09
Speaker 1: in America, right, And so there was simultaneously the popularity
20:14
Speaker 1: of matrimonial advertisements and people taking control of their own
20:18
Speaker 1: marriage prospects, and at the same time, UM, a criticism
20:23
Speaker 1: and a uh like society generally looking down upon people
20:28
Speaker 1: who did that kind of thing. So there would be
20:31
Speaker 1: stories in the paper of people like sad sack bachelor's
20:35
Speaker 1: or lonely heart widows getting conned or swindled or getting
20:39
Speaker 1: fool catfish basically is what you call it today, UM.
20:43
Speaker 1: And people love to read that kind of stuff and
20:45
Speaker 1: laugh at their misfortune and look down on these people. UM.
20:49
Speaker 1: And that that that's where like the root of what
20:52
Speaker 1: people still do today to the mail order marriage industry,
20:55
Speaker 1: at least in America. UM really finds its roots in
20:58
Speaker 1: the in the twentieth tree. Yeah, and this is when
21:02
Speaker 1: things started transitioning to overseas, when American men started bringing
21:07
Speaker 1: in women from foreign countries. And that's when I think
21:12
Speaker 1: that's when it became a bit more of an industry.
21:15
Speaker 1: And this is when Congress got kind of full on
21:19
Speaker 1: racist and trying to control this thing, because there was
21:23
Speaker 1: you know, there were women saying, I don't want these
21:27
Speaker 1: women coming into our country and disrupting our our feminist
21:30
Speaker 1: agenda that we're trying to push. There were men saying,
21:34
Speaker 1: we don't want this, uh people from China or Japan
21:38
Speaker 1: coming in here, and you know, they can they can
21:41
Speaker 1: have babies once a year, and they like there were
21:44
Speaker 1: senators literally saying these things, and so they would enact
21:47
Speaker 1: laws like, you know, we're gonna be overrun basically, so
21:50
Speaker 1: they would enact laws, uh, like the Chinese Exclusion Act
21:54
Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty two UH to to ban Chinese immigration. UH.
21:58
Speaker 1: There was a loophole for pan with the nineteen o
22:01
Speaker 1: seven Gentleman's Agreement, which basically said if you that a
22:06
Speaker 1: Japanese woman uh and and their kids could come over
22:09
Speaker 1: if they were married. So there were Japanese single men
22:13
Speaker 1: already in the United States that immigrated over here that
22:15
Speaker 1: would get married sight unseen from like a catalog basically
22:19
Speaker 1: to in order to gain immigration status for the Japanese women.
22:23
Speaker 1: And then that ultimately got shut down in four with
22:26
Speaker 1: the Immigration Act and they just said no Japanese immigration
22:29
Speaker 1: of any any kind now after that. So there was
22:32
Speaker 1: a huge anti Asian thread from the late nineteenth century
22:36
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century, um based on immigration, and
22:40
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of centered on mail order marriages. UM.
22:45
Speaker 1: But then uh, one of the other things that that
22:48
Speaker 1: really kind of cropped up as a result of mail
22:51
Speaker 1: order marriages going from like women back east or women
22:54
Speaker 1: coming from Europe, to women coming from Asia U to
22:57
Speaker 1: marry white American men. Um. Was there there was this
23:01
Speaker 1: idea that the women were nothing more than like looking
23:05
Speaker 1: for um, a green card basically American citizenship, trying to
23:10
Speaker 1: escape their own country. And you run into that criticism today,
23:14
Speaker 1: I mean just as much as you would have back
23:16
Speaker 1: in when they passed the the Immigration Act against Japanese people.
23:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because you know, uh, and this is from
23:25
Speaker 1: Zug's book. She talks about you know, Mexican women, Greek women,
23:29
Speaker 1: Asian women, Jewish women, Italian women, they were much more
23:33
Speaker 1: likely to be deported under an LPC charge, which is
23:38
Speaker 1: a person that is likely to become a public charge
23:40
Speaker 1: basically like to come over and sort of live off
23:43
Speaker 1: the government. Uh. If they were from these countries, in
23:47
Speaker 1: a way around that was to get married and get
23:49
Speaker 1: that green card. So that criticism like came pretty straight away,
23:52
Speaker 1: I think, right. And then the other one is that
23:55
Speaker 1: that they were basically all just sex workers in disguise,
23:59
Speaker 1: coming over under the guise of being mail order brides,
24:03
Speaker 1: but really they were coming over here to prostitute themselves
24:06
Speaker 1: and behave immorally. Um. And again this is another accusation
24:11
Speaker 1: that you see today, except the the onus has or
24:16
Speaker 1: the focus the empathy, I guess has evolved from being
24:20
Speaker 1: put on society um, being attacked by these immoral women,
24:26
Speaker 1: to the women themselves being trafficked by international criminals. But
24:31
Speaker 1: it's still generally the same accusation. It's just been it's
24:34
Speaker 1: just altered itself some you know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, um.
