Marcia A. Zug

Marcia A. Zug is the author of Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches. From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to write this book, and what do you see as the most common perceptions and misperceptions about these "mail-order matches"?

A: I wrote the book because it’s at the intersection of my two areas of interest, which I’ve been interested in for a long time—I teach family law and immigration law. This is one of the areas that hits both perfectly. I thought about writing it for a while. There was so much, it wasn’t hard to turn it into a book.

The common view of mail-order brides is that they’re desperate, exploited women, that it’s a horrible practice, and we should work hard to reduce it. That was my perception when I went into it.

One difference is that I recognized there was another view of mail-order brides, and I wondered why we had both, why it was [seen as] good before.

I found that the benefits in the past were real, and a lot were the same as modern mail-order brides receive—that as long as there are protections and regulations, this is a really good option for...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue