Why Don't We Hear About Single Christian Women Looking for Husbands in Other Countries?

No, it's pretty linear logic, very straight forward.

Well that escalated quickly.

Let's not derail the thread? It is clear that there is a difference between hardened rebellion consistently rejecting any opportunity for grace and not dying to our pride and sin nature as the Lord has extended grace to do and dying in that vs accepting his grace and walking according to the spirit and not the flesh and the "works" that go along with that...those works which God has prepared for us to do to bring him glory.

I don't think @Magenta is denying that, but that it is unmerited because the wages of sin is death but the GIFT of God is...? Outright (continual for some) rejection of this gift is entirely another matter and shouldn't be conflated (even accidentally). Not seeing eye to eye perhaps? We all have our own areas to mature in.

Let's move it to a different thread?

The women in the other countries who date the men you are talking about are women, too. I don't know how actively they were seeking the men they ended up with, but for every man who dates a woman, the woman dates a man. If the man in your country brings back a foreign wife, from her perspective, he is a foreign husband.

I spent many years of my life in Indonesia. I met my wife while I was living over there. That was where I worked. I did not got there specifically to find an Indonesian wife, but I was looking for a wife when I got to a certain point in my 20's.


I just read a comment on my wife's social media from someone saying she was single and wanted my wife to pray for her to find a white man who obeyed the Lord. Back when we were younger, there were young women in Indonesia who asked my wife how to find a husband like me. Sometimes that meant a white husband (I assume who was good to her and loved the Lord, too.) Once we hosted a one-off meeting at our home for a preacher who was visiting and this woman from church came to our meeting. After most people had left she, asked my wife how she could get a husband like me. She liked white men. She was 40, and worked a lot and the whole marriage thing never happened. I thought she was reasonably good-looking and I was surprised she was 40. This was maybe 2004 before online dating took off and when Internet penetration was low there before smart phones. I suggested she use an Internet cafe and find a chat forum that had internationals on it. About a year later, she came to a similar get-together. She'd taken my advice. She'd gotten to know an American online, from Virginia, had talked via a web cam, etc. until he proposed to her. They married, and still were married the last I heard. Another woman from church married a man who lived in Virginia, too. They dropped by to visit just last year. Another one married a Dutch man.

At least with Indonesia and some of the Asian countries, some white men like Asian women for looks. But there is also the appeal of a more traditional woman who is into cooking, cleaning, etc. They might even be more submissive-- at least philosophically they accept the idea that they should be. Actually being submissive is a struggle for a lot of wives, but at least if they accept the general idea, that helps. I met one woman in Indonesia who called herself a feminist. She was a Chinese woman who'd studied in the US. She was single at 30 and pining over an ethnic Chinese expat who was probably 50 who'd just married for the first time to a stunning Chinese expat woman, who had been nice and said hello to her and stuff like that. She had a crush on him. She'd mentioned some of her feminist ideas to him, I think. No wonder he wasn't interested.

The Asian girls probably appreciate white men doing chivalrous galant stuff like opening doors. Americans are also very romantic and say, "I love you" and make grand gestures in the movies, and sometimes in real life. White men keep the city or planet from blowing up, stop alien invasions, etc. in the movies. So some of them probably romanticize them a bit. In some parts of Southeast Asia, the nominal salary of an expat is usually quite high. Expats often have high-status jobs. All these make expats desirable.

I can think of a few American women who married Indonesian men. One of them had a problem with his wife not being submissive, or that is what it appeared to be to me. She wouldn't live in the state he wanted to. She went to church but had a problem with the wives submitting to husbands idea. Another friend married to an American has a tough time with her. Similar issues, only worse. And he is probably not easy for an American woman to live with, either, though they seem to be doing a lot better.

As far as the idea of American women being bad wives-- our culture pushes a lot of ideas that run contrary to being a good wife. It teaches women to be unsubmissive to husbands. They can also learn being disrespectful to their husbands from TV and movies. These are things that run contrary to biblical obligations for wives. But of course there are individual American women who could make top-notch wives. I also notice that our culture does not seem to be churning out the best husbands. A husband should have a sense of duty about providing for the family. Both men and women typically have low commitment to marriage.