24:40
Speaker 1: And you know that sort of h antifeminist charge from
24:43
Speaker 1: American women saying that you know, these women from other
24:46
Speaker 1: countries are coming over here and they they do whatever
24:50
Speaker 1: their husbands tell them, and this is setting us back. Uh.
24:52
Speaker 1: They would say the same thing though about war brides.
24:55
Speaker 1: If you were a soldier in Korea or Vietnam and
24:59
Speaker 1: brought a men back over, they would have that same
25:02
Speaker 1: kind of charge levied against them, saying, the only reason
25:04
Speaker 1: you're bringing these women back is because of the power
25:08
Speaker 1: imbalance that is now gained. And you know that can
25:13
Speaker 1: be fair to a certain degree. There's a lot there is.
25:16
Speaker 1: It's really hard to talk about marriage like this without
25:22
Speaker 1: talking about uh inequity and a power imbalance from the beginning. Um,
25:27
Speaker 1: not to say that that doesn't change and that there
25:30
Speaker 1: aren't great success stories where uh, both partners are equal
25:35
Speaker 1: and they both contribute and they both you know, respect
25:37
Speaker 1: one another's viewpoints. But there any time you are in
25:44
Speaker 1: a situation where you are bringing someone over from another
25:47
Speaker 1: country that is escaping a bad situation and looking for
25:50
Speaker 1: a more prosperous situation and you can provide that and
25:54
Speaker 1: you are paying the money to the service for linking you,
25:57
Speaker 1: there's a power imbalance there from the beginning. Yeah, well
26:00
Speaker 1: there's a power imbalance in that. Like you probably don't
26:02
Speaker 1: speak the language as the mail order bride. You don't
26:05
Speaker 1: have any friends, you don't have any family, you don't
26:07
Speaker 1: have any social structure to depend on. The only person
26:09
Speaker 1: you have to depend on is your husband. He's not
26:12
Speaker 1: very nice to you or even worse abusive towards you. Um,
26:16
Speaker 1: you're in You're in big trouble. And then it's also,
26:18
Speaker 1: like you said, if you are escaping poverty back home,
26:22
Speaker 1: you might show up with basically no money. And so
26:25
Speaker 1: if you just found out that this guy is not
26:27
Speaker 1: always cracked up to be, or he is abusive, or um,
26:31
Speaker 1: he's actually got a terrible criminal record or terrible credit
26:34
Speaker 1: or all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't have otherwise
26:36
Speaker 1: come over for um, you're stuck here. And according to
26:41
Speaker 1: some human trafficking groups, that is a that is a
26:44
Speaker 1: broad definition of human trafficking where a person has moved
26:47
Speaker 1: from one place to another for financial means and then
26:49
Speaker 1: ends up becoming dependent financially uh in a situation that
26:54
Speaker 1: they otherwise wouldn't want to be in, they would not
26:57
Speaker 1: have chosen to put themselves in. That's as much as
27:00
Speaker 1: trafficking in a broad definition as somebody being kidnapped and
27:03
Speaker 1: forced into uh sex work. Yeah, and even if there
27:07
Speaker 1: is no uh, you know, no literal violence or abuse,
27:13
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that it's an equitable situation because someone
27:16
Speaker 1: can essentially be a almost a captive in their own home,
27:20
Speaker 1: like you said, if they don't speak the language, they
27:22
Speaker 1: have no advocates, so we here for themselves or friends
27:25
Speaker 1: to help them and speak up for them. And it's uh,
27:29
Speaker 1: you can see why it gets a bad rap for sure.
