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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

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Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is

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Speaker 1: stuff you should know about mail order marriages, the murky waters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah really, Uh yeah, this is one of those where

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Speaker 1: we researched and researched and read and read, and I

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Speaker 1: think it's it's one of those deals for me that's

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Speaker 1: like and this is just my opening statement where it

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Speaker 1: can be a a positive thing, like a dating service

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Speaker 1: in some ways, but there is certainly a darker side

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Speaker 1: to the whole situation. Uh. I already know how you

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Speaker 1: feel about it, and I feel like it's coming through clearly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's very It's one of those

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Speaker 1: really murky things where sometimes you hear these really great

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Speaker 1: stories about people that do find are looking for love

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Speaker 1: and find love with someone from another country and it

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Speaker 1: works out for everybody, And then sometimes you hear about

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Speaker 1: stories where it's sort of what the National Organization for

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Speaker 1: Women's Sonya Sario calls a softer version of human trafficking,

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Speaker 1: or even worse, occasionally someone turns up murdered. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the truest dark side. So uh, that's

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Speaker 1: just me level setting and we can talk about the good,

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Speaker 1: the bad, and ugly. I think that was a great

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Speaker 1: level saying. I generally agree with it, But for me,

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Speaker 1: the jury is still out in thinking about it as

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Speaker 1: a whole because there's so little hard data on this stuff.

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Speaker 1: Almost everything is anecdotal, and when like you condemned something

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Speaker 1: based on anecdotal data, you've got there is a moral hannock,

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Speaker 1: not necessarily something in in reality. So I'm a little

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Speaker 1: hesitant to go all the way. The jury is still

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Speaker 1: out for me, but I definitely recognize the same stuff

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Speaker 1: you do. For sure. It's definitely there. It exists. It's

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Speaker 1: just for me, the question is how much does it

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Speaker 1: exist and does the good outweigh the bad? And I

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Speaker 1: don't know, So we we should probably like actually define

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, because most people I would

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Speaker 1: guess are familiar with mail order brides, they're more um

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Speaker 1: more recently they're they've come to be called mail order

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Speaker 1: marriages because they've been extended to same sex couples in

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Speaker 1: the United States. But then also like even more generally

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Speaker 1: it's called um international marriage brokerage. Right, Yeah. I mean

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Speaker 1: there's a full industry built around this, with thousands of

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Speaker 1: websites and agencies that are brokering these marriages. And you know,

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Speaker 1: from looking into it, it it seems like there are some

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Speaker 1: really above boardwines that kind of act like uh an

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Speaker 1: international dating surface in some ways UM where they group

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Speaker 1: you know, match like people together. And then it seems

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Speaker 1: like there are a lot of really sketchy ones that

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Speaker 1: charge people a ton of money and aren't looking out

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Speaker 1: for the men or the women, And I know that

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Speaker 1: money is sunk back into making their website. Look at

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Speaker 1: all nonlu that saw some really really bad websites so

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Speaker 1: man like comic sans at one point. Yeah, it's hard

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Speaker 1: to see those and not think, well, A, this is

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Speaker 1: a scam or b this is a front for some

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Speaker 1: sort of ceed trafficking operation. Right, yeah, it is tough

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Speaker 1: not not to think like that. But but what we

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Speaker 1: are talking about generally is UM A a marriage UM

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Speaker 1: where the husband and the wife are generally unknown to

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Speaker 1: each other, maybe have met once, but if they did,

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Speaker 1: it's possible it was just a day or two before UM.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe they've met once or twice and have done

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Speaker 1: some correspondence back and forth for an extended period of time.

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Speaker 1: But that's pretty new. And and in the classical definitions,

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Speaker 1: they're generally unknown to one another. Um, and one of

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Speaker 1: them usually the bride travels a very long distance from

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Speaker 1: home to move to the husband's home, uh and make

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Speaker 1: a life there and and be married. Um. That's not

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Speaker 1: the Webster's definition. There's a lot more stumbling in my definition.

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Speaker 1: But I think that generally gets it across. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: you know, the kind of the classic thing that you

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Speaker 1: think of is lonely American man who has a little

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Speaker 1: bit of money in his forties or fifties, can't find

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Speaker 1: American woman and ends up getting a young, beautiful, young

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Speaker 1: Ukrainian woman who doesn't speak much English and would love

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Speaker 1: to live in the United States. Uh, and and fall

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Speaker 1: in love with an American man. And that's sort of

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Speaker 1: and you know, of course it happens from all countries,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of times you think of Russia and

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Speaker 1: the Ukraine or maybe in Southeast Asia or something like that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That is sort of I feel like when people say

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Speaker 1: that term, most people, that's probably what pops into their head. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: or I think you're being rather generous. I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of people would be like, you know, some sad

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Speaker 1: sack who can't like find a woman in America has

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Speaker 1: to go look elsewhere to get really judge you about it,

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Speaker 1: And I think people are really judging about mail order marriages.

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Speaker 1: I think there's a long standing tradition in the United

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Speaker 1: States of considering people who who go outside the traditional

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Speaker 1: channels of marriage and basically take it into their own hands,

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Speaker 1: like through mail order marriage, are they're they're very much

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Speaker 1: judged harshly and criticized, maybe maybe fairly, maybe not. But

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Speaker 1: I think there's another component too, especially these days, is

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Speaker 1: that the men who who are looking for women for

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Speaker 1: mail order brides are also dominant, domineering, possibly abusive, and

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Speaker 1: their look king for docile UH women who will do

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Speaker 1: whatever they say because they're the husband. So they have

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Speaker 1: to go to other cultures where that might be more

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Speaker 1: prevalent and where they can select from women who might

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Speaker 1: respond to that kind of thing a lot better than

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Speaker 1: an American woman who wouldn't put up with his guff. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that is certainly a part of what happens sometimes,

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Speaker 1: and some of these agencies UH promote that the submissive nature. UM.

