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Comment by ciguy | Hacker News Reader

You can just say the Philippines, not sure why you are obscuring the country name.

The Philipines is has a long and notorious history of mail-order brides[1]. Parent's incredulity on peoples attitudes rings a little hollow when that's explicitly spelled out.

1. The term predates the world-wide web to a time when women in developing counties would be in a literal catalog, and correspondence was done via mail.

Another word for the process of getting a mail-order "bride" in the context of the current day is "internet dating", which everyone does. The other term is still used to evoke some historically charged negative emotions due to the implication that perhaps people are bought or relationships are started for the wrong reasons, but the modern dating scene has the exact same problems. What is left then is racism (it's "bad" because the parties are from different countries and perhaps even have different skin colour), and deserves to just go straight out the window.

You're skipping over the power dynamics- the brides are often very poor and dependent on spouse for financial support, the lack of support network (bride leaves family & friends thousands of miles away),as well as the precarious visa situation (real or perceived). Other than that, it's just like internet dating, like you said.

So what are you going to do? Ban these brides from seeking a husband abroad? What is the point of complaining about mail order brides?

You can educate them on all these things (many of these brides surely already know this) and yet many would still choose on their free volition to proceed ahead.

Trying not to prejudice the audience, I know that anyone familiar with the country will know what it is. Not really trying to obscure it.

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