27:31
Speaker 1: So on the flip side, though, there have to be
27:36
Speaker 1: men out there who just struck out consistently with America
27:41
Speaker 1: or American women or men and took matters into their
27:45
Speaker 1: own hands and looked abroad. And the best way to
27:48
Speaker 1: do that is a marriage broker, and there's plenty of
27:51
Speaker 1: places you can do that. Um. And then also the
27:55
Speaker 1: other problem with just basically characterizing um Millerner Bride's nothing
28:01
Speaker 1: but like victims right for exploitation is to really miss
28:06
Speaker 1: the personalities of a lot of them. Where to put
28:11
Speaker 1: yourself out there is a mail or to bride shows
28:13
Speaker 1: a UM or demonstrates like a lot of initiative compared
28:18
Speaker 1: to just staying back home and making do with your
28:20
Speaker 1: lot in life. Like if you're a widow in some
28:23
Speaker 1: countries and you have kids, you might not be remarriable,
28:28
Speaker 1: there might not be anybody who wants to marry you,
28:30
Speaker 1: and so you're doomed to a life of solitude and
28:34
Speaker 1: single motherhood, whether you like it or not. So if
28:37
Speaker 1: you just say, okay, well that's my lot in life,
28:39
Speaker 1: that's what I'm doing, Okay, fine. But if you say,
28:42
Speaker 1: you know what, now, there's another way out, and it
28:44
Speaker 1: might not be the most tasteful thing that I would
28:46
Speaker 1: have chosen for myself before, but I really want to
28:49
Speaker 1: make sure my kids are taken care of and I'm
28:51
Speaker 1: going to go seek husband elsewhere. That shows, that demonstrates
28:56
Speaker 1: a lot of um self startered nous. I guess that
29:00
Speaker 1: that UM, I think kind of undermines a lot of
29:04
Speaker 1: the view of of mail orderprises these kind of like
29:08
Speaker 1: simple minded docile women um that that can't fend for
29:13
Speaker 1: themselves or stick up for themselves. Yeah, and you, it's
29:17
Speaker 1: also a real slippery slope to to judge. I mean, well,
29:22
Speaker 1: we all think like, oh, it should you should only
29:25
Speaker 1: fall in love with love at first sight and that
29:28
Speaker 1: should be all it is, and that should be what
29:30
Speaker 1: marriage is based on, full stop. It's a real slippery
29:34
Speaker 1: slope too. Uh, to judge someone other's someone else's situation
29:38
Speaker 1: if it's working out for both of them. If if
29:41
Speaker 1: it is a rich old guy in his sixties who
29:44
Speaker 1: is like, you know what, I want to live out
29:46
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years of my life, uh, with a partner,
29:50
Speaker 1: And there's a beautiful young Ukrainian woman who's like, you
29:53
Speaker 1: know what, I've got nothing going on over here. I
29:55
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of prospects. My country is not,
29:58
Speaker 1: you know, doing me any favors. And so I'm gonna
30:00
Speaker 1: go over and marry some rich guy and we're gonna
30:04
Speaker 1: be happy for the last fifteen years of his life.
30:06
Speaker 1: And they travel and they do take cruises and they
30:10
Speaker 1: have a good time together. Like it's a real slippery
30:12
Speaker 1: sloped for someone to come in and say, well, no,
30:14
Speaker 1: that's wrong, because you guys just didn't meet and fall
30:17
Speaker 1: in love like you know, meeting in a bar drunk
30:20
Speaker 1: one night, like a like all Americans. Again and again.
30:23
Speaker 1: That seems to be a long standing criticism that stretches
30:27
Speaker 1: back at least a century here in America too, for sure. Okay,
30:30
Speaker 1: so enough of that, enough of that, I feel like
30:32
Speaker 1: we should talk about some of the nuts and bolts
30:35
Speaker 1: of um the mail order marriage industry. Okay, yeah, uh,
30:41
Speaker 1: let's do it. Well, let's start. So I found this
30:43
Speaker 1: um contemporary journalism um from your c J right uh
30:50
Speaker 1: in the New York Times, and they basically just checked
30:53
Speaker 1: in with the mail order marriage industry at the time,
30:56
Speaker 1: and it gave a really good snapshot of how things
30:59
Speaker 1: used to be and of the reasons why mail order
31:01
Speaker 1: brides were called mail order brides, because time was that
31:05
Speaker 1: you would find a mail order marriage service, you would
31:08
Speaker 1: subscribe to that service of The New York Times says
31:11
Speaker 1: anywhere between fifty to five hundred dollars a year um,
31:14
Speaker 1: and every well that was for a catalog annual subscribe.
31:19
Speaker 1: And then every month or every couple of months, or
31:21
Speaker 1: maybe twice a month, probably not twice a month, you
31:24
Speaker 1: would get a catalog that was clearly made by somebody
31:28
Speaker 1: who didn't major in catalog making in college of pictures
31:33
Speaker 1: of the of like a prospective bride, her stats, physical stats,
31:39
Speaker 1: her likes, her dislikes, that kind of thing. Basically a blurb,
31:42
Speaker 1: and you were you'd flipped through a catalog and you'd
31:45
Speaker 1: get back in touch of this subscription service and say
31:47
Speaker 1: I like number eight eight nine, seven two UM, and
31:51
Speaker 1: I also like thirty seven fifty five, And you just
31:55
Speaker 1: give them a list of women that you wanted them
31:58
Speaker 1: to reach out to on your half, and all of
32:01
Speaker 1: a sudden you would start exchanging letters. Uh. Little by little,
32:05
Speaker 1: you would narrow down the women that you were talking to,
32:08
Speaker 1: and then you would eventually probably go over and meet
32:12
Speaker 1: one and maybe in that trip marry them, like have
32:16
Speaker 1: have your wedding like that the day you meet them
32:19
Speaker 1: or the day after you met them. And that was
32:21
Speaker 1: pretty standard for the seventies and eighties as far as
32:25
Speaker 1: mail order goes, and I think into the nineties as well. Yeah,
32:28
Speaker 1: and of course it's all online now and depending on
32:31
Speaker 1: which agency you go through, and like I said, there
32:34
Speaker 1: are thousands. They offer a range of services to you know,
32:38
Speaker 1: bleed you of as much money as they can in
32:40
Speaker 1: the process, whether it's subscription fees, or will will write
32:45
Speaker 1: your letters first letters for you and translate them for
32:48
Speaker 1: a fee, Or if you want to video chat or
32:51
Speaker 1: have phone calls, we can arrange that for a fee.
32:54
Speaker 1: Everything has a fee. I think this one and this
32:58
Speaker 1: is from an anti trafficking Internet national website article. They
33:02
Speaker 1: said that estimate show um people spend about six to
33:09
Speaker 1: ten thou dollars. Each client spends about six to ten
33:13
Speaker 1: tho dollars. And I think this is for you know,
33:16
Speaker 1: the I guess more high end, more reputable ones. I
33:20
Speaker 1: think I think some of those places are happy if
33:22
Speaker 1: they get like five bucks out of the you end
33:24
Speaker 1: then you leave. Well. I think you can be like
33:25
Speaker 1: a skin flint husband um and just do it strictly
33:29
Speaker 1: online and then go meet them and marry them. But
33:33
Speaker 1: there are ones that offer like tours for like five
33:36
Speaker 1: grand um, which depending on the country, may or may
33:40
Speaker 1: not be legal where you like, if you went to Vietnam,
33:44
Speaker 1: it would be illegal in Vietnam, mail order um marriages,
33:47
Speaker 1: the whole industry is illegal, but it's also rampant there
33:51
Speaker 1: um and they're there are like whole hotels that where
33:55
Speaker 1: a woman goes and stays and then tours of like
34:00
Speaker 1: eyes from Taiwan or South Korea or the United States
34:03
Speaker 1: come through and meet them. Uh. And I think human
34:07
Speaker 1: trafficking people are like and do god knows what else
34:11
Speaker 1: for money and um. Then if if you hit it
34:16
Speaker 1: off with one, maybe you like start talking to them
34:18
Speaker 1: a little more or you marry them on the spot.
34:21
Speaker 1: That kind of thing. But there's like there's tours you
34:23
Speaker 1: can go on, and depending on your view of the
34:25
Speaker 1: mail order marriage industry, it's either a tour where you're
34:28
Speaker 1: going and meeting a lot of perspective brides, or it's
34:31
Speaker 1: basically a sex tour to Vietnam, right. And they also
34:35
Speaker 1: will do things where it's really hard to not read
34:38
Speaker 1: as uh, a man sort of buying a woman, where
34:44
Speaker 1: they say like, well, you know, we'll put them up
34:47
Speaker 1: in this hotel and we'll have them go checked out
34:49
Speaker 1: by our doctors and our psychologists to have a psychological evaluation,
34:53
Speaker 1: and all of this information will be sent to you,
34:56
Speaker 1: the man with the money, to make your decision on
34:58
Speaker 1: whether or not you're gonna sort of pay for this bride.
35:02
Speaker 1: And it's it's really hard to look at that any
35:04
Speaker 1: other way. Then that like you really got to stretch
35:07
Speaker 1: your mind. But then you will read a story about
35:12
Speaker 1: a couple that that are deeply in love for twenty
35:15
Speaker 1: years on and who had kids in American who had
35:17
Speaker 1: a great life together. Uh, And and they were like, no,
35:20
Speaker 1: it was really more like an international dating service. Uh.
