Nobody really wants to be called a mail order bride but it seems that the term has stuck and will be around as long as there are men who want to marry them. But what are they anyway?
Originally, the term referred to women who get married to foreign men on a "mail order" basis. That is, the man would choose from a catalogue of women and then marry her after paying the agency that published the catalogue.
These days, however, the term "mail order bride" has become broader to refer to women from third world countries, like the Philippines and Vietnam, who advertise their desire to marry someone from a more developed foreign country like the United States.
If you're a man looking for a mail order bride, you really should first ask yourself if you're looking for THAT traditional bride that you can buy, or simply someone who wants to marry a man from your own country. Because depending on which one and what nationality, you could find yourself in prison.
For example, it's illegal for anyone to match Filipino women to foreign men on a "mail order" basis. It's in fact included in the list of crimes under the Philippines Republic Act 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, which also penalizes child prostitution, human trafficking, sex tourism, and sex slavery. Philippine anti-mail order bride laws came about after reports of Filipino women being abused by their husbands surfaced in the media.
Also, on Jan 6, 2006, the American Congress enacted H.R. 3402 or the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005. Under this law, a mail order bride agency, prior to selling a foreign woman's home address to an American citizen or US resident, must:
1. Require the man to complete a questionnaire regarding his criminal and marital background.
2. Obtain the man's record from the National Sex Offenders Public Registry database.
3. Translate the completed questionnaire and record to the woman's own language and be sent to her.
4. Get the women's consent to be contacted by the man.
So you see, it's not anymore that easy to find those brides in the traditional sense of the word. These days, it's impossible to talk about mail order brides and still think of them as a commodity that you can buy.
Amazingly though, there are still men search on Google how much a mail order bride costs, when what they really should be asking is this: Which site is it possible to find them on?