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Speaker 1: There was one that literally said that these young women

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Speaker 1: are quote unspoiled by feminism, and you have potential homemaking

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Speaker 1: savings of a hundred and fifty dollars a week because

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Speaker 1: you're essentially getting a you know, sort of a live

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Speaker 1: in domestic servant. So you know, that's the underbelly in

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Speaker 1: the dark side. But we you know, I did find

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Speaker 1: some that do seem very above board, and people that

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Speaker 1: do genuinely look like they're looking for love and have

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Speaker 1: struck out at home, so they're looking elsewhere. So I said, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: and we should also say one other thing to like,

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Speaker 1: you know, um, it's pretty like it's a pretty well

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Speaker 1: own thing in America. It's not like on everybody's lips.

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Speaker 1: You don't hear it in every monologue on the late

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Speaker 1: night talk shows or anything like that. But like, generally

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Speaker 1: people in America are familiar and I know about mail

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Speaker 1: order marriages, but it turns out it's even bigger in

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Speaker 1: other countries like Taiwan and South Korea have huge mail

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Speaker 1: order marriage industries. Um that may even dwarf the United States.

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Speaker 1: And it's pretty I don't want to say it's huge

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Speaker 1: in the United States, but it's not like just some

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Speaker 1: small speck of sliver of like arcane group of people

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Speaker 1: like it's bigger than you think, but it's even bigger

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Speaker 1: in some other Asian countries as well. Yeah, and Dave

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Speaker 1: Ruce helped us put this together, and this was a

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Speaker 1: tough assignment for him, but he used um a lot

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Speaker 1: of information from a book by a legal professor originally

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Speaker 1: from University of South Carolina and Marcia's zug called Buying

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Speaker 1: a Bride insert colon music Jerry and engaging history of

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Speaker 1: mail order matches, where it seems like she gives a

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Speaker 1: you know, a fair but fairly full throated defense of

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Speaker 1: its history through the ages as far as and we'll

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Speaker 1: get into this, but as far as an opportunity for

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Speaker 1: a lot of women to gain more agency and to

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Speaker 1: gain more rights at a time when they might not

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Speaker 1: have any, all the way up through today, where uh

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Speaker 1: she still defends it to a certain degree and and says,

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Speaker 1: you know, like sure, these situations can be bad, but

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Speaker 1: what's really bad is what undocumented immigrants have to suffer

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Speaker 1: through in this country because they have no legal rights.

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Speaker 1: They can't go to the police, they can't leave their

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Speaker 1: their uh spouse or or their partner for fear of deportation,

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Speaker 1: and uh, it's an interesting take, I think. And and

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Speaker 1: I'm glad that Dave found this book, you know, because

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Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not sure that I would have been

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Speaker 1: as fair. Yeah, yeah, no, she definitely almost. I get

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Speaker 1: the impression that she um is defensive on behalf of

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Speaker 1: the industry just because of how mistreated it's been, in

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Speaker 1: her opinion, unfairly in large part, yeah, because you know,

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Speaker 1: I think it very much has an antifeminist rap for

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Speaker 1: good reason. But she does make some compelling arguments that

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Speaker 1: throughout history it wasn't that way at all. And I

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Speaker 1: guess we can go ahead and dive into some of

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Speaker 1: that in um the early days of male order marriages

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Speaker 1: in the American colonies, there was a lack of women

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Speaker 1: problem in the in the early colonies, I mean like

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Speaker 1: the earliest colonies. We're talking like Jamestown here. Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: you know, the Puritans and Pilgrims. They may have come

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Speaker 1: over with their families, but there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: single men that came over, and a lot of them,

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Speaker 1: Uh some of them may like run off with an

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Speaker 1: indigenous woman and live with among her tribe and be like,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I'm kind of done building things for

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Speaker 1: James down. I'm out of here. So that's no good

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Speaker 1: if they're looking for young into like kind of help

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Speaker 1: build up these young colonies. And then other ones were

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Speaker 1: just lonely and said, hey, I like, uh, there are

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Speaker 1: no women over here. What are we supposed to do?

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Speaker 1: So very early on, uh, they started UM sort of

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Speaker 1: advertising and bringing uh women, you know, supposedly volunteers over

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Speaker 1: who wanted to come to the colonies and and sort

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Speaker 1: of have maybe even more rights than they had back home. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And this is a really good example of kind of

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Speaker 1: like a thread that ran through the first couple of

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Speaker 1: centuries of America's founding um, which was government sanctioned and

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Speaker 1: supported UM mail order marriages in order to help build

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Speaker 1: more stable communities. Right, So, the the UM legislatures did

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Speaker 1: things like create laws that made it more attractive for

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Speaker 1: a woman to become a mail order bride in this area,

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Speaker 1: like um, apparently in England, Uh, if you became a widow,

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Speaker 1: you you got a third of the estate and that

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Speaker 1: was it. And in places like Virginia and I think

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Speaker 1: Maryland as well, they set up laws that basically said, hey,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna keep a lot more than that. You can

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Speaker 1: run your own business afterwards, like being a widow's gonna rock.

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Speaker 1: And did we mention also the men are dropping dead

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Speaker 1: like flies over here, so yeah, your husband's probably gonna

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Speaker 1: die pretty quick. So if you don't like them, who cares.

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Speaker 1: You still get to keep all this inheritance and you

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Speaker 1: get to keep the business and you can't do quite

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Speaker 1: that well for yourself. And those circumstances back in England,

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Speaker 1: so that attracted people. And that was like the government

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Speaker 1: saying like, please come over here and marry these strangers

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Speaker 1: that you've never met before. Yeah, and you know, it

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Speaker 1: made sense for a lot of these young women because

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Speaker 1: many of them were you know, they were from like

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Speaker 1: the servant class, let's say, so they were looking at

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Speaker 1: years of servitude uh in England and then they basically

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Speaker 1: were like, well, hey, forget all that, why don't you

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Speaker 1: just come over here get married. And like you said,

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Speaker 1: I think the status even one in three marriages last

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Speaker 1: a ten years. So they did kind of sell them

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Speaker 1: on the fact that yeah, it's not so great, they'll

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Speaker 1: probably be dead soon enough and then you can have

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Speaker 1: a stuff. Yeah, and it actually I mean like that

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Speaker 1: that actually did um like attract some women, I think

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Speaker 1: at least, uh, I don't. I don't know if we

