THE MEN

The following is an exerpt from a US report on the men who search for foreign wives:

David Jedlicka (1988, cited in Glodava and Onizuka, 1994) surveyed 607 American men seeking mail-order brides and received 206 responses. He found that the men were generally white (94 percent); highly educated (50 percent with two or more years of college, 6 percent with M.D.'s or Ph.D.'s, only five did not complete high school); politically and ideologically conservative; and generally economically and professionally successful (64 percent earned more than $20,000 a year; 42 were in professional or managerial positions). Their median age was 37. The men came from 44 states, with 22 percent from California, and 84 percent lived in metropolitan areas. Fifty-seven percent had been married at least once; most had been divorced after an average of seven years of marriage, 35 percent had at least one child, and 75 percent wished to father additional children. When asked about their religious affiliations, 48 percent of the men identified themselves as Protestant, 23 percent as Catholic, 15 percent as belonging to other religions, and 14 percent as having no religious affiliation.

Why do American men want foreign wives? Most of the personal reports from American men who have married women through these agencies talk about "traditional values." That is, American women are thought not content to be wives and mothers but seek personal satisfaction through their own careers and interests, while the foreign woman is happy to be the homemaker and asks for nothing more than husband, home, and family. Again, true or not, this is the perception.

Although Jedlicka states in his conclusions that his research shows the men who choose the mail-order methods for mate selection appear ". . . above average . . . certainly in their communication skills," and "exceptional in the sense that they are trying cross-cultural marriage to improve their chances for loving and enduring relationships," he cautions that such conclusions are thin at best and such interpretations from these data are not warranted. His experience and the observations of others show that, contrary to responses in questionnaires, those who have used the mail-order bride route to find a mate have control in mind more than a loving, enduring relationship.

Of the 30 mail-order bride couples Mila Glodava (Glodava and Onizuka, 1994) encountered between 1986 and 1993, only two were close in age (4 -6 years difference). In the other 28 there was a 20 to 50 year difference in age. Older men, says Glodava, often want women "they can mold" and therefore do not want those who are too educated. "They would just become like any other American woman," they said. She concludes that, "It is apparent that power and control are critical for the men."

It is interesting to note that the views above on native and foreign men and women are not limited to the Occident--a similar attitude exists in Taiwan. According to "Taiwan Moves to Boost Women's Marriage Prospects" (The Associated Press, Aug. 30, 1996, by Annie Huang), many Taiwanese men prefer brides from other Asian countries because they feel Taiwanese women--who tend to be better educated and more affluent--expect too much from their husbands. Due to this attitude, Taiwan has imposed a limit on the number of brides from certain countries that can enter Taiwan each year--360 from Indonesia, 420 from Burma, and 1,080 from China. On the women's side, many of them are seeking Western men since, they say, Taiwanese men want to marry only hard-working obedient drudges while Taiwanese women have discarded this traditional role and are seeking equality and mutual respect in marriage.

full url: http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/repsstudies/Mobappa.htm