Websites Put New Face on Business of Seeking American Husbands

13 February 2011

Carving patterns into the leather is a skill saddle maker Nancy Martiny first learned as a teenager, while watching her father tool leather.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Christopher Cruise.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. Some people will celebrate this Valentine's Day with someone they met on the Internet through a dating site. But dating sites are not the only online places where people look for relationships.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: This week on our program, we look at international marriage brokers who help American men marry women from other countries.

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: The Internet is at the heart of a modern business with a long history. In America, the business of men sending for women from other countries began in the Old West in the eighteen hundreds.

There were many men living on the frontier. These included the "forty-niners" -- men who moved to California in eighteen forty-nine to search for gold. But there were very few women willing to join them.

As a result, demand grew for women from other countries. They were called "picture brides" -- better known today as "mail-order brides."

These days, women who advertise online for husbands are sometimes called "e-mail-order brides." But some people consider either term insulting. They say it suggests that the women are products that can be purchased.