The history of marriage in the Americas is one that often combines economics (especially in North America) and race (especially in South America and the Caribbean.) In colonial North America, marriage and subsequent family life were interwoven into the fabric of community. Success in marriage was less about emotional satisfaction and love than performing certain jobs and producing offspring, who would grow to create more people to do the jobs. A high mortality rate further created a situation in which emotional attachment was not encouraged in this negotiated arrangement.[1]
In slave families, a brother, sister, child or spouse could be sold away from the family, leaving a legacy still visible today in the many fatherless African American families. In African Americans, this has created unique and difficult relationship interactions, as African and African American women became strong enough to hold a family together by themselves. This strength and independence is often seen as negative by African American men who then seek Asian or Latin wives who may not proffer the battles or control in the way that an African American woman might.
In the Southern Americas, high slave populations in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and the Caribbean isles such as Cuba created problems for the white elites who realized that if they allowed African slave and freedmen populations to breed, whites would soon be outnumbered, and in fact, they were outnumbered.[2] The precariousness of their rulership was thus threatened, and the choice was to enjoin the slaves to fight for freedom from European colonial rule or to risk slave uprisings where they themselves would be the targets of rebellion.
Miscegenation, or intermarriage of whites and blacks or native Americans, therefore became encouraged as a “whitening process” in order to lessen the risk of experiencing popular uprisings and creating a more nationalist view of unity.[3]
The history of foreign brides runs parallel to these histories. Although Europeans moving into New England and the Virginias often came with families from Europe, fur trappers and other men moving into the west often took wives from cultures other than their own. The history of the mail order bride business is documented as far back as the Revolutionary War[4], and pre-arranged marriages have always been the norm rather than the exception[5].
In the Americas, transplanted Europeans sometimes turned to taking indigenous women or slave women as concubines or at least for release of sexual needs, resulting in many mulatto and mestizo children.[6] In California, however, the need for foreign brides arose from a huge Asian, mainly Chinese and Japanese, pool of laborers working on sugarcane plantations and later, the railroads. Since interracial relations between white women and Asian men was forbidden, Chinese women were brought to the United States to work as prostitutes for the working community.[7]
By 1860, over 80% of the Chinese women in San Francisco were prostitutes. Many were kidnapped or brought to the United States under false pretenses. Eventually, the mail order bride was conceived and carried out by Korean and Japanese societies in the early 1900’s, as the use of photography made it possible to see photos of potential brides, called “picture brides”. Matchmakers were used as “middlemen” to negotiate for the American or Asian American men.
These arranged marriages not only eased tensions within the Asian working community, but also increased the number of immigrants to the United States and strengthened the labor pool, as wives would also work alongside their husbands.[8]
In the South Americas, European white men took indigenous, Mexican or African/mulatto women for concubines until European women could immigrate to their hemisphere.[9] Although there was less a need for foreign brides in the Caribbean and Southern hemisphere due to the large number of mainly African women, as East Indian and Asian workers migrated to the Americas to work for United Fruit Company or on the Panama Canal, Asian women were yet again lured to foreign ports.
In some of these communities, the marriage of Asian women to members of the mulatto population was seen as preferable to marrying another black or mulatto, as the lighter complexion of Asian women was seen as lightening or “whitening” the population, considered a positive end result.[10],[11] As stated earlier, the first and second world wars also brought foreign brides to American shores.[12] Many white Americans still harbor negative associations with the term “war bride”. These women whom American G. I.s met during their stays overseas emigrated to the United States and met with the hostility of American women who felt “their men” had been stolen from them twice; first by war and then by foreign- born women. The implication, even then, was that these women’s intentions were to steal the money of American men, and this attitude still remains.
This author’s recent survey showed that 50% of American women believed that foreign women seeking to enter the United States were seeking citizenship only, 30% said foreign born women were seeking security, and another 10% asserted that foreign born wives were seeking “a free ride”. More American men—25%--mentioned the word “money” in guessing what foreign brides wanted, and 50% stated that the women wanted security and a better life. 12% of men felt these legal immigrants were looking for “a free ride”.
Interestingly enough, 70% of the American women surveyed said they knew nothing about international marriage agencies that act as marriage brokers in these intercultural marriages. Only 20% of the men did not know anything about these services. 82% of the men said they would marry someone from another country, and 60% of the women said they might do so. Yet, 44% of the men said they had actually searched on the internet for a foreign born spouse, and only 10% of the women said they had done so.
