Migrant Life/Married Life

Abstract

The life histories of women and men considering migration for the purpose of marriage naturally have a profound effect on their chance of finding foreign-national partners, on their potential for negotiating entry into their spouse’s country of residence and on how such marriages are contracted. The Internet and other forms of global communication have radically altered the ways marriages are negotiated and arranged whether between ethnic groups or within them, and the use of agents of various types has increased and developed to take advantage of these opportunities. Academic studies of women in the Philippines who have contracted, or who wish to contract, marriages overseas describe their complex reasoning and some of the ways they seek to balance of the pros and cons of marriage and the realities of their own and their families’ lives. Spouses who are citizens of the potential country of settlement are also shown, according to research, as weighing up the relative advantages of marriage with nationals of different countries. Potential spouses and their families in both countries of emigration and immigration may be involved in arranging and negotiating what, in their view, are suitable matches even though the information they are basing their opinions on may be sparse and unreliable. This chapter sets out to consider how the decision to marry across borders may come about and what the results of such marriages may be. As in previous chapters, the decisions migrants make are shown as being made by individuals able to act with differing degrees of agency and autonomy within the structural parameters set for them by families, communities and legislative frameworks.