Seeking Western Men: Email-Order Brides Under Chinas Global Rise Liu Monica

Commercial dating agencies that facilitate marriages across national borders comprise a $2.5 billion global industry. These ideas are more myth than fact, Monica Liu finds in Seeking Western Men. Ideas about the industry are rife with stereotypes-younger, more physically attractive brides from non-Western countries being paired with older Western men.

What they seek in their Western partners is tied to what they believe they've lost in the shifting global economy around them. Her study of China's email-order bride industry offers stories of Chinese women who are primarily middle-aged, divorced, and proactively seeking spouses to fulfill their material and sexual needs. Ranging from multimillionaire entrepreneurs or ex-wives and mistresses of wealthy Chinese businessmen, to contingent sector workers and struggling single mothers, these women, along with their translators and