04/29/2003 15:10
American men use Russian women for self-affirmation. The latter seem to be liking this fact
Marriages between Russian women and American men are very successful and harmonious, Olga Makhovskaya, the senior research assistant at the Psychology Institute in Russia's Academy of Sciences says. When an American man switches from the model of American family where husband and wife are partners equal in rights to the model of an Orthodox family, he thus raises his own significance. In Orthodox families men are given more authority and are more respected. It is certainly an advantage for a man and raises his social and psychological status. In a word, American men seem to have tired of the feminism propagated by American women, and it is frequent that they seek Russian women to start families.
Russian wives in America give up the traditional model of the Russian Orthodox family which relieves them of a heavy burden of responsibility and gives a chance to have a normal life in a family where the range of responsibilities is more definite for them: children, family affairs and housekeeping. At that, Russian women enjoy more attention and support from husbands.
As psychologists say, now Russian men undervalue the essence of family. The whole of the burden, housekeeping, upbringing of children, earning of money are shifted onto women. And, at the time when Russian women have so much responsibilities, their husbands spend their time dozing in front of TV sets in desperate attempts to find out the meaning of life and to understand the truth of the universe. They merely disregard everyday problems that are essential for their families as they consider the above mentioned idle thinking to be of higher importance.
That is why, as Olga Makhovskaya thinks relations in families between Russian and American partners are more harmonious. Each party gets what it wants to have. Husbands get authority and status, and wives are given, in exchange, peace in family and well-being. "Families of this kind where husbands are Americans and women are Russians prove to be long-living, as the roles in the family are clearly distributed and the mechanism operates good, although these are mixed families. In such families each of the couple is ready to make concessions and on the whole, wonderfully performs the role."
In addition, as researches held by Olga Makhovskaya reveal, marriages between Chinese men and Russian women are also very successful. ?There are tens of thousands of such marriages in Russia's Primorye region in the Far East. Chinese men are hard-working, they don't abuse in alcohol drinking and bring their wages home. In a word, they have lots of advantages by contrast with Russian men." It is sad, but the researches don't mention for whom Russian men suit wonderfully.
Olga Blagodarova
The Tatarstan Izvestia newspaper
