History Main / MailOrderBride

* In the 1951 movie ''Film/WestwardTheWomen'', an entire wagon train made up of over a hundred women looking for a second chance is led to a male-only settlement in California. Due to a loss of male workers on the wagon train, the leader has to train the entire group of women into tough, capable [[DeterminedHomesteadersWife Homesteader Wives]], much to the delight of the men when they arrive. Lots of implied happy pairings ensue.

* ''A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine'' has very little to do with tractors but is actually about an older gentleman marrying a woman who is just using him to get a visa.

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* In the 2004 comedy 'Film/'MailOrderWife'', a documentarian funds a doorman's East Asian mail order wife in exchange for the right to film the experience. It turns into a LoveTriangle when the wife also gets involved with the documentarian.

* John McPhee's "Rising From the Plains" (part of his US geology series) opens with a young woman from a posh eastern finishing school getting off a stagecoach in the center of Wyoming in a blizzard. She was on her way to marry the protagonist's rancher father (who happened to be the nephew of John Muir, not that that has anything to do with the bride.)

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* In the Western arc of ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace'', [[http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/0395.htm Isolde is a mail-order bride to Mark]], as the closest Western equivalent of marrying a princess you've never met for political reasons.

* ''WesternAnimation/MonkeyDust'' had a recurring sketch much like the ''Series/LittleBritain'' example above, where a truly disgusting middle-aged man has a mail order bride who remains permanently adoring of him no matter what repulsive thing he says or does.
* ''[[WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead 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...

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' episode "[[PygmalionPlot My Feral Lady]]" has Duckman ordering a bride who turns out to be a jungle savage.
* ''WesternAnimation/ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'': Parodied when Randall orders a Japanese mail-order ''groom'' by mistake, who forces Randall to walk three steps behind, not talk, and have dinner on the table 5 minutes before the husband gets home. He also has Randall dress and act like the YamatoNadeshiko type and eat sushi off of his bare body:
--> '''Randall''': It wasn't ''all'' bad.
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Toonsylvania}}'' episode "Phil's Brain" had Igor order a mail-order brain bride named Sarah Bellum for Phil's brain Larry Cortex. In the end, Sarah leaves Larry and runs off with Phil's pancreas Stu.

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* The infamous 'Russian gamer brides' fake ads from ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable''.

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[[folder:{{Film}}]]
* Played to heartwarming effect in ''Sweetland'', where a young Minnesota farmer gets a German mail-order bride around WWI. Needless to say, [[AcceptableTargets Germans were not exactly popular]] at the time, but the farmer and his wife fall in love, and he defends her against the angry townspeople.

* The 2003 comedy ''Mail Order Bride'' concerns a mafioso trying to catch a Russian mail order bride who scammed several of his fellow men before escaping back to her home country.
* An OlderThanTelevision example is featured in the 1912 silent movie ''Mail Order Wife''. The twist here is that said "mail order wife" already knew one of the main characters, both having been romantically involved years ago. After breaking off the relationship, the man joined forces with a partner to run a ranch and said partner writes to a mail-order house for a wife, which turns out to be the other man's ex. The old love awakens and the partner who was to marry her at first is forced to give her up to the other man.
* In the 2004 comedy ''Mail Order Wife'', a documentarian funds a doorman's East Asian mail order wife in exchange for the right to film the experience. It turns into a LoveTriangle when the wife also gets involved with the documentarian.
* The plot of ''Film/OnceUponATimeInTheWest'' is kicked off when a mail-order bride (played by the incomparable Claudia Cardinale) arrives at her new home just hours after everyone there was slaughtered as part of a land grab. Definitely '''not''' played for yuks since he wanted a mother for his children and she wanted a new life.
* ''The Picture Bride'' (1994) features the related early 20th-century practice of "picture brides", a sort of matchmaking service where immigrants would be paired with brides from their native countries using only pictures and recommendations from their families. Here, the story follows the bride, who is at first dismayed that her husband is much older than on the photo and that she will have to work in the sugarcane fields, but tries to make the best of it.
* A mail-order bride is also in ''Film/WagonsEast''. Very refined lady, horrified to discover that she's stuck with seven guys who make Neanderthals look civilized.
* In the 1932 drama ''The Purchase Price'', Joan (played by Creator/BarbaraStanwyck) decides to be a mail-order bride to escape her gangster ex-boyfriend and begin a new life.
* In the 1954 movie, ''Film/TheNakedJungle'', Charleton Heston plays a wealthy cocoa plantation owner in Venezuela who sends for a mail-order bride, who is a widow from New Orleans. It is actually a marriage-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.