I've seen some episodes of 90-Day Fiancee, and I notice they have white American women dating foreign men. I've seen one scenario where they had a rather large older woman date a man who might have been using her for a greencard. Typically, relatives on the show seem overly skeptical about people coming over for greencards. There are foreigners who want that, but some of the Filippina girls on that show may have a very practical mindset about marriage. If she marries a man who can give her a better opportunity to live in the US, she may take finances into consideration, but that doesn't mean that she isn't also planning on being faithful to her husband to death. Some of the Asian cultures are really practical about marriage, treating it as a rational decision and taking finances into consideration, as opposed to Americans who can sometimes weigh feelings way too much at the expense of honor, commitment, and doing the right thing.

I alluded to this in my last post. But it does seem like the white man from the west together with the Asian female from a more traditional culture with traditional gender roles seems to be a better match than a white western woman with a traditional Asian man. The women are going to appreciate the man from the culture that told them to help with the housework and buy the women roses. The men are going to enjoy the women doing the laundry and cooking the meals. But if the Asian man expects his wife to do those things and she doesn't and he doesn't open the door for her or help with the dishes and all that stuff, that's a harder combination.

In Indonesia, people tend to be shorter than in the US, and women like tall men. There are exceptions, of course. From the group of young 20-something expats I knew, the white women did not marry when they were up into their 30's in Indonesia. Part of it was probably culture. Part of it was height. One of the Indonesian girls who went to university with two of the white Canadians married a white expat. Just for looks, I'd expected all of them to have married if they'd been in the US. I am thinking of three white expats. Two were still single the last I know of a few years ago. They did not marry during their prime years. God can have such plans for people. Expat white males in Indonesia tended to find Indonesian wives and marry off.

From a psychological perspective, expats tend to be seen as kind of rich in Indonesia, and so are considered to be sort of high status, at least by lower economic classes. These young women might have found locals to be kind of on the short side. They probably did not meet a lot of men who were higher status. Higher status men tend to attract women, as do men who are good-looking.

As I was reading your post there another dilemma popped into my head.

If the woman were to get married and have the man come to her country, he would be unemployed until he was able to get a job. And until that happens, she'll have to take care of him financially unless he came with a fortune. That would be a bit of an awkward situation.

And I can't see a woman, who has a good career just leaving that to go to the husband's country unless she had a good chance of restarting her career there or the husband being able to take care of her.

So from the "man being the provider" prospective it makes sense that he would be the one to initiate this foreign spouse situation.

On some level he could be credentialed (like indian doctors) but still, that brings up more questions than I have insight to answer. Lots of hypotheticals.

Unless it were a missionary relationship...in which case I can see a lot of these things meaning little. That's probably quite uncommon though. It's definitely my ideal solution to life's problems, personally...what a unique window into the culture via your spouse.

My wife and I both waited until marriage to have sex. Just reading the Bible, it is the norm to expect a woman to be a virgin at marriage. I wanted to marry a virgin when I was young and single.

I know there are women who wait in America, but how do you find them if you are a single man? It seems like just about everyone has fornicated? But women who care about this sort of thing probably have the same problem.

Back 70 ago or so, if a girl slept around, she might have developed a bad reputation. It was assumed that a woman was a virgin. Nowadays, in the US and some other western countries, looking for a virgin would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And a guy has to ask to find out? Just based on statistics, how many meals would a man have to pay for to go on a few dates before he got to know a girl well enough to broach the subject? Maybe he could do like a friend of mine in the kitchen before a meal at a Bible study. He flirted a bit with a single woman from Nigeria. I think they had some olive oil out for something being prepared for the meal. He asked her if she were olive oil, would she be extra virgin or dark and fruity. She said 'extra virgin'. That was clever, funny, and he didn't even have to take her out on a date. He never made a move as far as I know. He said his parents would not have approved of his bringing an African girl home to marry. Apparently, there was a bit of racism in the family. The olive oil joke only works if she tells the truth, though, and it doesn't make as much sense for white women.

