While putting together this article, I recalled a documentary showing men who preferred Russian dating, men who hoped for marrying Russian women. I was moved by the lonely and desperate searches of both the American men who wanted the women they were corresponding with to be their future brides and the Russian women who wanted just as much for the relationships to work. My heart went out to them as it does to all who are lonely, sad, alone, and seeking a soul mate. Then I found a website featuring letters that centered on the topic of Russian dating in general and on, specifically, our misinformed attitudes about Russian women coming to the U.S. and “taking” “our” men.
Tags:Russian dating, Russian Women
Ericka Johnson. Dreaming of a Mail-Order Husband: Russian-American Internet Romance. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007. 193 pp. Notes. Bibliography. $21.95, paper.
While this study of Russian women seeking American “mail-order” spouses is written with the best of intentions, it fails to provide a realistic picture of today’s cross-cultural “marriage market”. Through interviews conducted with six Russian women in Russia and seven men and women in the US, Ericka Johnson, a researcher on medical education at Sweden’s Linkoping University, attempts to describe the situation of young Russian women seeking American spouses via Internet dating agencies. The lives of the Russian respondents provide a springboard for discussion of the reasons prompting these women to seek a spouse abroad and of issues of adaptation to American life. (далее…)
Tags:a catalogue of hope, Dreaming of a Mail-Order Husband, Ericka Johnson, mail-order husband, Russian Women, russian women seeking american spouses, Russian-American Internet Romance