Category: Marriage

Are Russian Mail-Order Brides Placed at Too High of a Risk?

There’s an interesting article at LegalAffairs.Org about mail-order brides from Eastern Europe. There have been a couple of high profile instances of violence against women who came to the United States as mail-order brides, leading to calls for tighter regulation of matchmaking services that arrange such marriages.

But in her article on the topic, Nadya Labi notes that a) no one knows if mail order brides from Eastern Europe are really subject to more violence than any other group, and b) the few limited studies that have been done suggest that, in fact, there isn’t a problem with these marriages. Labi writes,

So far, no definitive studies have confirmed the industry’s bad rap. In the 1996 Mail-Order Bride Act, Congress directed the Department of Justice to investigate fraud and domestic violence in mail-order marriages. But immigration officials don’t collect data on these relationships, so after three years of fact-gathering the DOJ could offer only preliminary and suspect statistics. Based on 266 immigration cases, a small sample, DOJ reported that matchmaking agencies did not play a significant role in marriage fraud. Investigators also found that mail-order brides suffer abuse less frequently than homegrown wives. On the strength of anecdotal evidence that some mail-order brides are abused, however, the 1996 law required international marriage brokers to tell foreign brides about their rights to claim certain immigration benefits if they become victims of domestic violence.

Currently Congress is considering the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act which would, according to Labi, “force agencies to ask each male client about his marital history and criminal background.” Do we want the government getting that directly involved in how people decide who they marry? As Labi writes,

But is it a broker’s job to run a background check on a man simply because he wants to meet a foreign mate? The legislation before Congress exempts matchmaking services like Match.Com and Yahoo! Personals because these companies charge the same rates to men and women and to natives and foreigners. In light of the financial incentive that mail order brokers have to side with their male clients, it makes sense to treat brokers differently by requiring them to tell foreign brides about their immigration rights. However, it seems premature to impose background checks without more proof that the men who go to brokers to meet foreign women . . . are more dangerous than men at any singles party. Mail-order brides are adults who can only hope for the best and guard against the worst. They should proceed, as others do, at their own risk.

Source:

Mrs. America: The business of mail-order marriage. Nadya Labi, Legal Affairs, January/February 2004.

Measuring Parental Preferences for Boys Over Girls

A couple of researchers recently published the results of a look at marriage patterns based on the sex of the children in the marriage and came up with a startling conclusion — the fewer male children, the larger the likelihood that a marriage will end in divorce.

Gordon Dahl, with the University of Rochester, and Enrico Moretti, with the University of California at Los Angeles, examined census data on 6 million mothers from over 60 years of census data.

They found that a couple with one daughter is 5 percent more likely to divorce than a couple with one son, and that the more daughters the higher the likelihood of divorce. Couples with three daughters, for example, were 13 percent more likely to divorce than couples with three sons.

Moreover, couples who had only sons were the least likely to divorce, while those who had only daughters were the most likely to divorce.

This follows research by the University of Washington’s Shelly Lundberg which found similar results for single mothers. Single mothers were 42 percent more likely to get married to the father of the child if the child was a boy.

There are a number of possible explanations for this phenomenon with the most obvious being that men appear to have a strong desire to have at least one son. This is consistent with a Gallup poll that for more than 50 years has asked Americans if they could only have one child, would they prefer to have a boy or a girl. Women show little preference, preferring a boy 36 percent to 32 percent for a girl (the remaining having no preference), while men choose a boy 45 percent to 19 percent (the remaining having no preference).

Sources:

Oh, No: It’s a Girl! Steven Landsburg, Slate, October 2, 2003.

Boys help make dads stay. Sarah Baxter and Judith O’Reilly, The Sunday Times (Australia), October 13, 2003.

It’s a Girl! (Will the Economy Suffer?) David Leonhardt, New York Times, October 26, 2003.

Do daughters cause divorce? The Age (Australia), November 13, 2003.

Should Divorced Parents Be Forced to Pay for Adult Children’s College Expenses?

An Associated Press story about a New Hampshire case illustrates an odd distinction between divorced and married couples — in 17 states, divorced parents can be ordered to pay for the college expenses of their adult children where married parents would never be subject to such court orders.

The AP story focuses on Alexander Durand whose daughter was accepted at both Brandeis and Brown University. A court ordered Durand to pay for half his daughters’ tuition to Brown University even though Brandeis offered his daughter a better financial aid package.

Such cases are creating something of a righteous backlash with New Hampshire considering a bill that prohibit courts form ordering divorced parents to pay for college expenses of their adult children.

