Bride buying

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Bride buying or bride purchasing is the cultural practice of providing some form of payment in exchange for a bride. The payment may be made to the bride's father, family, or a separate agent. It is the

which?] it has a firm foothold in parts of Asia and Africa. It may amount to a form of slavery
when treated as a transfer of property from one "owner" to another.

History

In his

prostituting their daughters instead of auctioning or marrying them off.[1]

One of the first recorded instances of bride-buying in North America can be traced back to 1619 in

colony. Trying to persuade potential brides to come to Jamestown proved to be difficult, however, 17th-century marriage obstacles proved to be beneficial to the men of the colony. Attaining a home and constructing domestic household in Europe was costly. If not born into wealth, most people would need to obtain significant savings before being able to wed. The majority of working-class Englishwomen turned to domestic service to acquire the necessary funds to marry and marital immigration offered an enticing alternative to what otherwise would be years doing menial work for meager pay. The Virginia Company offered women who chose to leave England in favor of the colony generous incentives such as linens, clothing, a plot of land, and their choice of husband. After a husband was chosen, he would then pay the Virginia Company with 150 pounds (70kg) of "good leaf" tobacco (which is equivalent to roughly $5000 USD in today's currency[when?]) to pay for their bride's passage to the colony. This is how the Jamestown brides earned themselves the nickname the "tobacco brides".[5]

Mail-order brides

Main article: Mail-order bride

One of the most common forms of modern-day bride-buying is mail-order brides. It is estimated that there are 90 agencies that deal with the selling and purchasing of mail order brides.[6] These agencies have websites that list the addresses, pictures, names and biographies of up to 25,000 women that are seeking husbands, with American husbands being the most common preference.[citation needed][dubious – discuss] While there are women listed on these sites from all over the world, the majority of mail-order brides come from Russia and the Philippines. According to these agencies,[where?] 10% of women who choose to become mail-order brides are successful and find a husband through their services. The agencies also state that there are around 10,000 mail-order marriages a year, with about 4,000 of these marriages involving men in the United States.[citation needed]

Bride-buying in Asia

China

Bride-buying is an old tradition in China.

Burma, Laos, Pakistan,[10] Vietnam and North Korea. The bride-traders sell women as brides or as prostitutes depending on their physical appearance. A common trick employed by bride-brokers in acquiring brides for sale is the offer of a job such as in factories and instead kidnapping them. Bride-traders can sell a young woman for the price of $250 to $800USD. US$50 to US$100 of the original price goes to the primary kidnappers while the rest of the income goes to the traffickers who bring the bride to the main client.[7]

After bearing children, Chinese women who are bought as wives are more prone to staying within the marriage. Fang Yuzhu of the China Women's Federation credits it with a "strong sense of duty" that Chinese women have, and the idea that it is shameful to leave their husband. Yuzhu also credits that some women might consider their forced marriage a better option to the life of poverty and hard labor they would be subject to upon returning home or the idea that some women may not feel they can find another husband, since they "have already been with one".[9]

India

human traffickers[12] to defray the cost.[13]

According to Punjabi writer Kirpal Kazak, bride-selling began in Jharkhand after the arrival of the Rajputs. The tribe decorate the women for sale with ornaments. The practice of the sale of women as brides declined after the Green Revolution in India, the “spread of literacy”, and the improvement of the male-female ratio since 1911. The ratio, however, declined in 2001. The practice of bride-purchasing became confined to the poor sections of society such as farmers, Scheduled Castes, and tribes. In poverty-stricken families, only one son gets married due to poverty and to “avoid the division of landed property”.[11]

Korea

Bride-buying in

North Korean women across the country borders to China not often to sell as slaves, but mainly as brides. Upon arrival and wedlock, the women are said to be forced into labor, or sexual and physical abuse by their Chinese husbands.[16] Although, there are successful marriages, they hardly ever last because of the illegality of North Korean citizens crossing the border without authorization, despite the women having been in the country for many years neither them or their offspring are granted citizenship.[15][16] As a result, they are arrested and sent back to their homeland or kept in China to face the consequences of trespassing.[16] Institutions around the world are requesting China to give refuge to the great number of people who fled North Korea seeking shelter, however the solicitation has not yet been approved of.[15] In South Korea, bride-buying is not as common as it is in North Korea, though it still exists in varied ways. The majority of the brides bought in South Korea are from different parts of Asia, largely from the southeast side, in addition bride buying internationally in South Korea is claimed to be encouraged as a result of the population declining.[17]

