Marriage Brokers

An article in the current issue of Legal Affairs focuses on professional match makers and the difficulties inherent in the business. It’s been estimated that there at least 6000 matches each year and the fee can be about $2000.

How good are the matches? According to the article, a preliminary study conducted by the Department of Justice suggests that mail order brides might suffer less abuse than other wives. However, match makers sometimes fail to inform prospective wives of a future husband’s history of abusive behavior, which has resulted in some cases of abuse and state regulation of the industry.

Of course, regulation of the industry seems plausible – mail order brides don’t have the social networks that enable home-grown brides to learn about their future partner, and they might be susceptible to abuse because they don’t know their new country as well. But there are other ways of dealing with this. Like job applicants, match makers could perform basic screening of candidates – a check of the person’s criminal record might be useful. Match makers who failed to do some basic screening could be held liable for some damages, a proposal to be debated by the legal bloggers. A match maker subject to these professional norms might find better matches than the old fashioned match makers.