35:23
Speaker 1: And they just sort of match maked um or matchmated,
35:28
Speaker 1: made matched maked. Uh. So, it's like it's just I
35:33
Speaker 1: don't know if we've ever had a topic where I
35:36
Speaker 1: was so like, all right, well this doesn't sound too bad,
35:38
Speaker 1: and like, oh my god, this sounds terrible. Yeah, I
35:41
Speaker 1: got you, Yeah I can't. And then maybe the industry,
35:44
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I mean I think it can be
35:46
Speaker 1: both those things. Yeah, it makes you, yes, And it
35:49
Speaker 1: surely is both of those things. Again, the question is
35:52
Speaker 1: is one way more than the other, And if so,
35:55
Speaker 1: which way is a lopside? And if so, do we
35:57
Speaker 1: need to like follow Vietnam's footsteps and outlaw the marriage
36:00
Speaker 1: the mail order marriage industry. You know what I'm saying.
36:02
Speaker 1: It's like that that may be a really big red flag,
36:06
Speaker 1: like why did Vietnam outlaw in the entire industry that's
36:09
Speaker 1: totally like fine and legal here in the United States? Right, So, Um,
36:14
Speaker 1: should we take a break, Yeah, I think we should
36:15
Speaker 1: take a break in. Um, we'll talk about mail order
36:19
Speaker 1: marriages in the Internet age because things have changed a
36:21
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, and some of the laws right right,
36:26
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back all right, um really quickly,
36:50
Speaker 1: this uh the great article I found that from the
36:53
Speaker 1: Anti Trafficking International site. They did kind of talk a
36:56
Speaker 1: little bit about what it means for your immigration status
37:00
Speaker 1: and how because I mentioned earlier that Zug said, you
37:03
Speaker 1: know who's really at risk or undocumented immigrants because they
37:07
Speaker 1: have no recourse. Um, but even if you do come
37:10
Speaker 1: over as a mail order bride, and uh, here here's
37:13
Speaker 1: basically what happens. The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendment, which was
37:18
Speaker 1: enacted in eighty six is basically, the husband will apply
37:22
Speaker 1: for a spouse or a fiance visa and then the
37:26
Speaker 1: bride Mary's has to marry the husband within three months
37:29
Speaker 1: upon arrival in the US. So there's a three month
37:32
Speaker 1: sort of tried out period. But the bride only has
37:36
Speaker 1: conditional resident status for two years. So in that two
37:40
Speaker 1: year period um at the end of which they have
37:43
Speaker 1: to apply jointly for her permanent status as a resident.
37:47
Speaker 1: In that conditional two year period, that is the dodgy
37:51
Speaker 1: territory where they're basically, like the bridest, completely dependent on
37:54
Speaker 1: the husband. He holds all the cards. Uh, They're very
37:59
Speaker 1: vulnerable at this point. They may have linguistic isolation or
38:03
Speaker 1: and or cultural isolation. They may not have that social
38:06
Speaker 1: network that we're talking about, or be completely economically dependent
38:09
Speaker 1: on the husband, and they might be afraid that he'll
38:13
Speaker 1: be like, you know what, it's in that two year frame,
38:15
Speaker 1: I can still have you sent home, so you better
38:18
Speaker 1: you better be nice. Uh. And this is basically where
38:21
Speaker 1: they're saying, this is just sort of a a softer
38:24
Speaker 1: version of trafficking, even though and there is real trafficking
38:27
Speaker 1: attached to this, we're not talking about that. We're talking
38:30
Speaker 1: about women who do come over voluntarily, but they still
38:34
Speaker 1: see that as a sort of a softer version of
38:35
Speaker 1: that so um and that power dynamic and the one
38:39
Speaker 1: where you mentioned where the men were supplied with all
38:42
Speaker 1: the information where the mail or to bride'shead basically none
38:46
Speaker 1: about the men. Um that that's changed in the last
38:50
Speaker 1: few years thanks to the Internet and thanks to things
38:53
Speaker 1: like video chat and texting and Facebook and Skype, and
38:58
Speaker 1: now women are able just through the simple tools on
39:02
Speaker 1: the internet um to to be much more discerning and
39:06
Speaker 1: discriminating in the men they choose. It's not just like
39:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put myself in a catalog and cross my fingers. Um.