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Speaker 1: have the number, but there definitely were what they called

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Speaker 1: tobacco wives who came to marry new tobacco planters who

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Speaker 1: were setting up their own fortune. And I actually had

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Speaker 1: to prove that they were a financial means by donating

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Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty pounds of gold leaf tobacco to

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Speaker 1: the Virginia Company to to take part in this right

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Speaker 1: and so UM that that lasted as long as it lasted,

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Speaker 1: or as long as it needed to. And as the

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Speaker 1: Eastern colonies started to like become more self sufficient, um

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Speaker 1: became less rowdy, became more family oriented. As far as

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Speaker 1: the Europeans were concerned. Um, the the need for like

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Speaker 1: those mail order schemes, UM kind of went away. But

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Speaker 1: then as America kind of expanded further and further west,

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Speaker 1: the frontier kept recreating itself in different places. So you know, UM,

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Speaker 1: it went from the Eastern colonies to you know, along

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Speaker 1: the Mississippi, and then further and further out west. And

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Speaker 1: every time it did that, this new iteration of the

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Speaker 1: frontier was settled by rowdy men, and they would have

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Speaker 1: to figure out a way to get women to attract

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Speaker 1: women to come out to marry the rowdy men so

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Speaker 1: they would stop beating each other up in bar fights

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Speaker 1: and and become more productive citizens. And that kept going

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Speaker 1: on throughout the the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the

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Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, and you know, if you're already thinking, guys,

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Speaker 1: this this already sounds terrible, these marriages based on these

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Speaker 1: financial arrangements, and you know, despite these promises of a

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Speaker 1: better life, like that's kind of what we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: like welcome to marriage in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

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Speaker 1: Don't be so naive. Yeah, that's not that's kind of

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Speaker 1: what it was. And and've made a good point like

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Speaker 1: the notion of marrying for true love. That's a very

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Speaker 1: much like a twentieth century proposition, even if it wasn't

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Speaker 1: a male order bride situation, it was someone's dowry or

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Speaker 1: or parents sort of arranging marriages and saying these family,

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Speaker 1: this family should marry this family, which still goes on today.

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Speaker 1: I should point out among like the blue chip in

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Speaker 1: the high society, like and Arthur had to marry Susan.

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Speaker 1: You know, let's not forget that everybody with a Habsburg

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Speaker 1: Jaw was an arranged marriage. He could marry Liza Manelli.

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize you were making the movie reference. I

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Speaker 1: thought you were Arthur and Susan. I thought you were

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Speaker 1: using like Biff and Muffy, like general Jenual Arthur and yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I got it. Now I got it. But the point

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Speaker 1: is is that marriage was a financial arrangement many and

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Speaker 1: most times back then. I'm not saying no one ever

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Speaker 1: married because they were in love. I'm sure that happened, Uh,

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Speaker 1: but it had to take a lot boxes back then.

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Speaker 1: So it was just sort of the way it was.

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Speaker 1: And so this solved problems for early settlers and for

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Speaker 1: westward expanders. Uh. They made things really attractive in California

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Speaker 1: for women. They made it easier to divorce your husband

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to. Uh. They made it easier to

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Speaker 1: or just legal to own and sell, buy and sell land,

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Speaker 1: which is not something you could do at other places

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Speaker 1: in the country. So they were trying to make it

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Speaker 1: an attractive situation for women to move west because they

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Speaker 1: needed men and women out there. And uh, I think

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Speaker 1: the between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty, the the population

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Speaker 1: of women in California increased from three percent to nine

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Speaker 1: percent of the total population. So it was working. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was. And it wasn't just California, but um, Washington

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Speaker 1: State also participated. I think Oregon may have as well. Um.

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Speaker 1: And there would be there these schemes, and I don't

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Speaker 1: mean scheme like you know, like dastardly scheme, with like

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Speaker 1: a a plan good scheme. Yeah, where like a guy

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Speaker 1: would go around to the bachelor's out in like Washington

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Speaker 1: Territory and be like, give me a hundred bucks or

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Speaker 1: I think three hundred bucks, which is about five grand today, um,

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Speaker 1: and I will bring you a suitable wife. Um. And

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Speaker 1: at least one guy did this. ASA Mercer was a

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Speaker 1: marriage broker and he would go back east say hey,

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Speaker 1: there's like this great booming economy out west, why don't

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Speaker 1: you come with me, And like he would return with

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Speaker 1: like a hundred women and some of them would get

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Speaker 1: married immediately, some would wait. Um. But it was like

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Speaker 1: another it was another thing where there was a need

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Speaker 1: for women, uh, to stabilize it out of control male population. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And you know, Zug points out very fairly in her

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Speaker 1: book that some of these Mercer girls from is they

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Speaker 1: were called from ASA Mercer's operation became abolitionists. Some became

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Speaker 1: women's rights advocates and social reformers. One of them's name was, uh,

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Speaker 1: this great name, Mehitable Haskell Elder uh, And she organized

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Speaker 1: the Women's Rights Conference in Olympia, Washington, and recruited one

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Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony as the territory delicate for the National

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Speaker 1: Women's Suffrage Association CAN mention. So you know, in a

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Speaker 1: lot of cases, these women did find agency and they

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Speaker 1: did get out of a better situation than they were

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Speaker 1: in back east. Hey, so you want to take a

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Speaker 1: break and then we'll talk about the probably what was

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Speaker 1: the real birth of mail order marriages? Sure, Okay, we'll

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Speaker 1: be right back alright, Chuck. So we've talking to this

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Speaker 1: point about basically like government sanctioned schemes to kind of

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Speaker 1: stabilize male populations. There was also, at the same time,

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Speaker 1: beginning in the nineteenth century, um, I think starting in

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Speaker 1: England actually in the eighteenth century, that was kind of

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Speaker 1: simultaneously unfolding, and that was, um the matrimonial advertisement industry,

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Speaker 1: which to me is like the real birth of the

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Speaker 1: mail order marriage industry that we understand today. But it

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Speaker 1: was basically the personal ads. Yeah, it was the birth

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Speaker 1: of personal ads, the birth of dating services. Uh. It's

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Speaker 1: really interesting in that, Uh, women would put ads in

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Speaker 1: London and then later on in the United States, ads

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Speaker 1: in the paper basically saying you know, hi, this is

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Speaker 1: who I am, this is what I'm looking for. I mean,

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Speaker 1: much like you would see these days in like a

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Speaker 1: dating profile. And it was a way for them to,

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Speaker 1: you know, to take some agency over avoiding the arranged

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Speaker 1: marriage that their parents had set up for him and

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Speaker 1: maybe get a little bit of choice of suitors, right,

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Speaker 1: And I mean like that is like taking control of

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Speaker 1: your own um, of your own marriage prospects. And it

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Speaker 1: was I guess radical is probably a pretty good word.

