Mail-order bride is a “label applied to a woman who publishes her intent to marry someone from another — usually more developed — country. Although the label is widely used, it may have derogatory connotations and may be offensive.” They should have not used the word “may” because the term “mail-order bride” is, as far as I know, derogatory.
The mail-order bride industry is now more pervasive with the one-click small world of the internet, and in case you’re wondering if I made a mistake in calling it an “industry”, just consider the study funded through the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service:
“An American man seeking a foreign bride may avail himself of over 200 different services in which foreign women advertise for husbands. There are two types of such services. In one type, the so-called “mail-order bride” industry (representatives of the industry prefer the term “international correspondence service”), women’s names, photos, biographical sketches, and addresses are presented in hard copy brochures or on the Internet. In these services, the agency provides the photos and descriptions of the women, who are not charged for this listing. Men who wish to obtain the mailing address of any of the women they would like to contact are charged a fee of from $2 to $5 for each of the mailing addresses.”
I received an email asking about the success rate of, how do I call it, mail-order relationships. I didn’t quite know what to say. I have absolutely no idea. More importantly, I’m not aware of any statistics on the success rate of mail-order-bride relationships of Filipinas. Perhaps someone with a first-hand experience on this matter could tell us if there’s any such statistics.
But I guess there’s none. Activities relating to mail-order brides have been declared illegal in the Philippines, through a law which seeks “to declare unlawful the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail order basis and other similar practices, including the advertisement, publication, printing or distribution of brochures, fliers and other propaganda materials in furtherance thereof and providing penalty therefore.” A law against mail-order bride activities is a recognition that the problem has reached alarming levels.