The American focus on the monetary aspects of marriage to a foreign born person is in juxtaposition to American views on what potential American-born partners are looking for in a relationship or marriage. 37% of American men felt American women were too materialistic, and yet only 4% of the women mentioned money as being important when choosing a mate. American women overwhelming listed qualities like honesty and sharing as being important, while men listed trust and being appreciated as important. Money was significantly lacking in the list of important factors in a relationship or marriage. Yet, marriage itself is a legal and social transaction with ideological and social bases.[13]
Marriage is, according to most anthropology scholars, “a culturally sanctioned union between two or more people that establishes certain rights and obligations between people…”[14] The rights and obligations include conjugal rights (who sleeps with whom and who is barred from sleeping with whom) and economic negotiations (who pays for what and what is the work/sex exchange thereby). Economics in marriage is evident in the following statistic: after divorce in the U.S., a woman’s standard of living drops by 73% and a man’s increases by 43%.[15]
In many countries, arranged marriages are the norm (India) because the economic exchanges that take place between families is vital. Certain societies use the payment of a “bride price”; that is, the groom’s family pays the bride’s family a certain amount of money or gifts—which can be goats, cattle, or even land. Sometimes this exchange of funds is to help “set up” the wife for her married life.[16]
There is also something called “bride service” in which the groom works for the bride’s family, but more common is the reverse, where the bride works for the groom’s family and leaves her own family to live with his.
In Eurasian societies that are more agrarian in nature, the wealth comes from the bride’s side in presentation of a dowry. In the U.S., this is expressed as the wife’s family paying for wedding expenses. The dowry is traditionally the parents’ inheritance given to the daughter who will then pass her portion of the inheritance to her new family. The dowry is supposed to take care of a woman if she loses her husband. It also allows women to compete through dowry for desirable husbands. In these cultures, the emphasis is most often on child- bearing.
When the demographics of the U.S. indicate that the gender percentages are pretty much 50/50, and there are not the shortages of women that were common during the European spread into the Americas, the question must be asked, why do American men still seek to find women from outside American borders for wives? One answer might be found in the informal survey this author offered to the single professional men recently. Fully half of the men taking the survey finished this sentence, “American women are…” with the word “materialistic”.
Even though American women clearly don’t think of themselves that way, American men have a perception that they do, and when looks at the demographics of the wages and educational level of men vs. men in the United States, one finds that, although women are over all more well educated than men, their income falls far short, compared to the men and their respective education and earnings. In short, women still marry for money, because they must, to be financially viable.
Marriage is a business.
[1] Douglas, W., 2003. Television Families: Is Something Wrong in Suburbia? Mahwah, New Jersey. Laurence Erlbaum Associates. [2] Reid-Andrews. [3] Reid Andrews, G. 2004. Afro-Latin America 1800-2000. New York, New York. Oxford University Press. [4] Douglas, W., 2003. Television Families: Is Something Wrong in Suburbia? Mahwah, New Jersey. Laurence Erlbaum Associates. [5] Haviland, Prins, Walrath, & McBride, 2005. Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Belmont, California. Thomson Wadsworth. [6] Reid-Andrews [7] Perez, B. Woman Warrior Meets Mail-Order Bride. Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. (211-236). 2003. [8] Perez, B. Woman Warrior Meets Mail-Order Bride. Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. (211-236). 2003. [9] Roopnarine, J. et al. 1997. Caribbean Families Diversity Among Ethnic Groups. Greenwich, Connecticut. Ablex Publishing Company. [10] Alleyn, M. The Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World. Kingston, Jamaica. University of West Indies Press. [11] Reid Andrews, G. 2004. Afro-Latin America 1800-2000. New York, New York. Oxford University Press. [12] United States Congress & Senate. Human Trafficking: mail order bride abuses: hearing before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee of Foreign Relations. U.S. G.P.O. July 13, 2004. [13] Haviland, Prins, Walrath, & McBride, 2005. Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Belmont, California. Thomson Wadsworth. [14] Ibid. [15] Weitzman, L. J., 1985. The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America. New York. Free Press. [16] Haviland, Prins, Walrath, & McBride, 2005. Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Belmont, California. Thomson Wadsworth.