In Indonesia, it seems like it is the norm for both male and female to marry as virgins. I suspect not all do, but if male or female sleeps around, there is a stigma attached to it. Just three or four years ago, I heard my wife talking with a cousin from a rural village in the kitchen lamenting that a cousin they knew had lost her virginity.

If a man goes over there and finds a bride, if he stays out of certain kinds of clubs and meets a girl at work or church or through other people, he has a good chance of finding a virgin. There are other countries like this. If a man goes to the Philippines or Georgia in the Caucuses and marries a girl that has to be chaperoned all the time, it is likely that she could be a virgin.

But there are virgins in the US, UK, etc. God can provide a man with whatever kind of wife a man needs. It doesn't have to be a foreign woman.

There is also the issue of weight. Comparing Indonesia to the US, countries I have lived in, I'd guess the average 20 year old girl in the US probably has 20 or 30 pounds on an Indonesian girl. In some countries, the vast majority of young women are thin. Girls in the US have the same problem in the US with the boys who sit around eating Doritos and playing video games. But it is still an advantage to looking abroad for a wife. I hear average weight in the UK can be rather high also.

And girls in the west have heard so much from media and other people discouraging them from desiring to be diligent about the home, submit to their husbands, etc. Girls from certain other countries have not been so poisoned by feminist thought. But if you could go to the mall in a certain Asian country and throw a rock and hit a girl that might make a potentially decent wife, in the US, you might have to throw a truck load of gravel.

What does this following scripture mean to you?
1Corithians 7:4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.

You mentioned about a wife being submissive. What does that mean? I don't understand this concept.

I can see why a man would look abroad for a submissive wife. If a man is able to "rescue" is foreign bride from poverty in her poor country, under such conditions he will no doubt expect submission.

If the wife is more educated, earns more money, and smarter than her husband, should she still be submissive?

My brother married a woman half his age from the Philippines.

He paid a lot for the privilege.

What it boiled down to for him was finding a woman who was not a feminist who would submit to him.

That is a very tall order for the U.S.

One reason men want to marry foreign wives is so they can "control" them. The foreign wives are also more submissive, and the foreign wives are also fine with being submissive. Both parties know what is expected and they are happy.

Meanwhile the foreign husband will naturally seek to gain control of the wive's behavior and possessions, most likely bringing nothing to the table. The foreign husband may be charming at first but will quickly change. I do know women who married foreigners but they knew them for a longer time during college etc. But as a woman in her 30s or older marrying a foreigner husband especially from the third world, I would get a pre-nup.

Another reason men marry foreign wives is to get a younger wife. In more poor countries, women are fine with marrying a much older man since he has gained more wealth rather than a young man and can support a family.
The mentality is different. For example not too many women from Japan or South Korea would apply to be a foreign wife, despite the common stereotype that Asian women are quick to marry westerners. In more developed countries people marry at around the same age, and woman marrying a slightly younger man isn't uncommon.

A wife should submit to her husband no matter what economic background she comes from. Peter told wives to submit to their husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him lord. So the type of obedience the Bible teaches implies obedience as well.

Ad far as that verse goes, in the Old Testament, a concubine whose husband married again still had rights to sex, food, and clothing. So sex was seen as a woman's right. In this verse, we learn that both husband and wife are to meet their partner's sexual needs. Each partner has a 'claim' so to speak on their partner's body.

If a man marries a foreign woman thinking that all women from foreign countries... or women from a particular country.. are docile, calm, and obedient, by virtue of being foreign, then he is making a false assumption. Women from all countries are human beings. There are some countries where the cultures have values related to wives respecting and obeying their husbands, spouses taking care of one another's sexual needs, wives having great concern about taking care of the family and the home. And in some countries, everyone tends to be very marriage-oriented. The US has a dating culture where a lot of people are just looking for sex without marriage or looking to date for entertainment or to fulfill emotional needs with no clear goal of marriage. A marriage-minded man who has not been able to find a woman who seriously wants to marry him may turn his sights abroad because of that.

That does not mean he is some kind of control freak who wants to lock his wife in the closet and bring her out to cook, clean and have sex. There may be a few monsters like this out there.


There are people who work abroad for work, and now, with the Internet, there are a lot of people who meet online and develop relationships. That doesn't mean one is trying to take advantage of the other.

