Abstract

This paper focuses on the social, political and economic transformations that have taken place in the existing mail order marriage industry prior to the development of, and throughout the rise of International Marriage Brokers (IMBs) or “mail-order marriage agencies”. A socio-historical analysis on transnational marriage is examined, as well as a content analysis of ads placed by consumer-husbands. Findings in this study show that there is a distinct permeability among brokers who deal in mail order marriage in terms of sex tourism, prostitution, domestic and care-related forms of work, reflected in migration patterns from periphery to core, and how this reflects the growing demands for traditional values expressed through “care” in western culture.