Picture Bride… Not So Picture
Courtesy of- Miramax Films
The story of the picture bride was based on the boom of Hawaiian Men of means who would essentially purchase mail order brides from places like Japan, China, Vietnam, Korea, etc etc especially in the 1800s and early 1900’s. This is one or numerous ways how many Polynesians acquired Asian blood in our lines.
Matter of fact as recent as the last decade the practice of Mail Order Brides was and is carried out still in 2021 generally by wealthy white males being the buyers. There was just an article a few days ago in the California News Times how Mail Order Brides from Vietnam are huge right now. It wasn’t and isn’t a picture life. It generally consists of young Girls and Women seeking to leave lives of lack of opportunities behind to hook up with a rich male. Let’s be realistic a young Girl or young Woman is purchased and has to sleep with some old male… I honestly don’t think that’s the life any Girl or young Woman would want. You have to think “How bad was your life before to want to willingly do that?!”
It’s like linking up with people online… except spending life with the receiving party. There has been discourse on whether or not it is considered sex trafficking. In my opinion technically yes because a purchaser is indeed paying for Girl or Woman’s services. Not to mention it places Girls and Women in a vulnerable position of they could be arriving to anyone or any predicament. I believe it was in the early 2010’s a young Russian girl was killed by a male she was a Mail order bride for. I remember writing a whole post about this years ago as the practice itself is not criminal (highly frowned on) but it is questionable. There is also another film that touches on it called “The Third Wife” that I personally don’t want to watch because it’s pretty heavily laden with child sexual exploitative subject matter as the protagonist is 14. It left little doubt in the trailer and albeit a 2018 film that is how it was and is when Child Marriage is practiced. My whole thing is when actual kid actresses are being used in films for that subject matter I feel a certain way about it as being exploitive but being it was filmed in Vietnam the laws differ. Albeit the content matter the premise is to show how the options for Girls and generally young Women were very few in those situations. The unfortunate reality in yet still remote parts of the globe especially circumstances are not all that improved and the opportunities are few. Hence why Mail Order Brides from the region are still prevalent and agency peddlers still exist.
