History Main / MailOrderBride

See also the SpanishPrisoner for the scam version of this trope

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* In the 1954 movie, ''[[LeiningenVersusTheAnts The Naked Jungle]]'', Charleton Heston plays a wealthy cocoa plantation owner in Venezuala who sends for a mail-order bride, who is a widow from New Orleans. It is actually a marraige-by-proxy with his brother standing in for him during the legal ceremony. After she arrives and they meet, the two strong-willed individuals both at first regret the arrangement. However, a plague of army ants allows true love to triumph.

* In the "Army War Bride" films, the most famous is probably ''IWasAMaleWarBride'' a CaryGrant comedy vehicle where he marries a Womens Army Corps member. HilarityEnsues.

* Steve and his friends order a Russian mail order bride in ''AmericanDad.'' She [[StatusQuoIsGod disappears at the end of the episode, of course.]] Lampshaded in "Escape From Peal Baily" when Toshi says "Didn't I have a wife once?"
* ''AquaTeenHungerForce'' features Carl and Shake going halfsies on a mail order bride...only to have her barricade herself in Carl's house when she first sees the two of them.

* Played very seriously in ''BirthdayGirl'', where an Englishman hires a mail-order Russian Bride. [[spoiler: Then she and some accomplices extort him into robbing the bank that he works for using a variant on the SpanishPrisoner act.]]

* ''QuantumLeap'' once had Sam leap into a man that just got back form WWII just in time for his new Japanese wife to introduce herself to his family.

* One of Earl's friends in ''MyNameIsEarl'' has a MailOrderBride. He lives in a storage container and tends to peddle *cough* ''suspect'' wares.

* It is implied that Alan Partridge's girlfriend Sonja in the second series of ''[[{{ptitlefnnyikgsc9tx}} I'm Alan Partridge]]'' came to England on such an arrangement. She's a gregarious woman who clearly cares for Alan, which is a bit unfortunate for her since he views her with little more than contempt and is clearly only in it for the ego-boost of getting to sleep with someone 17 years younger than him.

* ''{{Wings}}'' had Roy order a Russian mail order bride. The bride showed up and it was clear that she really didn't like him. But, she had no choice but to marry him. At the last minute, Roy had a change of heart and let her go to marry a man she fell for.

* ''LuckyLuke's Wife'' had the titular cowboy escort a large number of women across the land to their potential husbands, due to a serious gender imbalance in their respective communities. (Curiously, it was the omen who got to pick from pictures of the men, while the men had no say.) The problem arises when one girl's betrothed is temporarily unavailable and Lucky Luke has to fill the husband role. It turns out [[spoiler:to be an attempt to ensnare Luke so he can become their sheriff permanently.]]

* In the 1954 movie, ''TheNakedJungle'', Charleton Heston plays a wealthy cocoa plantation owner in Venezuala who sends for a mail-order bride, who is a widow from New Orleans. It is actually a marraige-by-proxy with his brother standing in for him during the legal ceremony. After she arrives and they meet, the two strong-willed individuals both at first regret the arrangement. However, a plague of army ants allows true love to triumph.

* In the 1954 movie, ''The Naked Jungle'', Charleton Heston plays a wealthy cocoa plantation owner in Venezuala who sends for a mail-order bride, who is a widow from New Orleans. It is actually a marraige-by-proxy with his brother standing in for him during the legal ceremony. After she arrives and they meet, the two strong-willed individuals both at first regret the arrangement. However, a plague of army ants allows true love to triumph.

* Played with on ''{{CSI}}''. One man ordered a Russian mail-order bride, killed her when she wasn't really in love with him and was planning to leave him for a less-controlling man. By the time the CSIs find her body years later he's already remarried to another mail-order bride from China.

* A friend of the Cartwrights ordered one in {{Bonanza}}. He broke his leg, so he asked Hoss to pick her up for him. Unfortunately, the woman becomes attracted to Hoss, much to his horror and to the friend's anger.

* {{Wings}} had Roy order a Russian mail order bride. The bride showed up and it was clear that she really didn't like him. But, she had no choice but to marry him. At the last minute, Roy had a change of heart and let her go to marry a man she fell for.
* An episode of ''Sex Court'' (a pornographic courtroom comedy aired on the Playboy Channel) had a plaintiff taking his russian mail order bride to court over the fact that she hadn't been a virgin, and expected her to compensate his expense in full out of her own pocket. Seeing as how that detail hadn't been in the contract and the guy was a raging douche, he lost the case.

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* Steve and his friends order a Russian mail order bride in ''AmericanDad.'' She [[StatusQuoIsGod disappears at the end of the episode, of course.]] Lampshaded in "Escape From Peal Baily" when Toshi says "didn't I have w wife once?"

* ''Beavis And Butt-Head'' - an agency dumps a Russian woman on a looking-to-score Butt-Head...she's repulsed by him and smacks him if he gets near her. She then hooks up with thug Todd, and Butt-Head sees the bright side of it, where if Todd is doing it with ''his'' "wife", that somehow makes them related. Butt-Head ''loves'' Todd...

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* ''LuckyLuke's Wife'' had the titular cowboy escort a large number of women across the land to their potential husbands, due to a serious gender imbalance in their respective communities. (Curiously, it was the omen who got to pick from pictures of the men, while the men had no say.) The problem arises when one girl's betrothed is temporarily unavailable and Lucky Luke has to fill the husband role. It turns out [[spoiler:to be an attempt to ensnare Luke so he can become their sheriff permanently.]]

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* Steve and his friends order a Russian mail order bride in ''AmericanDad.'' She [[StatusQuoIsGod disappears at the end of the episode, of course.]]

The MailOrderBride plot line is where a man in a Western country marries a woman from a poor country sight unseen, or seen once.

It's usually played for laughs. One example is from the short lived tv series ''{{Wonderfalls}}''. A boy orders up a Russian bride for his widower dad. Although, at first, the boy seemed intent on marrying her himself!

* The ''{{Wonderfalls}}'' example from above.