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Speaker 1: But it picked up, It caught on um, especially in

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Speaker 1: the US. By the end of the nineteenth century, it

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Speaker 1: really started to catch on to where they were like

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Speaker 1: um magazines that were like dedicated just to matrimonial advertisements. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like there was the Matrimonial News, which is actually the

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Speaker 1: most straight ahead of all of them. Yeah, I like

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Speaker 1: Cupid's Messenger. That sounds like a cute one. What about

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Speaker 1: heart and Hand, Heart in Hand And then to me

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Speaker 1: this one. I guess they were just trying to play

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Speaker 1: it really safe, the standard correspondence club. Right, good day

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Speaker 1: to you, right exactly. So yeah, so these things were

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Speaker 1: like kind of popular by the end of the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 1: But then it's like you said earlier, the by by

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Speaker 1: the end of the night teenth century the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century, our ideas about what constituted marriage, the

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Speaker 1: reasons for marriage had transitioned from financial arrangements into love

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Speaker 1: in America, right, And so there was simultaneously the popularity

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Speaker 1: of matrimonial advertisements and people taking control of their own

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Speaker 1: marriage prospects, and at the same time, UM, a criticism

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Speaker 1: and a uh like society generally looking down upon people

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Speaker 1: who did that kind of thing. So there would be

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Speaker 1: stories in the paper of people like sad sack bachelor's

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Speaker 1: or lonely heart widows getting conned or swindled or getting

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Speaker 1: fool catfish basically is what you call it today, UM.

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Speaker 1: And people love to read that kind of stuff and

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Speaker 1: laugh at their misfortune and look down on these people. UM.

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Speaker 1: And that that that's where like the root of what

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Speaker 1: people still do today to the mail order marriage industry,

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Speaker 1: at least in America. UM really finds its roots in

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Speaker 1: the in the twentieth tree. Yeah, and this is when

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Speaker 1: things started transitioning to overseas, when American men started bringing

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Speaker 1: in women from foreign countries. And that's when I think

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Speaker 1: that's when it became a bit more of an industry.

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Speaker 1: And this is when Congress got kind of full on

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Speaker 1: racist and trying to control this thing, because there was

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Speaker 1: you know, there were women saying, I don't want these

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Speaker 1: women coming into our country and disrupting our our feminist

359
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Speaker 1: agenda that we're trying to push. There were men saying,

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Speaker 1: we don't want this, uh people from China or Japan

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Speaker 1: coming in here, and you know, they can they can

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Speaker 1: have babies once a year, and they like there were

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Speaker 1: senators literally saying these things, and so they would enact

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Speaker 1: laws like, you know, we're gonna be overrun basically, so

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Speaker 1: they would enact laws, uh, like the Chinese Exclusion Act

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Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty two UH to to ban Chinese immigration. UH.

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Speaker 1: There was a loophole for pan with the nineteen o

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Speaker 1: seven Gentleman's Agreement, which basically said if you that a

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Speaker 1: Japanese woman uh and and their kids could come over

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Speaker 1: if they were married. So there were Japanese single men

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Speaker 1: already in the United States that immigrated over here that

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Speaker 1: would get married sight unseen from like a catalog basically

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Speaker 1: to in order to gain immigration status for the Japanese women.

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Speaker 1: And then that ultimately got shut down in four with

375
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Speaker 1: the Immigration Act and they just said no Japanese immigration

376
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Speaker 1: of any any kind now after that. So there was

377
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Speaker 1: a huge anti Asian thread from the late nineteenth century

378
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Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century, um based on immigration, and

379
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Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of centered on mail order marriages. UM.

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Speaker 1: But then uh, one of the other things that that

381
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Speaker 1: really kind of cropped up as a result of mail

382
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Speaker 1: order marriages going from like women back east or women

383
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Speaker 1: coming from Europe, to women coming from Asia U to

384
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Speaker 1: marry white American men. Um. Was there there was this

385
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,560
Speaker 1: idea that the women were nothing more than like looking

386
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:10,119
Speaker 1: for um, a green card basically American citizenship, trying to

387
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Speaker 1: escape their own country. And you run into that criticism today,

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Speaker 1: I mean just as much as you would have back

389
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Speaker 1: in when they passed the the Immigration Act against Japanese people.

390
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:24,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because you know, uh, and this is from

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Speaker 1: Zug's book. She talks about you know, Mexican women, Greek women,

392
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Speaker 1: Asian women, Jewish women, Italian women, they were much more

393
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Speaker 1: likely to be deported under an LPC charge, which is

394
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Speaker 1: a person that is likely to become a public charge

395
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,440
Speaker 1: basically like to come over and sort of live off

396
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Speaker 1: the government. Uh. If they were from these countries, in

397
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: a way around that was to get married and get

398
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,640
Speaker 1: that green card. So that criticism like came pretty straight away,

399
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: I think, right. And then the other one is that

400
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: that they were basically all just sex workers in disguise,

401
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: coming over under the guise of being mail order brides,

402
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 1: but really they were coming over here to prostitute themselves

403
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: and behave immorally. Um. And again this is another accusation

404
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:16,199
Speaker 1: that you see today, except the the onus has or

405
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: the focus the empathy, I guess has evolved from being

406
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: put on society um, being attacked by these immoral women,

407
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 1: to the women themselves being trafficked by international criminals. But

408
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: it's still generally the same accusation. It's just been it's

409
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: just altered itself some you know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, um.

