 For men from a number of different parts of the world, particularly the United States, some parts of Europe and the Middle East and even as far removed as China, finding a bride in the former Soviet Union has become a very attractive and even compelling option. The actual numbers of those who find brides is hard to quantify and the numbers that do so with long time marital success is even more obscure.
We undertook an informal survey that concentrated on Kyiv, but involved Internet and telephone interviews that reached far beyond the confines of Ukraine's capital city.
Even a brief Internet search reveals a startling amount of research and studies on the topic, in addition to advertising sites, testimonials and news stories on marriages gone wrong. So what is the truth about this glitzy, risky and emotion evoking phenomenon?
Truth can be a bit of a tricky thing, especially when confronted with the typical complexity of life (and involving men and women from multiple cultures). After rummaging around in Kyiv in search of potential brides or questing grooms-to-be, and overseas in search of currently married ones, we discovered that despite the apparent embarrassment that people feel in officially sharing thoughts and opinions, there are three predominant contradictory 'truths' related to this phenomenon. One, Internet brides in a disturbing number of cases may be exploited and/or abused by new husbands. Two, the bride may also exploit the new husband and disappear after getting foreign citizenship. And finally there are a large number of Internet brides and grooms who have no hidden agenda other than finding a mate and sincerely working on making the marriage successful. Also, although both sexes sign up with one or more of the burgeoning numbers of agencies that traffic in "love and marriage," generally it is men who are considered the official clients and thus are the ones who come to Ukraine on whirlwind wife-identifying tours.
 For most the usual formula includes male and female sign up with an online marriage agency,
e-mail correspondence, frequently through online translator-intermediaries, leading to a meeting or meetings during which the couple decide to get married. Of course, with such a process, one has to wonder how can we explain or predict who gets which truth? The answer is, we can't.
Internet bride-ing (a term we use to describe the act of finding a bride using cyber means) is basically a sexy form of human gambling.
It may be argued that any marriage is a bit of a gamble, but clearly the number of unknowns and the stakes in the risks taken are much higher when Internet bride-ing than with standard romances. So why do it?
We inquired of a group of Internet brides and some of their husbands why they took part in the Internet bride-ing game. Brides cited disillusionment with spousal options in Ukraine and the desire for a better life. "I heard from some friends that it was a good experience to meet a fellow in the Internet," stated Elena, currently married for 3 years. "Most of them who had done this now had good families and lived good lives. I decided it was worth the risk of looking outside because my future and the future of my country wasn't looking all that good."
Contrary to the popular conception, there are a growing number of wife-seeking men from Asian countries such as China. These husbands are mainly looking for open-minded western women, but also cited a lack of women in home countries. "There are similarities in cultural attitudes towards home and family between Russians and Chinese that make Russian women attractive partners for Chinese men," explained Mr. Wu who found a Russian wife online.
Meanwhile husbands from the West were looking for a traditional family woman who would be happy tending house and raising children. "I think western women are just too picky and demanding," says Max, currently a newlywed. "Plus they don't want kids. I wanted someone who would accept me for who I am, have my children, and let me be the head of my family. Of course the women here are also extremely beautiful!" So on one hand, we have women desperate for a chance at a different life, and on the other, men who are desperate for a beautiful wife preferably of the housewife and childbearing variety.
Having grown up in the gambling haven of Macau, I've spent a fair amount of time observing the process of gambling and gamblers. In view of that, the following analogy of gambling with Internet bride-ing is not meant to imply any moral judgment for or against either activity, but rather to give a bit of a visual framework in which to analyze the courtship process and results.
As in gambling, Internet bride-ing involves a setting, participants and outcomes. Casinos are the main setting for gamblers. The range is from high class casinos with the clean red carpets, gold studded kitsch fittings (think of casinos usually seen in James Bond movies) to low budget outfits with well-worn gambling equipment and either faded orange/red carpets with non-descript designs or no carpet at all (think of the various glitzy outside-smoky, dark inside gambling halls found in huge abundance around Kyiv). Likewise, marriage agencies also come in all shapes, sizes and qualities.
Regardless of physical surrounding however, the main purpose of the setting is to remove you from every day life and inspire your imagination to run wild with prospects and dreams. Reality is an unwelcome distraction that organizers of both settings do their best to minimize. Take for example, the dating tours that involve taking buses of men to various pre-arranged "socials" in carefully facilitated environments. Completely cut off from their normal environments and with daily encouragement and stimulation, these men often grow into their roles of all-mighty wife-choosers and expand their lives to fit expectations. As one male friend of mine put it, "Its not that they are deliberately attempting to deceive or lie, they just don't let the truth get in the way of a good story." (Our Observer cover this month illustrates this perfectly).
As for the participants of the monetary and human gambling activities, gamblers come from all walks of life and backgrounds, as do prospective brides and grooms. Individual styles fall into those that play it safe, those that throw caution to the wind, and those that are only there to take advantage of the situation and exploit other participants. People who play it safe during their Internet quest tend to focus more on background checks of both agencies and prospective partners, they also spend more time getting to know character and interests of the other person before getting married. Likewise, those that throw caution to the wind are the ones that do a Google search for agencies, join a couple, meet up with a potential spouse once or twice, buy a big English-Ukrainian dictionary and then get married with little time for consideration of the negative possibilities.
