Buying a Bride
An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4155519 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kristin Celello (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 168-168 |
| Publication date | 2017-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jax017 |
| OpenAlex | W2665244657 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Sweeping in scope and very readable, Buying a Bride uses the long history of marital immigration to North America to burnish the reputation of mail-order unions, which, Marcia A. Zug argues, have been cast unjustly as exploitative and degrading to women in the contemporary United States. Reminiscent of the sociologist Judith Stacey's case for the decriminalization and potential benefits of polygamy (Unhitched, 2011), Zug's Buying a Bride contends that past and current mail-order marriages have given women with otherwise-limited options considerable power over their marital choices. Asking how and why mail-order marriages acquired a bad name, Zug first focuses on several instances in which marital immigration was encouraged, facilitated, and lauded. When sex imbalances and anxieties about white male settlers' intermarriages with Native American women in Jamestown and New France seemingly threatened the prospects of these colonial experiments, both English and French authorities offered monetary and legal incentives to women who were willing to immigrate and marry overseas. Zug emphasizes that the potential brides came of their own volition and were often of good family backgrounds, although it would be interesting to know more about what other “push” factors may have prompted their departures. On arrival, however, these women had a good deal of control over whom and when (and even if) they married. This analysis is made more convincing by Zug's contrast of the successful introduction of the Louis XIV–sponsored King's Daughters (filles du roi) plan in 1663 in New France with the disastrous forced migration of female prisoners and other unfortunate women to Louisiana in the 1710s
Business · Economics · Immigration · Incentive · Order (exchange · Political science · Power (physics · Prestige · Reputation · Sociology · Digital Games and Media · History · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,63 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |