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Bride buying or bride purchasing is the cultural practice of providing some form of payment in exchange for a bride. The payment may be made to the bride's father, family, or a separate agent. It is the converse of a dowry. Illegal in some countries, it has a firm foothold in parts of Asia and Africa. It may amount to a form of slavery when treated as a transfer of property from one "owner" to another. History In his History, Herodotus reports approvingly of the former Babylonian and Illyrian custom of holding an annual auction of each village's young women reaching marriageable age. He states that the high price of the healthiest and most beautiful was used in part to fund dowries for the ugliest and most crippled, each of the latter being given to the man who would legitimately marry them for the least amount. Despite his praise, he acknowledges the Babylonians discontinued the practice owing to mistreatment of brides, particularly those bought by outsiders, and says that since the Fall of Babylon to the Persian Empire the general poverty of the country had led to many fathers prostituting their daughters instead of auctioning or marrying them off. One of the first recorded instances of bride-buying in North America can be traced back to 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. The first Jamestown settlers were exclusively European males, historian Alf J. Mapp Jr believes this could be due to the belief that "...women had no place in the grim and often grisly business of subduing a continent..." With stories of famine, disease and dissension, the European women feared that leaving England and traveling to the colony would be of great risk. Unable to find wives, many men chose to desert the colony. In order to reduce desertion, colony leaders sent advertisements back to Europe, pleading for women to immigrate to the colony. Trying to persuade potential brides to come to Jamestown proved to be difficult, however, 17th-century marriage obstacles proved to be beneficial to the men of the colony. Attaining a home and constructing domestic household in Europe was costly. If not born into wealth, most people would need to obtain significant savings before being able to wed. The majority of working-class Englishwomen turned to domestic service to acquire the necessary funds to marry and marital immigration offered an enticing alternative to what otherwise would be years doing menial work for meager pay. The Virginia Company offered women who chose to leave England in favor of the colony generous incentives such as linens, clothing, a plot of land, and their choice of husband. After a husband was chosen, he would then pay the Virginia Company with 150 pounds (70kg) of "good leaf" tobacco (which is equivalent to roughly $5000 USD in today's currency) to pay for their bride's passage to the colony. This is how the Jamestown brides earned themselves the nickname the "tobacco brides". Mail-order brides One of the most common forms of modern-day bride-buying is mail-order brides. It is estimated that there are 90 agencies that deal with the selling and purchasing of mail order brides. These agencies have websites that list the addresses, pictures, names and biographies of up to 25,000 women that are seeking husbands, with American husbands being the most common preference. While there are women listed on these sites from all over the world, the majority of mail-order brides come from Russia and the Philippines. According to these agencies, 10% of women who choose to become mail-order brides are successful and find a husband through their services. The agencies also state that there are around 10,000 mail-order marriages a year, with about 4,000 of these marriages involving men in the United States. Bride-buying in Asia China Bride-buying is an old tradition in China. The practice was largely stamped out by the current Chinese Communist government. However, the modern practice is "not unusual in rural villages"; it is also known as mercenary marriage. According to Ding Lu of the non-governmental organization All-China Women's Federation, the practice had a resurgence due to China's surging economy. From 1991 to 1996, Chinese police rescued upwards of 88,000 women and children who had been sold into marriage and slavery, and the Chinese government claimed that 143,000 traffickers involved were caught and prosecuted. Some human rights groups state that these figures are not correct and that the real number of abducted women is higher. Bay Fang and Mark Leong reported in U.S. News & World Report that "the government sees the commerce in wives as a shameful problem, it has only in recent years begun to provide any statistics, and it tries to put the focus on the women who have been saved rather than on the continuing trade." Causes include poverty and bride shortage in the rural areas (rural women go to the cities to work). As women leave rural areas to find work in cities, they are considered more vulnerable to being "tricked or forced into becoming chattel for men desperate for wives." The shortage of brides in turn is due to amplification of the traditional preference of Chinese couples for sons by the 1979 one-child policy in China. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated that in 1998 there were 120 men for every 100 women, with imbalances in rural areas being about 130 males for every 100 females. The increase in the cost of dowries is also a contributing factor leading men to buy women for wives. Human Rights in China states that it is more affordable for a man to buy a wife from a trafficker for 2,000 to 4,000 yuan than to pay a traditional dowry, which often runs upwards of 10,000 yuan. For the average urban worker, wife selling is an affordable option, since in 1998 at least; China urban workers made approximately $60 a month. Brides for sale are outsourced from countries such as Burma, Laos, Pakistan, Vietnam and North Korea. The bride-traders sell women as brides or as prostitutes depending on their physical appearance. A common trick employed by bride-brokers in acquiring brides for sale is the offer of a job such as in factories and instead kidnapping them. Bride-traders can sell a young woman for the price of $250 to $800USD. US$50 to US$100 of the original price goes to the primary kidnappers while the rest of the income goes to the traffickers who bring the bride to the main client. After bearing children, Chinese women who are bought as wives are more prone to staying within the marriage. Fang Yuzhu of the China Women's Federation credits it with a "strong sense of duty" that Chinese women have, and the idea that it is shameful to leave their husband. Yuzhu also credits that some women might consider their forced marriage a better option to the life of poverty and hard labor they would be subject to upon returning home or the idea that some women may not feel they can find another husband, since they "have already been with one". India Bride buying is.... Discover the Penny Wylder popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Penny Wylder books.