Why do so many successful North American men choose to spend thousands of dollars corresponding with Russian women, then spend more thousands to travel to Russia or Eastern Europe to meet these women face to face? Why do so many men choose to marry these Russian women they have only recently met, and only known for a relatively short time, knowing that the cultural differences and (frequently) age differences already put them two strikes behind the count? Part of the answer is here on this website, and on other similar websites by successful trans-cultural and trans-national brides.Mping at Fat Knowledge blog recently did a story on "The Vanishing Russians." Average Russians are truly in desperate circumstances, due to the corruption of their government. The KGB-ocracy of communist days has transformed almost seamlessly into the mafi-ocracy of the modern times. Russian men have no opportunities for success, meaning they cannot marry and support families. This leaves Russian women who want the normal life of marriage and children out in the cold. No wonder so many sign up with the marriage agencies to try to meet North American, European, and Australian men.
But why do successful american men go through the inconvenience and expense of corresponding with, and traveling to Russia and Eastern Europe to meet, Russian women?
There is no mystery here. Successful middle-aged men want to marry somewhat younger women, who can appreciate the life the man can provide them, and can also give the men children in many cases. If the man takes the trouble to correspond long enough with the woman, and knows how to judge a woman's character, he can develop a lifelong friendship and love relationship--with the trans-cultural, trans-linguistic nature of the relationship as a spiced icing on the cake.
The man can also make a mistake, and marry someone who only wants legal residency in the west. That happens frequently, but no more frequently than all-western marriages go badly. There are plenty of foreign bride scams operating. People have to be careful. The Russian women themselves, even with the dismal conditions in Russia, also have to be extremely careful not to get themselves into a situation worse than what they have at home.
Here is another reason Russian brides may be in higher demand than brides from southeast Asia or South America. Crush41 at Audacious Epigone posted an interesting look at the relative expenses charged to adopting parents for babies of different ethnic backgrounds. A similar calculus may apply to the "price" western men will pay for overseas brides of various nationalities. Knowing that their babies will possess the ethnic characteristics of both mothers and fathers, perhaps more western fathers want to marry caucasian wives, even if they are from a different culture.
I know a number of professional colleagues who have married Russian women from overseas. They are generally very happy with their choices, and recommend Russian women to their friends, if their friends are careful and take the time to develop an honest relationship that will allow both parties to make a rational choice. You probably know someone who is married to a Russian woman. It is becoming much more common than you think.
So--what is wrong with American women, that successful American men will reject them in favour of foreign women? Let us be honest here. There is plenty wrong with any particular man or woman. No one is perfect. But the war of the sexes in North America and much of the western world has become very personal.
Anyone who has not read "The Myth of Male Power" or "Who Stole Feminism?" is in no position to even discuss the issue of current day power struggles in the trenches between the sexes. Go to Amazon and click on the similar books that will be displayed on the same pages as those two books. Read a dozen or so similar books and you will begin to understand why a lot of western men are looking outside the culture for life partners.
Women are favoured in modern education from the beginning, all the way to graduate school, post-docs, and employment/tenure. Affirmative Action applies to women too, not just minorities. That built-in inequality tends to instill an attitude of entitlement to many women, which is obvious in the activities of many radical feminists who control Women's Studies Departments in the Universities, and who also have enormous influence in the modern US Democratic Party political machine.
Fathers are often discriminated against in divorce settlements and child custody settlements as well. The male proportion of college graduates and graduate students in most fields (except math-intensive fields) is diminishing steadily. Women have a nearly endless set of resources to call upon to help them with their goals. Men are pretty much on their own. All of these inequities and many more lead to a deep distrust between the sexes. Even if all of these things are never consciously considered by most western men, they still affect the subconscious thinking.
So what is up with these Russian women who are marrying so many financially successful western men? These women know western men are not perfect. But compared to so many Russian men, these western men can give them a home, a family, and a better lifestyle with more freedoms. And compared to western women, these Russian women can give the western men a level of respect and acceptance that many western women are no longer willing to give.
Many Russian women are professionals by training, and with some re-training in the west are able to be highly successful in their own right. The salaries they are capable of earning are many times higher than what is being paid in Russia.
This trend toward more Russian brides is not likely to slow. Instead, more financially successful men past the age of 35 years are likely to learn about the women of Russia.