Asking for a prenup is a major red flag except in some specific circumstances. It's hedging against divorce and indicates a huge lack of trust. I'd say a reasonable exception is if one or both have children and want some legal documents to clarify inheritance before marriage.

The vast majority of Indonesians I have known who were married to foreigners were married to people who seemed to be close in age. I didn't ask. I may have seen a few expat men married to younger women...maybe one that I can think of. Certain women in Jakarta really like expats. Some would be open to a relationship with a foreigner, but don't insist on it. One of my wife's cousins kept saying she wanted to marry a Japanese man, but then she married someone from the same people-group.

How common is it for Indians to marry foreigners? Is it usually the wealther classes who study abroad who end up marrying foreigners? Are there expat men going there and marrying the lower economic classes and poorer castes? Does the cast system deter Indians from marrying foreigners? What about among Christians?

Seoulsearch,

Evidently, you have never watched 90 Day Fiance. My mom watches that show. I watch with her sometimes, and we laugh at the ridiculousness of it. So many of the expectations of the men and women in this relationships are completely unrealistic.

I brought up 90 Day Fiance because a lot of the American women on that show (wheter young or old) seek out relationships with primarily younger men in foreign countries. They usually have to travel about to meet and marry these men. More often than not, it does not work out. There are age gaps, racial and cultural differences and economic challenges.

On 90 Day Fiance, you see a lot of older women (over 50) pursuing younger foreign men in the same way that American men have done for years.

Here's a suggestion. Watch a couple of episodes of 90 Day Fiance and tell us what you think about the American women on that show pursuing foreign husbands.

Especially uk 😐

🤓

I've seen some episodes. I am not sure if I have seen a whole season yet. What kind of unrealistic expectations are you referring to?

There may be some percentage of younger men, maybe the ones on the tail end of the bell curve, who are attracted to older women. Maybe they want a mother figure for whatever reason. I have seen bits and pieces of the show and there were interviews with a young man from Africa who kept talking about how much he wanted to go to America while discussing his relationship with the woman. There was one of the men who married a woman who might have been in her 40's who ditched her after a short time.

Many of the relatives on the show suggest the foreigner just wants a Greencard. On the one hand, that may be the case for some of them. But it also highlights the thinking of some Americans that America has such great opportunity that all the foreigners want to go to the US just to work. There are some foreigners like that, but it makes sense that some of the young couples who met while the expat was travelling for an extended period of time or dated online could want to marry for the same reasons other couples do.

I might be a just a little more suspicious about the motives of the men marrying the older women. I am not sure about the percentage of expat and Filippina relationships where the man is quite older, but there seems to be a fair amount of older expats marrying Filippinas. The age gap was probably less when there was a military base there. Maybe the Filippines got a reputation as a place to get young wives, or maybe some of these older men had been in the navy way back.

Some people say Filippinas comes over to the US to scam men for Greencards. I have no idea the source, but I read on a website that about 25% of couples where the wife was a Filippina expat divorced. This poster pointed out that about 50% of marriages with local US women divorce, and he asked. who who are the real scam artists?

In some of the more traditional cultures, men want to have children. The young men marrying the older women may be giving that up, or giving up having children while they are young, if they are serious about staying together until one of them dies. But the woman who marries an old man might still expect to have children, since that could be normal in her own country even if her husband is old.

There are also people who might marry partly because the partner or moving to America could provide a better life, who are also serious about making a commitment for life. A lot of Americans tend to think of marriage as disposable if it doesn't make them happy. People from some of these other countries may be more likely to see marriage was permanent, which is one reason why some of the men go looking abroad.

I've heard several people mention this show before but alas, I literally don't watch any TV.

I was gifted with a 32-inch TV last August by a church member who didn't need it, but I have to confess that I've never even bothered plugging it in. I know there are tons of things to watch these days and I'm afraid of falling down yet another all-too addictive rabbit hole.

I haven't watched a movie in almost 6 months -- I wait to visit my friends a couple times a year and then catch up on all THEIR streaming services instead.

I do, however, watch a lot of documentaries online -- maybe one day, I'll look up a few clips of 90 Day Fiance via good ol' YouTube.