410
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Speaker 1: And you know that sort of h antifeminist charge from

411
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Speaker 1: American women saying that you know, these women from other

412
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Speaker 1: countries are coming over here and they they do whatever

413
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Speaker 1: their husbands tell them, and this is setting us back. Uh.

414
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Speaker 1: They would say the same thing though about war brides.

415
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 1: If you were a soldier in Korea or Vietnam and

416
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: brought a men back over, they would have that same

417
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: kind of charge levied against them, saying, the only reason

418
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: you're bringing these women back is because of the power

419
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: imbalance that is now gained. And you know that can

420
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: be fair to a certain degree. There's a lot there is.

421
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: It's really hard to talk about marriage like this without

422
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: talking about uh inequity and a power imbalance from the beginning. Um,

423
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: not to say that that doesn't change and that there

424
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: aren't great success stories where uh, both partners are equal

425
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: and they both contribute and they both you know, respect

426
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 1: one another's viewpoints. But there any time you are in

427
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: a situation where you are bringing someone over from another

428
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,919
Speaker 1: country that is escaping a bad situation and looking for

429
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: a more prosperous situation and you can provide that and

430
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: you are paying the money to the service for linking you,

431
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: there's a power imbalance there from the beginning. Yeah, well

432
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: there's a power imbalance in that. Like you probably don't

433
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: speak the language as the mail order bride. You don't

434
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: have any friends, you don't have any family, you don't

435
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 1: have any social structure to depend on. The only person

436
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: you have to depend on is your husband. He's not

437
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 1: very nice to you or even worse abusive towards you. Um,

438
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 1: you're in You're in big trouble. And then it's also,

439
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: like you said, if you are escaping poverty back home,

440
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: you might show up with basically no money. And so

441
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: if you just found out that this guy is not

442
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 1: always cracked up to be, or he is abusive, or um,

443
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 1: he's actually got a terrible criminal record or terrible credit

444
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: or all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't have otherwise

445
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: come over for um, you're stuck here. And according to

446
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: some human trafficking groups, that is a that is a

447
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: broad definition of human trafficking where a person has moved

448
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: from one place to another for financial means and then

449
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: ends up becoming dependent financially uh in a situation that

450
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: they otherwise wouldn't want to be in, they would not

451
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: have chosen to put themselves in. That's as much as

452
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: trafficking in a broad definition as somebody being kidnapped and

453
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: forced into uh sex work. Yeah, and even if there

454
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: is no uh, you know, no literal violence or abuse,

455
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that it's an equitable situation because someone

456
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,880
Speaker 1: can essentially be a almost a captive in their own home,

457
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: like you said, if they don't speak the language, they

458
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 1: have no advocates, so we here for themselves or friends

459
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,640
Speaker 1: to help them and speak up for them. And it's uh,

460
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: you can see why it gets a bad rap for sure.

461
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: So on the flip side, though, there have to be

462
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: men out there who just struck out consistently with America

463
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: or American women or men and took matters into their

464
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: own hands and looked abroad. And the best way to

465
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: do that is a marriage broker, and there's plenty of

466
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 1: places you can do that. Um. And then also the

467
00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 1: other problem with just basically characterizing um Millerner Bride's nothing

468
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 1: but like victims right for exploitation is to really miss

469
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: the personalities of a lot of them. Where to put

470
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: yourself out there is a mail or to bride shows

471
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: a UM or demonstrates like a lot of initiative compared

472
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: to just staying back home and making do with your

473
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: lot in life. Like if you're a widow in some

474
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 1: countries and you have kids, you might not be remarriable,

475
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: there might not be anybody who wants to marry you,

476
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: and so you're doomed to a life of solitude and

477
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: single motherhood, whether you like it or not. So if

478
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: you just say, okay, well that's my lot in life,

479
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: that's what I'm doing, Okay, fine. But if you say,

480
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: you know what, now, there's another way out, and it

481
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: might not be the most tasteful thing that I would

482
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: have chosen for myself before, but I really want to

483
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: make sure my kids are taken care of and I'm

484
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: going to go seek husband elsewhere. That shows, that demonstrates

485
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: a lot of um self startered nous. I guess that

486
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: that UM, I think kind of undermines a lot of

487
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: the view of of mail orderprises these kind of like

488
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: simple minded docile women um that that can't fend for

489
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: themselves or stick up for themselves. Yeah, and you, it's

490
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: also a real slippery slope to to judge. I mean, well,

491
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: we all think like, oh, it should you should only

492
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: fall in love with love at first sight and that

493
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: should be all it is, and that should be what

494
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 1: marriage is based on, full stop. It's a real slippery

495
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: slope too. Uh, to judge someone other's someone else's situation

496
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: if it's working out for both of them. If if

497
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 1: it is a rich old guy in his sixties who

498
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: is like, you know what, I want to live out

499
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years of my life, uh, with a partner,

500
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: And there's a beautiful young Ukrainian woman who's like, you

501
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: know what, I've got nothing going on over here. I

502
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of prospects. My country is not,

503
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: you know, doing me any favors. And so I'm gonna

504
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: go over and marry some rich guy and we're gonna

505
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: be happy for the last fifteen years of his life.

506
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: And they travel and they do take cruises and they

507
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: have a good time together. Like it's a real slippery

508
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: sloped for someone to come in and say, well, no,

509
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: that's wrong, because you guys just didn't meet and fall

510
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 1: in love like you know, meeting in a bar drunk

511
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: one night, like a like all Americans. Again and again.

512
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: That seems to be a long standing criticism that stretches

513
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: back at least a century here in America too, for sure. Okay,

514
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: so enough of that, enough of that, I feel like

515
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: we should talk about some of the nuts and bolts

516
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: of um the mail order marriage industry. Okay, yeah, uh,

517
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:43,239
Speaker 1: let's do it. Well, let's start. So I found this

518
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: um contemporary journalism um from your c J right uh

519
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: in the New York Times, and they basically just checked

520
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: in with the mail order marriage industry at the time,

521
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: and it gave a really good snapshot of how things

522
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: used to be and of the reasons why mail order

523
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: brides were called mail order brides, because time was that

524
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: you would find a mail order marriage service, you would

525
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: subscribe to that service of The New York Times says

526
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: anywhere between fifty to five hundred dollars a year um,

527
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: and every well that was for a catalog annual subscribe.

