, who agrees that the invasion of Ukraine will have had its effects on mail-order bride demand: “It’s what usually happens; it starts from women trying to leave unsafe situations for a better life, and marriage facilitates the migration process. It’s a logical solution to a bad situation. Obviously, there are some complicated power dynamics at play here.”
According to Zug: “These are usually men who don’t have great marriage capital in their respective country, whether that’s because they’re not conventionally attractive, or they have issues talking to women, etc.“When they look at mail-order brides, their marriage marketability increases, because they have something to bring to the table that they wouldn’t have with women in their country, like the power of their passport or their money.
For others, the benefit of the attention – and money – of rich, older men is enough of a reason to become a mail-order bride.Dr Julia Meszaros of Texas A&M University Commerce, studied and researched the commercialised romance tour industry in Ukraine. This raises the issue most people will think of when hearing of the mail-order bride industry: worries of exploitation, usually of the women. However, others argue that many mail-order brides simply make use of the untapped potential that a lonely man with a bank account may hold for them. As with many things, reality lies somewhere in the middle.
Suvorora shares her concerns for the harmful stereotypes surrounding Eastern European women, saying that the way in which women have been objectified since the invasion of Ukraine reminds her of the ‘saviour complex’ she saw in men trying to help her mother after the fall of the Soviet Union.