Vietnam

Bride-buying in

prostitute themselves to foreigners. By selling sex for visas they are introduced to new duties which include labor and domestic servitude.[23] The aforementioned quickie agencies usually group three to five men together to search for Vietnamese wives. This grouping of potential customers generates more profit, saving the organization approximately 50 to 60% in fees estimated to be around $85,000USD per trip.[22]

Bride-buying in Africa

One thing many individuals in

bride-wealth, and some indigenous words: "lobolo", "mala", "bogadi", and "chiko" all make up different codes of bride purchases.[25]

Literature

Literature that delves into the selling women as brides includes titles such as Eho Hamara Jeevna[26] by Punjabi novelist Dalip Kaur Tiwana, the play Ik Hor Ramayan[27] by playwright Ajmer Singh Aulakh, Buying a Bride:An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches[28] by Marcia A. Zug, Object: Matrimony: The Risky Business Of Mail-Order Matchmaking On The Western Frontier[29] by Chris Enss, the epic Vietnamese poem The Tale of Kieu by Nguyễn Du, the novel Tat Den by Ngo Tat To,[30] and the novel Buying the Bride by Penny Wylder.[31]

See also

References

  1. Hist., Book I, Ch. 196
    .
  2. ^ Rioseco, Hanna (May 14, 2018). "The Real Housewives of Jamestown". thirteen.org. Retrieved 2019-02-17.
  3. ^ "The First Residents of Jamestown". NPS. February 26, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  4. ^ "The Indispensable Role of Women at Jamestown". NPS. February 26, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  5. ^ Zug, Marcia (2016-08-31). "The Mail-Order Brides of Jamestown, Virginia" (PDF). The Atlantic: 1–7.
  6. ^ Scholes, Robert (April 1, 1997). "How Many Mail-Order Brides?". Immigration Review. 28: 7–10.
  7. ^ a b c d e Marshall, Samantha, Joanne Lee-Young, and Matt Forney, Vietnamese Women Are Kidnapped and Later Sold in China as Brides, in The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 3, 1999.
  8. ^ Mercenary Marriages Cause Turmoil in C China (Xinhua), in China Daily USA, section China, subsection Hot Issues, updated Sep. 2, 2011, 10:46p, as accessed Nov. 9 & 11, 2011.
  9. ^ a b c d Fang, Bay; Leong, Mark (1998). "China's stolen wives". U.S. News & World Report. 125 (14): 35. Retrieved 17 October 2011.(subscription required)
  10. ^ Baloch, Saher (14 May 2019). "The Pakistani brides being trafficked to China". BBC.
  11. ^ a b c Dhaliwal, Sarbjit. Bride-buying an old practice in north India, Tribune News Service, August 17, tribuneindia.com
  12. ^ a b c d Agal, Renu. India's 'bride buying' country Archived 2013-04-19 at archive.today, BBC News, April 2006
  13. ^ a b c Sharma, Kavitta and Divya Shah. Only in India: cheaper to buy bride than raise daughter, CNN-IBN, ibnlive.in.com
  14. ^ Gierstorfer, Carl (September 11, 2013). "Where Have India's Females Gone?". pulitzercenter.org. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  15. ^ a b c "North Korean Women Sold in China". Radio Free Asia.
  16. ^ a b c "Thousands of North Korean Women Sold as Slaves in China". Radio Free Asia.
  17. ^ "South Korean subsidies encourage foreign 'bride buying'". The Daily Star. 2019-02-18.
  18. S2CID 145510675
    .
  19. ^ a b "Mate-in-Vietnam Marriages | YaleGlobal Online". yaleglobal.yale.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  20. ISSN 1559-372X
    .
  21. ^ a b c Wray, Caroline (2014-12-05). "The Wife Market". The Yale Globalist. Archived from the original on 22 Feb 2019. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  22. ^ a b c Lee, Eunsung. Politics of Cultural Proximity: Transnational Marriage and Family Making Among Vietnamese Women and South Korean Men in the 21st Century (Thesis).
  23. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  24. ^ Chiwese, Manase. "Wives at the Market Place:Commercialisation of Lobola and Commodification of Women's bodies in Zimbabwe". researchgate.net.
  25. S2CID 129949139
    .
  26. ^ Tiwana, Dalip (1968). Eho Hamara Jeevna.
  27. ^ Aulakh, Ajmer (2014). Ik Ramayan Hor Ate Hor Ikangi.
  28. ISBN 978-0-8147-7181-5
    .
  29. ISBN 978-0762773992
    .
  30. ^ Ngo Tat To (1995). Tat den: tieu thuyet (Tai ban ed.). TP. Ho Chi Minh: Van nghe Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh.
  31. ^ "Buying the Bride". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2019-02-21.

Further reading

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