39:13
Speaker 1: They're they're they're putting themselves out there much more, at
39:16
Speaker 1: least ones that are are members of legitimate mail order
39:19
Speaker 1: marriage brokerage is right. Yeah, and there was, uh, there
39:24
Speaker 1: were very sadly a couple of high profile murders leading
39:28
Speaker 1: up to the International Marriage broker Regulation Act in two
39:32
Speaker 1: thousand five. And this is where things really kind of
39:35
Speaker 1: changed as far as at least trying to help adjust
39:37
Speaker 1: that power dynamic in that, uh, if you are a
39:41
Speaker 1: legitimate brokerage agency, you're required to UM provide these women
39:46
Speaker 1: with a lot of information now about the men, UM
39:49
Speaker 1: whether or not they're on state or national sex offender registries, UM,
39:54
Speaker 1: background on their like financials. They're given information on on
39:59
Speaker 1: domestic violence and like what that looks like, you know,
40:03
Speaker 1: and how to go to the police and stuff like that,
40:05
Speaker 1: and that you can do stuff like that UM arrest
40:08
Speaker 1: history history, marital history, residence history if they have kids,
40:13
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff now that these agencies have to
40:16
Speaker 1: provide about the men for the women. Yeah, And so
40:21
Speaker 1: people who are like, hey, that's not that's not cool. Man,
40:24
Speaker 1: if you were an American woman just dating an American man,
40:27
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have access to that kind of information. That's
40:30
Speaker 1: truly invasive. It is true. It's also almost basically a
40:35
Speaker 1: straw man argument because an American woman is not going
40:40
Speaker 1: to be in the kind of isolated, completely dependent situation
40:44
Speaker 1: that a mailoorder bride is going to be. And and
40:46
Speaker 1: so the mailoorder bride needs a lot more safeguards than
40:51
Speaker 1: just an average American woman is going to need. So
40:54
Speaker 1: nice try, but that argument doesn't well water at all. Yeah,
40:58
Speaker 1: I agree. Um, you talked earlier at the beginning about
41:01
Speaker 1: a lack of data and statistics. They don't even really
41:05
Speaker 1: know how often this is happening, much less how many
41:08
Speaker 1: are successful and how many times they end like poorly
41:12
Speaker 1: or in abuse and things like that. There there are
41:15
Speaker 1: a few numbers out there. Uh, I think the uh
41:20
Speaker 1: how do you pronounce that? I want to say? Um
41:23
Speaker 1: to hear to hear he to Hearing Justice Center. They
41:28
Speaker 1: estimate between eleven thousand and sixteen thousand women immigrate each
41:33
Speaker 1: year through a marriage broker. Uh. The I n S
41:35
Speaker 1: has it more like four to six thousand. Uh, So
41:39
Speaker 1: you kind of can't really tell how much this is
41:42
Speaker 1: even going on. So it's really hard to you know,
41:45
Speaker 1: like you said, if you don't have the data for
41:47
Speaker 1: for nubes like us, it's kind of hard to form
41:50
Speaker 1: a hard opinion. Right, But it's not just nubes like
41:53
Speaker 1: us who don't have the data, Like, no one has
41:56
Speaker 1: the data, so it's like, you know, no one can
41:59
Speaker 1: form a hard opinion, and you if in that case,
42:02
Speaker 1: you have to treat it on like a case by
42:03
Speaker 1: case basis, and like if you if you have nothing
42:06
Speaker 1: but anecdotal data or evidence, you can't just say like, yes,
42:11
Speaker 1: the mail order marriage industry is just a front for
42:14
Speaker 1: human trafficking and sex trafficking. That's that is a moral
42:18
Speaker 1: panic that you've just started right there. Um, so we
42:21
Speaker 1: have to go out and get the data. But at
42:23
Speaker 1: the same time, that doesn't mean you can't simultaneously offer
42:27
Speaker 1: support to women who might be suffering from that, Like
42:31
Speaker 1: what if it turns out to be true, Like yeah,
42:33
Speaker 1: it's all just a big front for human trafficking, and
42:35
Speaker 1: these women need help. Roll out the red carpet, like
42:38
Speaker 1: get those services broadcast, Like figure out how to get
42:41
Speaker 1: them help if they need it, and see if anybody
42:43
Speaker 1: comes out of the woodwork. In the meantime, while you're
42:46
Speaker 1: conducting those studies to come up with that data, one
42:48
Speaker 1: way or another can't hurt. It's just money, and that's
42:51
Speaker 1: a pretty good thing to spend money on. If you
42:52
Speaker 1: ask me. Yeah, I agree. There are some studies that
42:56
Speaker 1: show spousal abuse rates are about three times higher. But
43:00
Speaker 1: this is just for immigrant women married to US husbands.