Elena played it safe and did her best to get to know her husband before getting married. "I got lucky. My husband is who he claimed to be, and he has not hidden anything from me," says Elena. "He is a true, honest person. He told me he was not rich, but that he would look after me and our children, and he is doing just that."
Demonstrating the less cautious type, Anya told a story of a friend of hers who spontaneously married an American man. Shortly following their marriage, the man became jealous of all the male attention his beautiful wife was attracting but when she tried to leave him, he went crazy with rage and beat her to death! Anya ended the story by saying that "A girl can try her luck to find a good man. If she has a vision for the future of her family, she should try, but she should be very careful too."
As for outcomes, as with gambling there are four main ones: great, good, bad and ugly. In terms of numbers, similar to gambling, there are a small proportion of participants that hit the jackpot and find "happily ever after" material. There is a majority that muddle through, sometimes winning sometimes losing, life is not always a dream, but then it's not a nightmare either. Also in this majority are the marriages that turn bad and don't work out, with restraining orders and custody battles for children being all too frequent. And then there are the truly ugly cases that involve a number of people who completely bomb out in the luck department and whose names are splashed in newspapers after being victims of horrible murders from extreme abuse or a jealous rage (such as Anya's hapless friend).
Unfortunately there is a lack of accurate numbers for cases of abuse and other ugliness. Many women prefer to suffer in silence as they have too much to lose by speaking up without guaranteed legal and economic support. Too often cases of abuse are thrown out of court because there is no way to legally prove the allegations. One of the more well-known 'Internet bride-ing gone bad' stories involves a young Ukrainian woman named Lora Shcherbakova. The story of how she met her husband through a romantic tour was documented in an 8 part series in an American newspaper in 1998. Just over a year later, she made it into the news again. This time filing for a restraining order claiming there was "ongoing physical, emotional and economic abuse of [Lora's] son, constant yelling and throwing of items, and threats to return the child to Ukraine." The husband vehemently denied all counts and the case became famous because the husband's lawyer cited "lack of witnesses to the wife's allegations." The husband's case was upheld in court.
So in all of these calculations, risk taking and potential for sour outcomes, what about the element that most people consider key in deciding whether or not to get married? To quote the popular Black Eyed Peas song, "Where is the love?"
Anya believes that true love in particular is not always so clear. "For the woman it is always a choice, to find a good father for the children, or to chase an illusion of romance. If a woman is going to have a mate, other things than just love are important." Olga agreed with Elena and added that "Love can only go so far, and a man can't give much of it anyway. So for a woman, if she is going to make a family, finding a good man is more important. Of course I love my husband, but what is true love anyway?" For men apparently it's much simpler,
"I love her or I wouldn't marry her, obviously."
So what happens once all the glow of being a newlywed fades and the nitty gritty details of everyday life take over? "Life is good, I like it." Elena announces. "We live like a family and share our happiness together." There are of course cultural and language difficulties that still cause marital friction. "If you don't understand the man's language, it is difficult. In the beginning my husband and I couldn't communicate very easily because my base in English was not very strong," comments Elena. "But you have to think about the goal of the marriage and always aim to communicate and find solutions to conflicts."
This finding of solutions to conflicts can be quite difficult, especially when taking into account the imbalance of power that Internet bride-ing usually incurs. Critics of the process wonder whether a truly balanced relationship between equals can develop if there is no common language and if one of the persons in the relationship is entirely financially and legally dependant on the other. Michele A. Clark, co-director of the Protection Project, says that brides are especially vulnerable because they are usually from a foreign country and "continuously placed at the mercy of their husbands while living under the constant threat of deportation."
There have been a number of movies made on mail order brides and some of the problems and risks that occur. Movies worth watching on this topic include: David Arquette in "A Foreign Affair" (2002) about two brothers who go through a Russian tour in search of a very specific bride; and "Mail Order Wife" (2006), directed by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland, about a fictional documentary recording the process of finding a bride and taking her to the US, and the ensuing chaos. Additionally, a recent article that came out in Harpers specifically regarding agency brides in Ukraine can be found online at http://www.harpers.org/AForeignAffair.html
Despite all of this, the marriage agency/mail order industry is continuing to grow in Ukraine. For some, the risk has paid off: concerns about inequalities in decision-making or the power structure of the marriage are shrugged off. "We are satisfied with our life here, nobody goes hungry and all of us are well-dressed," Elena spoke on behalf of her group of fellow brides. "The girls can study and the babies are happy and healthy. Every year we go home to visit our families. And the best part is that our husbands don't drink or go out with other women."
For others, the gamble results in nightmare situations and horror stories, sometimes leading to abuse and death. So, if you are going to play the high risk round of Internet bride-ing, it clearly pays off to gamble very carefully.
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