I rarely follow the news in the Philippines because of several reasons:
- I do no get up early enough to watch the morning news.
- I don’t buy newspapers. Come to think of it, I do not see any newspaper stands on my way to work.
- I find myself getting bored or becoming sad because of what I read.
For some reason, I found myself browsing INQ7’s web site. And once again, I was reminded of the reasons (#3 in particular) I do not like reading local news.
See that title up there? That’s the title of an article in the Pinoy Abroad section. It opens with this paragraph:
The inability of the Philippine economy to produce high-paying jobs especially for women has pushed Filipinos to marry foreigners as a way to provide for their families, the study Country Gender Assessment by regional lender Asian Development Bank said.
I cannot even begin to describe how this makes me feel. I know how hard life can be in our country and seeing these words in black and white just makes the situation even starker. When J and I go on vacation, we see a lot of these couples. As the article describes:
“(I)n the Philippines (as elsewhere), the phenomenon of ‘mail order brides’ is not uncommon. In the absence of employment prospects and with families to care for, many women view marrying a foreigner as an easy ticket to an overseas life with steady remittances. With the advent of the Internet, chat rooms, and text messaging the marriage migration numbers are on the rise,” the ADB said.
Data from The Commission on Filipinos Overseas showed that Filipino women marrying men from East Asian countries tend to be younger and less educated. These foreign men also usually are at least 40 years older than their Filipino brides.
We meet interracial couples who fit the last line above. And as much as I do not want to affix labels to people, in the back of my mind, the two paragraphs above are exactly what I think. And worse, sometimes I feel ashamed when I think that other people might think of me that way as well.
I honestly do not know where I am going with this post. I just know that I read that article and it bothered me so much that I knew I had to write about it here.
Maybe I am being defensive and I want to point out that I am not one of them – oh believe me, the money had and has nothing to do with it: we have NO money! Or I guess I am trying to help and reach out to Filipinas who are thinking along those lines – marrying for money and not love.
Marrying a foreigner is not what they make it out to be. At the end of the day, you will realize that whether your husband is a foreigner or not does not matter. You will see that your relationship boils down to two people – a man and a woman – living their lives together, going through ups and down, and doing everything they can to make things work. There are going to be fun times, sure, but there are going to be rough times. And if you marry only for money, you might wake up one day and realize that even all the money in the world will not be worth going through all the complexities of marriage. For that, I think love is what you need.
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Realistically, these men are not marrying for love, either. They are marrying either a young wife that will be physically young and attractive, and who will OBEY (or who they think will obey because she is so much younger than he is).
This is a similar situation to women in first world countries who are “trophy wives” marrying someone a generation older than they are for “money,” while the older man is marrying for “looks.” If she loses her looks, she’s looking at a divorce. If he loses his money, she’s gone. So it’s a marriage of convenience for both parties.
The marriages you describe in the Philipines are also marriages of convenience for both parties.
Expat 21
“Expat Abroad” in the Middle East
expat21.wordpress.com
You’re right, they are marriages of convenience indeed. It just saddens me that a lot of these Filipinas are so young and think that they can get a better life by marrying a foreigner. It seems to me that they would be missing out on a lot by doing so. However, I am sure that I am generalizing here and that there are also women who know exactly what they are getting into and don’t care a sh*t about it.
[...] presents “Filipinas marry foreigners for money not love” posted at The Chronicles of a Cross-cultural [...]
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I noticed that this is not the first time at all that you write about this topic. Why have you chosen it again?
For me a big NO! Not all filipino marry foreign guy because of their money or for convenience… there are lot of filipina marry foreign guy because of love.