International Marriage

[John W]

This week’s Economist has an interesting and informative article about the increase in international marriage.  Immigration and globalization are discussed as key factors leading to the increase.  Marriages between women from developing countries such as Vietnam and developed countries such as South Korea and Japan are discussed, as well as Japanese women marrying African men.  Some recent figures for the percentage of marriages considered international:  France 16%, Germany14%, Italy 14%, Spain 22%, and the US 4.6%.

http://www.economist.com/node/21538103

[thekfc]

Very interesting read.
Thanks for the link to the article.

[Kiltboy1]

All countries with open minds to new cultures, adventures. USA, well, nuff said
 
KB

[raycjs]

i enjoyed reading the link,
 
thank you
Ray

[z_k_g]

Good Read

Z

[Bob_S]

Interesting article.  Thanks for linking.
It does admit to failure in its tracking statistics for a simple reason, it fails to differentiate between international marriages and cross-cultural marriages.  And it makes a difference.  An Hispanic American marrying a Mexican woman or a French-Moroccan Muslim man marrying a Moroccan woman would count as an international marriage, but hardly a challenging cross-cultural marriage like most of us have or aspire to have.  A Caucasian guy marrying a nisei woman or even a black American guy marrying a white girl shows far more tolerance and acceptance (and has far more cultural issues) than either of the two previous examples, even though they are not in any sense "international" marriages.  So a more interesting study would be bi-racial or bi-cultural marriages.  Then I wonder how the countries stack up.

[CeeTeeEnn]

Thank you for posting this interesting article, John W. While it may not necessarily reflect in details the specific interests of the majority of P-L members, it does at least attempt to shed a serious light on the subject and discuss the idea of a taxonomy for international marriages.

Some of the readers' comments reflect my own views on the subject. In places like London, NY, Singapore etc. international marriages occur when peoples from around the world mix naturally and freely, having arrived there originally for reasons of employment, education, business etc. but not marriage. Such liasons are more likely to involve partners from comparable age ranges and equivalent employment/educational backgrounds or earning potential (though by itself this cannot be considered a guarantee of long term happiness.)

Such modern unions are quite distinct to the intra-ethnic international marriages practiced within many communities (the "bring back a girl from your parent's village" thing.) They are perhaps more likely to involve a disparity of age/education/earning potential among the partners, but despite concerns being voiced by some that such marriages are detrimenal to general social integration, and may in some cases mask domestic abuse, they seem show little signs of abating despite attempts being made in some EU countries to legislate against them.

Here in the UK, recent laws introduced to deliberately stifle marriages between UK citizens and non-EU citizens under the age of 21 have just been quashed by our supreme court. I was not surprised to learn of this long overdue judgement, but i was startled to learn the case was actually brought by an English girl wanting to marry a teenage Chilean Latino! (these laws are were aimed covertly at our Asiatic communities, where there is a similar "marriage strike" to that described in the article, resulting in many British Asiatic guys opting to pursue traditional arranged ceremonies with young girls from the subcontinent.)

In the shadow of these phenomena, it's perhaps unsurprising that the relative proportion of explicit internet dating/agency/tour etc. international marriages remains low. In the eyes of most city dwellers i know, it is still seen as an activity that is unnecessary and superfluous (though not creepy/sleazy) for as long as the airports remain open. As mentioned in the comments, the conspiracy between the Wright Brothers and Frank Whittle is changing the world in ways surely no pure aircraft engineer could have quite imagined...

[dennislevy]

CeeTeeEm....
 
It s nice to see you back  on P L and especially those short Hemmingway-esqe sentences!
 
There is a thread in the off topic section on P-L entitled American History and its subect is the causes of the American Revolution.
 
As an Englishman, you might want to put your tuppence in!
 
Dennis
 
 

[beginthebeguin]

CTN wrote :

As mentioned in the comments, the conspiracy between the Wright Brothers and Frank Whittle is changing the world in ways surely no pure aircraft engineer could have quite imagined...

I wasn't aware of any conspiracy among the individuals you mentioned. Hmmm interesting subject but perhaps for another web forum. 

[Pivery]

Just got around to reading this article. Very good read, thanks for posting it John!

Pivery