What is "mail-order bride"

n. a woman who lists herself in catalogue and is selected by man for marriage.

A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage. In nineteenth-century America, mail-order brides came from well-developed areas on the Eastern seaboard to marry men in Western frontier lands. In the twentieth century, the trend was towards women living in developing countries seeking men in more developed nations. In the twenty-first century, the trend is now based primarily on internet-based meeting places which do not per se qualify as mail-order bride services. The majority of the women listed in the twentieth-century and twenty-first-century services are from Southeast Asia, countries of the former Soviet Union and (to a lesser extent) from Latin America. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union large numbers of eastern European women have advertised themselves in such a way, primarily from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. Men who list themselves in such publications are referred to as "mail-order husbands," although due to differences in gender roles in the USA and abroad, this is much less common.

The term "mail-order bride" is both criticized by owners (and customers) of international marriage agencies and used by them as an easily recognizable term.