43:04
Speaker 1: I don't think I think that includes all immigrant women.
43:07
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just mail order situations. So that's
43:11
Speaker 1: data that doesn't exactly help UM, but it does shine
43:14
Speaker 1: a light on that power dynamic as a whole. I
43:16
Speaker 1: think yeah, And I couldn't I couldn't tell the UM.
43:19
Speaker 1: Dave mentioned that there were three UM murdered women male
43:24
Speaker 1: mail order brides in the United States. I think between
43:27
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten and two thousand twenty maybe, And
43:31
Speaker 1: if using the high UM the high number that the
43:35
Speaker 1: uh UM to Hear You Justice Center uses for how
43:39
Speaker 1: many came over every year, you've got a hundred and
43:42
Speaker 1: sixty thousand of them. So three murders out of a
43:45
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty thousand population is I think point eighteen percent.
43:50
Speaker 1: But out of UM all the women, all the married
43:53
Speaker 1: women in America, it's like sixty four million married women
43:57
Speaker 1: UM seventeen thousand, two hundred and fifty on average died,
44:02
Speaker 1: but we're murdered by their partner in that same time,
44:05
Speaker 1: which is two point six so I probably got the
44:09
Speaker 1: math wrong. But if it is right, then that means
44:11
Speaker 1: you're actually less likely to be murdered by your husband
44:14
Speaker 1: as a mail order bride than you are just as
44:16
Speaker 1: an American woman, um who was married and just part
44:19
Speaker 1: of the general population. So that's great, right of the
44:25
Speaker 1: stats you can't feel good about, No, exactly, that's a
44:27
Speaker 1: great That is an excellent point for sure, Chuck. I mean,
44:30
Speaker 1: I think shines a light that we need to basically
44:34
Speaker 1: do away with, um spousal murder. I think we can
44:38
Speaker 1: all get behind that. Yeah, what it is. What it
44:41
Speaker 1: does though, again, is it makes you I think maybe
44:44
Speaker 1: let's concentrate on the real problems. And if that's not,
44:48
Speaker 1: I if the mail order bride situation isn't the real problem,
44:51
Speaker 1: then we just and we all know this, but we
44:54
Speaker 1: we have a real domestic violence problem in this country anyway. Yeah,
44:57
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. What was the last one we
44:59
Speaker 1: talked about, oh, the inter danger where it was like, oh, no, actually,
45:02
Speaker 1: your cousin is going to like rape and murder you
45:05
Speaker 1: way more frequently than just some strangers. But let's all
45:09
Speaker 1: concentrate on the stranger your your spouse is possibly going
45:13
Speaker 1: to murder you. But let's ignore that and concentrate on
45:16
Speaker 1: mail order brides being murdered instead, even if it's just
45:19
Speaker 1: a much less of a chance, Like that's the that's
45:23
Speaker 1: the definition of a moral panic, and you've got to
45:25
Speaker 1: sort those out because they obvius skate important things. Yeah,
45:30
Speaker 1: and you know at the beginning of the episode you
45:31
Speaker 1: mentioned l g B t Q rights. Um. That's why
45:34
Speaker 1: we call it mail order marriages now because with the
45:38
Speaker 1: Supreme Court striking down parts of the Defensive Marriage Act, uh,
45:42
Speaker 1: it allowed and there has been a, you know since then,
45:46
Speaker 1: a sort of a a big time rise in l
45:49
Speaker 1: g B t Q people UM doing the exact same thing.
45:53
Speaker 1: And a lot of times these people in other countries
45:56
Speaker 1: are literally fleeing for their life because they have no
46:00
Speaker 1: rights in their own country as uh as a person
46:04
Speaker 1: from that community. So that's one of those where you
46:06
Speaker 1: look at and you're like, they could literally be saving
46:09
Speaker 1: someone's life by getting them out of their country over here.
46:12
Speaker 1: And men do it too. I saw there was a
46:14
Speaker 1: I was curious about male order husbands and if that
46:17
Speaker 1: was even a thing. And apparently Ireland in recent years
46:22
Speaker 1: has got some of this going on where these Irish
46:24
Speaker 1: Men are putting themselves out there and saying, hey, I'm
46:28
Speaker 1: a strapping young irish Man and I'm happy to come
46:32
Speaker 1: marry you and live in your country. Very nice, that's
46:35
Speaker 1: the thing in Ireland. Did not know that. I had
46:37
Speaker 1: no idea either, But leave it to Ireland to just
46:40
Speaker 1: try something new. So good for you, Ireland, Good for you.
