I am Caucasian and a US citizen. My wife is from Indonesia. I didn't have any specific plans to find an Asian wife or an Indonesian wife when I started working abroad. But I was working abroad during the years I was looking for a wife, and I believed the Lord had a hand in having me where I was so I could meet my wife.
Every once in a while I'll encounter a man, usually on the Internet, who thinks feminism or some other aspect of western culture has corrupted potential brides in the west, and say that a man has to go to Asia or Russia to find a good wife. There are also Internet websites for international dating and matchmaking that have sprung up alongside the domestic internet dating industry. I read a news article that about 35% of marriages during a certain time period were from people who initially met online. I'm not sure the population it was from, but I suspect they took their survey in the US. With the Internet, it is easier to meet people from all over the world. When I lived in southeast Asia, over the course of a year or two, a three of our females we knew from church met men over the Internet and married them. I think they were all from Virginia. At least two of the men were.
I disagree with the idea that it is impossible to find a good wife in the west. There are godly women and men in the US. But I can see why men would look to other areas like Asia, Africa, or Latin America to find brides with more traditional values about marriage. I can also understand that some Caucasian men are attracted to Asian women, for example. I also know that some Asian women like Caucausian men. That mix seems to work well.
Some American and European men may have a little bit of a sense of chivalry. Their culture tends to be less 'macho' and more egalitarian than a lot of Asian cultures. In the movies, white guys save the planet from alien invaders, asteroids, save nations, buses, etc. from bad guys. Western salaries are higher than in most Asian countries. The down side is that western men may be more likely to have fornicated than men from some other countries, and may have a looser attitude toward divorce.
Many of the Asian cultures are 'less contaminated by feminism'. I was eating lunch with a group of college aged Koreans back in the mid-1990s'. One of them let the girl in our group have a go at cooking on the hibachi grill, and said, "You cook since you are a woman" in Korean. They laughed, including the girl, without making any kind of feminist PC scowl, no feigned or real indignation. Women in my wife's country generally accept the idea, at least in theory that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. Women, including those who work in the office, seem to embrace the idea that a woman should be diligent in cooking, keeping a clean house, and all those sorts of traditional things. And it seems like women embrace femininity in a lot of Asian cultures. Also, virginity until marriage was the norm in the country I was in for both men and women. There was a stigma attached to either gender that violated this.
The idea of men going to Russia to find traditional brides is still weird to me because I grew up in an era when Russians were presented almost as not loving their children, too. It was presented as a society of atheists that had forsaken traditional values. I've also heard of wide-spread fornication among the young in Russia. Some men may not care about that. But I have read it is a kind of macho society.
A down side of marrying a western woman is that our society is so accepting of divorce. Still, there are individual women who don't think that way. Virginity at marrying age is kind of rare, but there still are virgin females in the west if a man is looking for one. can understand why a man would search for a woman in Asia.
I don't know what other country western women could go for an idealized man. Most non-western cultures are more 'macho' than ours in terms of male and female roles. That may appeal to some women, but not all. Men from some countries tend to be shorter on average than western men. Few countries outside of the west have as high of salaries as the west does.
I knew a couple of women who married southeast Asian men. (The US president's mother also did this, btw.) One of the men is well accomplished in many areas of his life. They are both Christians, but I since that disagreement over her more feminist attitudes may have caused a bit of tension in the marriage. They've been together a long time and raised children they can be proud of.
I just thought I'd bring up this broad topic and see if anyone wanted to discuss it. The topic of marrying someone from abroad came up in another thread, and I thought it could make for its own topic of conversation.
Every once in a while I'll encounter a man, usually on the Internet, who thinks feminism or some other aspect of western culture has corrupted potential brides in the west, and say that a man has to go to Asia or Russia to find a good wife. There are also Internet websites for international dating and matchmaking that have sprung up alongside the domestic internet dating industry. I read a news article that about 35% of marriages during a certain time period were from people who initially met online. I'm not sure the population it was from, but I suspect they took their survey in the US. With the Internet, it is easier to meet people from all over the world. When I lived in southeast Asia, over the course of a year or two, a three of our females we knew from church met men over the Internet and married them. I think they were all from Virginia. At least two of the men were.
I disagree with the idea that it is impossible to find a good wife in the west. There are godly women and men in the US. But I can see why men would look to other areas like Asia, Africa, or Latin America to find brides with more traditional values about marriage. I can also understand that some Caucasian men are attracted to Asian women, for example. I also know that some Asian women like Caucausian men. That mix seems to work well.
Some American and European men may have a little bit of a sense of chivalry. Their culture tends to be less 'macho' and more egalitarian than a lot of Asian cultures. In the movies, white guys save the planet from alien invaders, asteroids, save nations, buses, etc. from bad guys. Western salaries are higher than in most Asian countries. The down side is that western men may be more likely to have fornicated than men from some other countries, and may have a looser attitude toward divorce.
Many of the Asian cultures are 'less contaminated by feminism'. I was eating lunch with a group of college aged Koreans back in the mid-1990s'. One of them let the girl in our group have a go at cooking on the hibachi grill, and said, "You cook since you are a woman" in Korean. They laughed, including the girl, without making any kind of feminist PC scowl, no feigned or real indignation. Women in my wife's country generally accept the idea, at least in theory that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. Women, including those who work in the office, seem to embrace the idea that a woman should be diligent in cooking, keeping a clean house, and all those sorts of traditional things. And it seems like women embrace femininity in a lot of Asian cultures. Also, virginity until marriage was the norm in the country I was in for both men and women. There was a stigma attached to either gender that violated this.
The idea of men going to Russia to find traditional brides is still weird to me because I grew up in an era when Russians were presented almost as not loving their children, too. It was presented as a society of atheists that had forsaken traditional values. I've also heard of wide-spread fornication among the young in Russia. Some men may not care about that. But I have read it is a kind of macho society.
A down side of marrying a western woman is that our society is so accepting of divorce. Still, there are individual women who don't think that way. Virginity at marrying age is kind of rare, but there still are virgin females in the west if a man is looking for one. can understand why a man would search for a woman in Asia.
I don't know what other country western women could go for an idealized man. Most non-western cultures are more 'macho' than ours in terms of male and female roles. That may appeal to some women, but not all. Men from some countries tend to be shorter on average than western men. Few countries outside of the west have as high of salaries as the west does.
I knew a couple of women who married southeast Asian men. (The US president's mother also did this, btw.) One of the men is well accomplished in many areas of his life. They are both Christians, but I since that disagreement over her more feminist attitudes may have caused a bit of tension in the marriage. They've been together a long time and raised children they can be proud of.
I just thought I'd bring up this broad topic and see if anyone wanted to discuss it. The topic of marrying someone from abroad came up in another thread, and I thought it could make for its own topic of conversation.
I'm an American girl raised with asian values, and he was born in Asia but spent his adolescent years in the states. I have found that both of us are slightly more conservative than many westerners, but also less legalistic than some eastern cultures. I think I just got lucky.