At its core, these states are involved in the worst sort of social engineering. As lawyer Kate Haakonsen, who helped draft a law in Connecticut to require divorced parents to pay for college expenses, told the Associated Press,

Children of divorced parents are less likely to go to college, less likely to go to prestigious schools, and generally are less economically successful than their parents. As a matter of public policy, we have to decide if that’s what we want.

No, these are not matters for public policy, but are rather private decisions to be made by the families involved without the heavy hand of the state inserting itself into the middle of the process.

Source:

Obligations survive marriage. Associated Press, September 15, 2003.

Wambui Otieno Mbugua Sets Kenya Abuzz

Former-Mau Mau activist and politician Wambui Otieno Mbugua certainly knows how to create a controversy. When she made an appearance at a conference dedicated to creating a new constitution for Kenya, tempers flared and the conference had to be recessed for 30 minutes.

Why all the fuss? Because Wambui, 67, was married in July to a stonemason 42 years her junior.

The marriage itself drew hundreds of onlookers and created something of a schism among churches in Kenya. Although clergyman with the Presbyterian Church of East Africa opined that the marriage was perfectly appropriate, Catholic priest Father Emanuel Ngugi characterized the marriage of Wambui to a much younger man as “uncouth” and criticized her for not consulting her local community before going ahead with the marriage.

When Wambui showed up at the constitutional conference, Member of Parliament Bonny Khalwale was the leader of a faction of male MPs who demanded that she be ejected from the conference. Khalwale was quoted by the BBC as saying, “We are discussing African culture and what she did [by marrying a much-younger man] negated the very concept of our culture.”

Not everyone in Kenya thought this was the major issue facing delegates. According to the BBC, conference delegate Hubbie Hussein noted that, “there are land grabbers, looters, murderers and other criminals among the delegates, but no one has questioned their presence in the conference.”

Sources:

Kenya split by wedding row. Kariuki wa Mureithi, BBC News, July 22, 2003.

Kenyan woman slams ‘disgusting’ MPs. BBC, August 21, 2003.

Gambian President Puts Breaks on Polygamy . . . Sort Of

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced he was putting limits on widespread polygamy in his country — for the next three years, men will be allowed to have no more than three wives.

According to a BBC report Jammeh’s proclamation, however, the prohibition may not have much real effect,

“Pleas allow the young men to get married took” Mr. Jammeh [said] . . .

But the seriousness in his voice did not match the reaction of his audience who burst into laughter at his announcement.

The population is predominantly Muslim with more than 90% following Islam — and most Gambians are strict in their religious practices.

The BBC reporter suggests that the three wife limit is widely viewed as a measure designed to curry favor with the United States.

While other countries throughout the world have seen a fall in fertility over the past three decades, Gambia maintains extremely high fertility rates in part because of polygamy. Its TFR is 6.0, and in some parts of the country the male fertility rate is above 12.

Human rights groups also oppose polygamy, arguing that it generally exploits women and often leaves marriages in serious financial difficulties.

Sources:

Gambian freeze on polygamy. Demba Jawo, The BBC, July 22, 2003.

Modern methods of family planning and reproductive health services in The Gambia. Swiss Tropical Institute.

The Ultimate Military Dead Beat Dad Story

A few weeks ago I wrote about the problems faced by men who fall behind in their child support payments when they are called up from their reservist positions to serve in time of war. Writing at LewRockwell.Com, Carey Roberts points out the ultimate example of this sort of problem,

Take Bobby Sherrill, for example. He was working on a contract to the Kuwaiti military in 1990. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, they took Sherrill hostage. Four months later, he was released. When he came home to Fayetteville, NC, he expected a hero’s welcome. Instead, the child support goons arrested him for failure to pay child support during his captivity.

Frankly this is such an egregious example that I suspected it as some sort of hoax or urban legend, but a Lexis/Nexis search shows that, in fact, Sherrill was arrested the night after he returned to North Carolina for failing to pay $1,425 in child support during the months he was held prisoner by Iraqi forces.

More reason why courts need much more flexibility and the ability to use common sense in applying child support orders in the real world.

Sources:

The Deadbeat Dad’s Dilemma. Carey Roberts, LewRockwell.Com, June 10, 2003.

Child-support-law amendment comes to attention of Hill. Cheryl Wetzstein, Washington Times, April 27, 1999.

Families and the war. Dianna Thompson and Glenn Sacks, EnterStageRight.Com, November 25, 2002.