What Is A "Mail Order Bride" and Where Did The Phrase Come From?

Ok, so they are Russian Women. But let's face it. A Woman is a Woman, and just like everything else, we've put all types of titles on everyone and everything else, so why NOT Russian women?

And to tell you the truth, none of it ever matters to anyone, and it never mattered to ME, until I married a Russian Girl, who became my Russian Bride, and is now my Russian Wife, who is from Ukraine. OK? ... got it now?

The ONE term that both my Russian Wife and I hate the most is the term " Russian Mail Order Bride". We comdemn people who use it and I think if any of our company or friends used the term, we would either NOT be friends with them anymore, or I would start such a tirade of words toward them, that they would walk out on us while i was still preaching. It's a delicate situation for many, and depending on the mood of the Russian woman, it can even get physical.

Why is this term so degrading, you may ask? Why does it bother us?

Let me explain a little, and this is my OWN interpretation on how all of these words started. Back in 1980, there was a full page color catalog that you could order called Russian Brides. The internet was not really active yet, the thought of putting your credit card on a computer was unheard of, and we rarely heard of someone traveling to Russia, Ukraine, or anywhere abroad for that matter, to find a loving wife and return home to be married.

One day while reading the classified of Popular Science or something that men liked in a magazine, I read an ad for a full color FREE catalog of Russian Women looking to date. It was like the Playboy Magazine for Russian Girls. We all ordered it and the full color glossy pictures were used for calendars and pinups, just like Playboy Magazine pictures were, in their time.

Around that same time, a company started offering Group Romance Dating Tours and Russian Women Dating Tours

See Video Below

Russian Ukraine Singles Dating-Meet 500+ Women Tour - The most popular videos are a click away

Along those same years, another company surfaced and the term Mail Order Russian Brides surfaced. This company was offering tours to Russian, Ukraine and other foreign countries and they would guarantee a wife! Of Course, i t was all a ploy, but as men told these stories of traveling and getting engaged, someone came up with the term "Mail Order Brides. "



The fact that these trips cost thousands of dollars back then, added to the jokes about it costing $1500 to BUY or to ORDER a Russian
Wife. The term was an insult to European Women everywhere and you can bet that many brawls erupted at the local bars when some Bar Patron stood up and yelled to another about John's Wife being bought from a catalog and that John couldn't land a decent girl in USA, so he had to go and BUY one in Russia

Thus, the term "Mail Order Bride" was born

In today's world, the term is still used today to describe Russian Women that are looking for love and marriage, but just not spoken so
loudly any more. ....JB