528
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: And then every month or every couple of months, or

529
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: maybe twice a month, probably not twice a month, you

530
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 1: would get a catalog that was clearly made by somebody

531
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: who didn't major in catalog making in college of pictures

532
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: of the of like a prospective bride, her stats, physical stats,

533
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: her likes, her dislikes, that kind of thing. Basically a blurb,

534
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: and you were you'd flipped through a catalog and you'd

535
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: get back in touch of this subscription service and say

536
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: I like number eight eight nine, seven two UM, and

537
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: I also like thirty seven fifty five, And you just

538
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: give them a list of women that you wanted them

539
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: to reach out to on your half, and all of

540
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: a sudden you would start exchanging letters. Uh. Little by little,

541
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: you would narrow down the women that you were talking to,

542
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: and then you would eventually probably go over and meet

543
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: one and maybe in that trip marry them, like have

544
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: have your wedding like that the day you meet them

545
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: or the day after you met them. And that was

546
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: pretty standard for the seventies and eighties as far as

547
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: mail order goes, and I think into the nineties as well. Yeah,

548
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: and of course it's all online now and depending on

549
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,239
Speaker 1: which agency you go through, and like I said, there

550
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 1: are thousands. They offer a range of services to you know,

551
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: bleed you of as much money as they can in

552
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: the process, whether it's subscription fees, or will will write

553
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: your letters first letters for you and translate them for

554
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: a fee, Or if you want to video chat or

555
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: have phone calls, we can arrange that for a fee.

556
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: Everything has a fee. I think this one and this

557
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: is from an anti trafficking Internet national website article. They

558
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: said that estimate show um people spend about six to

559
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: ten thou dollars. Each client spends about six to ten

560
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: tho dollars. And I think this is for you know,

561
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: the I guess more high end, more reputable ones. I

562
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: think I think some of those places are happy if

563
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: they get like five bucks out of the you end

564
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 1: then you leave. Well. I think you can be like

565
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: a skin flint husband um and just do it strictly

566
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: online and then go meet them and marry them. But

567
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: there are ones that offer like tours for like five

568
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: grand um, which depending on the country, may or may

569
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: not be legal where you like, if you went to Vietnam,

570
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: it would be illegal in Vietnam, mail order um marriages,

571
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: the whole industry is illegal, but it's also rampant there

572
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: um and they're there are like whole hotels that where

573
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: a woman goes and stays and then tours of like

574
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: eyes from Taiwan or South Korea or the United States

575
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: come through and meet them. Uh. And I think human

576
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: trafficking people are like and do god knows what else

577
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: for money and um. Then if if you hit it

578
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: off with one, maybe you like start talking to them

579
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: a little more or you marry them on the spot.

580
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: That kind of thing. But there's like there's tours you

581
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: can go on, and depending on your view of the

582
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 1: mail order marriage industry, it's either a tour where you're

583
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: going and meeting a lot of perspective brides, or it's

584
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: basically a sex tour to Vietnam, right. And they also

585
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: will do things where it's really hard to not read

586
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: as uh, a man sort of buying a woman, where

587
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: they say like, well, you know, we'll put them up

588
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 1: in this hotel and we'll have them go checked out

589
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: by our doctors and our psychologists to have a psychological evaluation,

590
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: and all of this information will be sent to you,

591
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 1: the man with the money, to make your decision on

592
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,720
Speaker 1: whether or not you're gonna sort of pay for this bride.

593
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: And it's it's really hard to look at that any

594
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: other way. Then that like you really got to stretch

595
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,720
Speaker 1: your mind. But then you will read a story about

596
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: a couple that that are deeply in love for twenty

597
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,840
Speaker 1: years on and who had kids in American who had

598
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: a great life together. Uh, And and they were like, no,

599
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: it was really more like an international dating service. Uh.

600
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: And they just sort of match maked um or matchmated,

601
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: made matched maked. Uh. So, it's like it's just I

602
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: don't know if we've ever had a topic where I

603
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 1: was so like, all right, well this doesn't sound too bad,

604
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: and like, oh my god, this sounds terrible. Yeah, I

605
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: got you, Yeah I can't. And then maybe the industry,

606
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I mean I think it can be

607
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: both those things. Yeah, it makes you, yes, And it

608
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: surely is both of those things. Again, the question is

609
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: is one way more than the other, And if so,

610
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 1: which way is a lopside? And if so, do we

611
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: need to like follow Vietnam's footsteps and outlaw the marriage

612
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: the mail order marriage industry. You know what I'm saying.

613
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: It's like that that may be a really big red flag,

614
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 1: like why did Vietnam outlaw in the entire industry that's

615
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: totally like fine and legal here in the United States? Right, So, Um,

616
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: should we take a break, Yeah, I think we should

617
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 1: take a break in. Um, we'll talk about mail order

618
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: marriages in the Internet age because things have changed a

619
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:25,879
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, and some of the laws right right,

620
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:50,320
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back all right, um really quickly,

621
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: this uh the great article I found that from the

622
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: Anti Trafficking International site. They did kind of talk a

623
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: little bit about what it means for your immigration status

624
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: and how because I mentioned earlier that Zug said, you

625
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: know who's really at risk or undocumented immigrants because they

626
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: have no recourse. Um, but even if you do come

627
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,839
Speaker 1: over as a mail order bride, and uh, here here's

628
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: basically what happens. The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendment, which was

629
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: enacted in eighty six is basically, the husband will apply

630
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:26,399
Speaker 1: for a spouse or a fiance visa and then the

631
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: bride Mary's has to marry the husband within three months

632
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: upon arrival in the US. So there's a three month

633
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: sort of tried out period. But the bride only has

634
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:40,359
Speaker 1: conditional resident status for two years. So in that two

635
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: year period um at the end of which they have

636
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: to apply jointly for her permanent status as a resident.

637
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:51,320
Speaker 1: In that conditional two year period, that is the dodgy

638
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: territory where they're basically, like the bridest, completely dependent on

639
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: the husband. He holds all the cards. Uh, They're very

640
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 1: vulnerable at this point. They may have linguistic isolation or

641
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,240
Speaker 1: and or cultural isolation. They may not have that social

642
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,760
Speaker 1: network that we're talking about, or be completely economically dependent

643
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: on the husband, and they might be afraid that he'll

644
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: be like, you know what, it's in that two year frame,

645
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 1: I can still have you sent home, so you better

646
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,839
Speaker 1: you better be nice. Uh. And this is basically where

647
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: they're saying, this is just sort of a a softer

648
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 1: version of trafficking, even though and there is real trafficking

649
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: attached to this, we're not talking about that. We're talking

650
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: about women who do come over voluntarily, but they still

651
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 1: see that as a sort of a softer version of

652
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 1: that so um and that power dynamic and the one

653
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: where you mentioned where the men were supplied with all

654
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: the information where the mail or to bride'shead basically none

655
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: about the men. Um that that's changed in the last

656
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: few years thanks to the Internet and thanks to things

657
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 1: like video chat and texting and Facebook and Skype, and

658
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: now women are able just through the simple tools on

659
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: the internet um to to be much more discerning and

660
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: discriminating in the men they choose. It's not just like

661
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put myself in a catalog and cross my fingers. Um.

662
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: They're they're they're putting themselves out there much more, at

663
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: least ones that are are members of legitimate mail order

664
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: marriage brokerage is right. Yeah, and there was, uh, there

665
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: were very sadly a couple of high profile murders leading

666
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: up to the International Marriage broker Regulation Act in two

667
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: thousand five. And this is where things really kind of

668
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: changed as far as at least trying to help adjust

669
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: that power dynamic in that, uh, if you are a

670
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:46,720
Speaker 1: legitimate brokerage agency, you're required to UM provide these women

671
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,760
Speaker 1: with a lot of information now about the men, UM

672
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: whether or not they're on state or national sex offender registries, UM,

673
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: background on their like financials. They're given information on on

674
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: domestic violence and like what that looks like, you know,

675
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: and how to go to the police and stuff like that,

676
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,320
Speaker 1: and that you can do stuff like that UM arrest

677
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: history history, marital history, residence history if they have kids,

678
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff now that these agencies have to

679
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: provide about the men for the women. Yeah, And so

680
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: people who are like, hey, that's not that's not cool. Man,

681
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,839
Speaker 1: if you were an American woman just dating an American man,

682
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:30,919
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have access to that kind of information. That's

683
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: truly invasive. It is true. It's also almost basically a

684
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: straw man argument because an American woman is not going

685
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: to be in the kind of isolated, completely dependent situation

686
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 1: that a mailoorder bride is going to be. And and

687
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 1: so the mailoorder bride needs a lot more safeguards than

688
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: just an average American woman is going to need. So

689
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: nice try, but that argument doesn't well water at all. Yeah,

690
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: I agree. Um, you talked earlier at the beginning about

691
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: a lack of data and statistics. They don't even really

692
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 1: know how often this is happening, much less how many

693
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: are successful and how many times they end like poorly

694
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: or in abuse and things like that. There there are

695
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: a few numbers out there. Uh, I think the uh

696
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:23,240
Speaker 1: how do you pronounce that? I want to say? Um

697
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: to hear to hear he to Hearing Justice Center. They

698
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: estimate between eleven thousand and sixteen thousand women immigrate each

699
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,800
Speaker 1: year through a marriage broker. Uh. The I n S

700
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: has it more like four to six thousand. Uh, So

701
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 1: you kind of can't really tell how much this is

702
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: even going on. So it's really hard to you know,

703
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,800
Speaker 1: like you said, if you don't have the data for

704
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,359
Speaker 1: for nubes like us, it's kind of hard to form

705
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: a hard opinion. Right, But it's not just nubes like

706
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,919
Speaker 1: us who don't have the data, Like, no one has

707
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: the data, so it's like, you know, no one can

708
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: form a hard opinion, and you if in that case,

709
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: you have to treat it on like a case by

710
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: case basis, and like if you if you have nothing

711
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: but anecdotal data or evidence, you can't just say like, yes,

712
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: the mail order marriage industry is just a front for

713
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: human trafficking and sex trafficking. That's that is a moral

714
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: panic that you've just started right there. Um, so we

715
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: have to go out and get the data. But at

716
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: the same time, that doesn't mean you can't simultaneously offer

717
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: support to women who might be suffering from that, Like

718
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:32,799
Speaker 1: what if it turns out to be true, Like yeah,

719
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: it's all just a big front for human trafficking, and

720
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: these women need help. Roll out the red carpet, like

721
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: get those services broadcast, Like figure out how to get

722
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: them help if they need it, and see if anybody

723
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: comes out of the woodwork. In the meantime, while you're

724
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 1: conducting those studies to come up with that data, one

725
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: way or another can't hurt. It's just money, and that's

726
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: a pretty good thing to spend money on. If you

727
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 1: ask me. Yeah, I agree. There are some studies that

728
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 1: show spousal abuse rates are about three times higher. But

729
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,320
Speaker 1: this is just for immigrant women married to US husbands.

730
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 1: I don't think I think that includes all immigrant women.

731
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just mail order situations. So that's

732
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: data that doesn't exactly help UM, but it does shine

733
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 1: a light on that power dynamic as a whole. I

734
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: think yeah, And I couldn't I couldn't tell the UM.

735
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: Dave mentioned that there were three UM murdered women male

736
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:27,720
Speaker 1: mail order brides in the United States. I think between

737
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten and two thousand twenty maybe, And

738
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 1: if using the high UM the high number that the

739
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 1: uh UM to Hear You Justice Center uses for how

740
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: many came over every year, you've got a hundred and

741
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: sixty thousand of them. So three murders out of a

742
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:49,800
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty thousand population is I think point eighteen percent.