46:45
Speaker 1: Are you got anything else on mail order marriages? I
46:47
Speaker 1: got nothing else I can take off my roller skates. Now,
46:50
Speaker 1: this one was it was it was danger at every turn.
46:53
Speaker 1: I thought you did great. I thought we did great.
46:55
Speaker 1: It's good. I'm pretty sure. Oh god, I hope. So. Uh.
47:00
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about mail order marrinces,
47:02
Speaker 1: go check it out and see what you think for yourself.
47:04
Speaker 1: Don't take our words for it. Um. And since I
47:07
Speaker 1: said don't take our words for it, it's time for
47:09
Speaker 1: listener mail. Uh, listener mail. This is this is a
47:15
Speaker 1: sad case, so a bit of a trigger warning here,
47:19
Speaker 1: especially if you've lost a family member to COVID. But
47:22
Speaker 1: I've had a back and forth with this gentleman and
47:24
Speaker 1: he really felt strongly about reading this on the air
47:28
Speaker 1: in the name of getting people vaccinated. Hey, guys, haven't
47:31
Speaker 1: written in quite some time. Been listening since two thousand eight.
47:34
Speaker 1: You've been around for so many personal milestones, even though
47:37
Speaker 1: we've never met, even though I did ask you the
47:39
Speaker 1: best question ever at your live show in Phoenix. Uh.
47:43
Speaker 1: My father taught me how to play guitar. I've been
47:45
Speaker 1: playing for nearly thirty years because of his influence. There's
47:48
Speaker 1: never been a question of Gibson or Fender in my family.
47:51
Speaker 1: It's always been clear where a Fender family. He played
47:54
Speaker 1: a strat and I played a telly. Uh. The last
47:58
Speaker 1: this last Tuesday, I said good eye to my father.
48:01
Speaker 1: COVID had done its job and completely overtaken his body.
48:05
Speaker 1: After he passed. Later that day, I went into my
48:07
Speaker 1: truck and took a few minutes and decided I needed
48:10
Speaker 1: some Josh and Chuck to get my mind off of things.
48:12
Speaker 1: And I was absolutely shocked. On that day Leo Fender
48:16
Speaker 1: and Les Paul came through in my feed. Uh. My
48:19
Speaker 1: father and I did not have anything we bonded over
48:22
Speaker 1: more than our love of music and playing guitar, an
48:24
Speaker 1: affinity for Fender, and a dislike of all things Gibson. Sorry, Chuck. Uh,
48:29
Speaker 1: there could not have been more perfect topic to help
48:30
Speaker 1: me through one of the hardest days of my life.
48:32
Speaker 1: I look forward to someday when I might be able
48:34
Speaker 1: to shake your hands after a good hand washing and sanitization,
48:38
Speaker 1: and just thank you for being with me through so
48:40
Speaker 1: many good days and so many bad days. And he
48:43
Speaker 1: included a song that he gave his father that he
48:45
Speaker 1: wrote for him. It's great and uh, this is from Eddie,
48:50
Speaker 1: and Eddie said, please read this on the air. He said, Uh,
48:54
Speaker 1: my mother decided to get vaccinated because of this, and
48:58
Speaker 1: they were not vaccinated, and he said, just please send
49:02
Speaker 1: the message out to people that it can happen to
49:05
Speaker 1: you and your family and just go out there and
49:07
Speaker 1: get that vaccination already. Thanks for that, Eddie, UM, and
49:10
Speaker 1: definitely our condolences on your father's passing. I'm really sorry
49:14
Speaker 1: to hear that, but I'm glad we could bring you
49:16
Speaker 1: a little measure of comfort at a terrible time. So
49:19
Speaker 1: thank you for letting us know about that, and also
49:22
Speaker 1: thank you for telling everybody to get vaccinated, because that's
49:24
Speaker 1: a pretty good thing to use your position for. UM.
49:27
Speaker 1: So I think, like Eddie said, go get vaccinated. Yeah,
49:30
Speaker 1: we said it, Go get vaccinated. Okay, okay, agreed, And
49:35
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you want to get in touch
49:37
Speaker 1: with us, you can send us an email. The Stuff
49:39
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
49:45
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my
49:48
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
49:52
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.