743
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,800
Speaker 1: But out of UM all the women, all the married

744
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:57,240
Speaker 1: women in America, it's like sixty four million married women

745
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: UM seventeen thousand, two hundred and fifty on average died,

746
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 1: but we're murdered by their partner in that same time,

747
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 1: which is two point six so I probably got the

748
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: math wrong. But if it is right, then that means

749
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: you're actually less likely to be murdered by your husband

750
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: as a mail order bride than you are just as

751
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: an American woman, um who was married and just part

752
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: of the general population. So that's great, right of the

753
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: stats you can't feel good about, No, exactly, that's a

754
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: great That is an excellent point for sure, Chuck. I mean,

755
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: I think shines a light that we need to basically

756
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 1: do away with, um spousal murder. I think we can

757
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: all get behind that. Yeah, what it is. What it

758
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,439
Speaker 1: does though, again, is it makes you I think maybe

759
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 1: let's concentrate on the real problems. And if that's not,

760
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: I if the mail order bride situation isn't the real problem,

761
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: then we just and we all know this, but we

762
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,360
Speaker 1: we have a real domestic violence problem in this country anyway. Yeah,

763
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. What was the last one we

764
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 1: talked about, oh, the inter danger where it was like, oh, no, actually,

765
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: your cousin is going to like rape and murder you

766
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: way more frequently than just some strangers. But let's all

767
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: concentrate on the stranger your your spouse is possibly going

768
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 1: to murder you. But let's ignore that and concentrate on

769
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 1: mail order brides being murdered instead, even if it's just

770
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: a much less of a chance, Like that's the that's

771
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 1: the definition of a moral panic, and you've got to

772
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: sort those out because they obvius skate important things. Yeah,

773
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: and you know at the beginning of the episode you

774
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: mentioned l g B t Q rights. Um. That's why

775
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: we call it mail order marriages now because with the

776
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:42,479
Speaker 1: Supreme Court striking down parts of the Defensive Marriage Act, uh,

777
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 1: it allowed and there has been a, you know since then,

778
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: a sort of a a big time rise in l

779
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,399
Speaker 1: g B t Q people UM doing the exact same thing.

780
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: And a lot of times these people in other countries

781
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: are literally fleeing for their life because they have no

782
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: rights in their own country as uh as a person

783
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: from that community. So that's one of those where you

784
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: look at and you're like, they could literally be saving

785
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: someone's life by getting them out of their country over here.

786
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 1: And men do it too. I saw there was a

787
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: I was curious about male order husbands and if that

788
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: was even a thing. And apparently Ireland in recent years

789
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,800
Speaker 1: has got some of this going on where these Irish

790
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: Men are putting themselves out there and saying, hey, I'm

791
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 1: a strapping young irish Man and I'm happy to come

792
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: marry you and live in your country. Very nice, that's

793
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 1: the thing in Ireland. Did not know that. I had

794
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: no idea either, But leave it to Ireland to just

795
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,879
Speaker 1: try something new. So good for you, Ireland, Good for you.

796
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 1: Are you got anything else on mail order marriages? I

797
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: got nothing else I can take off my roller skates. Now,

798
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 1: this one was it was it was danger at every turn.

799
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: I thought you did great. I thought we did great.

800
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: It's good. I'm pretty sure. Oh god, I hope. So. Uh.

801
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:02,240
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about mail order marrinces,

802
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: go check it out and see what you think for yourself.

803
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: Don't take our words for it. Um. And since I

804
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: said don't take our words for it, it's time for

805
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: listener mail. Uh, listener mail. This is this is a

806
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: sad case, so a bit of a trigger warning here,

807
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: especially if you've lost a family member to COVID. But

808
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 1: I've had a back and forth with this gentleman and

809
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: he really felt strongly about reading this on the air

810
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: in the name of getting people vaccinated. Hey, guys, haven't

811
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 1: written in quite some time. Been listening since two thousand eight.

812
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: You've been around for so many personal milestones, even though

813
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: we've never met, even though I did ask you the

814
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: best question ever at your live show in Phoenix. Uh.

815
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: My father taught me how to play guitar. I've been

816
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,399
Speaker 1: playing for nearly thirty years because of his influence. There's

817
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: never been a question of Gibson or Fender in my family.

818
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,320
Speaker 1: It's always been clear where a Fender family. He played

819
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 1: a strat and I played a telly. Uh. The last

820
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: this last Tuesday, I said good eye to my father.

821
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: COVID had done its job and completely overtaken his body.

822
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 1: After he passed. Later that day, I went into my

823
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: truck and took a few minutes and decided I needed

824
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: some Josh and Chuck to get my mind off of things.

825
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: And I was absolutely shocked. On that day Leo Fender

826
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: and Les Paul came through in my feed. Uh. My

827
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: father and I did not have anything we bonded over

828
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:24,319
Speaker 1: more than our love of music and playing guitar, an

829
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: affinity for Fender, and a dislike of all things Gibson. Sorry, Chuck. Uh,

830
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: there could not have been more perfect topic to help

831
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: me through one of the hardest days of my life.

832
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:34,439
Speaker 1: I look forward to someday when I might be able

833
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: to shake your hands after a good hand washing and sanitization,

834
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:40,040
Speaker 1: and just thank you for being with me through so

835
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: many good days and so many bad days. And he

836
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: included a song that he gave his father that he

837
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 1: wrote for him. It's great and uh, this is from Eddie,

838
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,240
Speaker 1: and Eddie said, please read this on the air. He said, Uh,

839
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: my mother decided to get vaccinated because of this, and

840
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: they were not vaccinated, and he said, just please send

841
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: the message out to people that it can happen to

842
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: you and your family and just go out there and

843
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: get that vaccination already. Thanks for that, Eddie, UM, and

844
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 1: definitely our condolences on your father's passing. I'm really sorry

845
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: to hear that, but I'm glad we could bring you

846
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: a little measure of comfort at a terrible time. So

847
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: thank you for letting us know about that, and also

848
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: thank you for telling everybody to get vaccinated, because that's

849
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: a pretty good thing to use your position for. UM.

850
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: So I think, like Eddie said, go get vaccinated. Yeah,

851
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:35,359
Speaker 1: we said it, Go get vaccinated. Okay, okay, agreed, And

852
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you want to get in touch

853
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 1: with us, you can send us an email. The Stuff

854
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know

855
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my

856
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.