* ''Film/TheHarveyGirls'' stars Judy Garland as one of these, but when she arrives, she takes one look at the prospective groom and gets a job as a Harvey Girl instead. (The Harvey Girls, who actually existed, were waitresses at Harvey House restaurants.)
* ''Literature/FlowerDrumSong'' revolves around this trope.

* The Australian film ''Russian Doll'' features a Russian mail-order bride arriving in Australia only to find her groom has passed away. A CitizenshipMarriage is still arranged however when the married man she subsequently has an affair with 'engages' her to his best friend so she can stay in the country and they can continue the affair.
* In the animated film ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'', Mewsette, a naive cat from the country, is tricked into being a mail-order bride to a rich American cat.

* In the 1951 movie ''Westward the Women'', an entire wagon train made up of over a hundred women looking for a second chance is led to a male-only settlement in California. Due to a loss of male workers on the wagon train, the leader has to train the entire group of women into tough, capable [[DeterminedHomesteadersWife Homesteader Wives]], much to the delight of the men when they arrive. Lots of implied happy pairings ensue.
* In the 1949 movie, ''I Was a Male War Bride'', Cary Grant plays the part of a Frenchman who marries a female American soldier at the end of WWII, and encounters various problems as a male version of this trope.
* ''Film/PrairieFever'': The PreacherMan of Clearwater arranged for 17 mail order brides to be delivered, but three of them go mad from the 'prairie fever', and Preston Briggs is hired to deliver them to the railway station in Carson City so they can be shipped back east.

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* ''Sarah, Plain and Tall'', a children's book published in 1985, later made into a movie and stage play, is about a mail-order bride in the late 19th century, who has been ordered by a widowed farmer who really needs somebody to look after his children.
* ''A Reliable Wife'' involves a rich, lonely man in rural early 20th century Wisconsin and his mail-order bride, who has...an agenda unrelated to being a good wife.
* ''Honolulu'' follows the saga of Regret, a Korean girl who travels to Hawaii as a mail-order bride in order to escape life in restrictive, Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century.

* ''A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine'' has very little to do with tractors but is actually about an older gentleman marrying a woman who is just using him to get a visa.
* Briefly referenced in ''Literature/TheShepherdsCrown'' as available for the lumberjacks in the remote forest areas of the Ramtops. This being the Literature/{{Discworld}}, the "mail-order" bit is taken entirely literally, with the brides ordered from the same catalogue the lumberjacks use to buy everything else.

* Played in the short-lived sitcom ''Series/{{Thanks}}''. Differing from the usual, she's an English woman being sent to Puritan-era America. When she arrives looking like a modern-day supermodel, her husband-to-be is horrified. (People of that era having a much more healthy ideal of beauty.) She ends up with the town's blacksmith instead.
* ''Series/{{Wonderfalls}}'': A boy orders a Russian bride for his widower dad. Although, at first, the boy seemed intent on marrying her himself!
* Subverted in ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle''. Francis' elderly roommate in Alaska announces he is getting a mail-order bride. Francis tries to convince him not to, and on the day she is supposed to arrive, they find out it was a blow-up sex doll. It is actually quite a TearJerker when this is revealed.

* It is implied that Alan Partridge's girlfriend Sonja in the second series of ''[[Series/ImAlanPartridge 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.
* An episode of ''Series/HaveGunWillTravel'' has Paladin escorting a mail order bride to her new husband out west.
* A friend of the Cartwrights ordered one in ''Series/{{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.
* Series three of ''Series/LittleBritain'' had Dudley and Ting Tong, the characters of a repulsive middle-aged man and his Thai mail-order wife. Each episode would reveal something untoward about Ting Tong (such as that she was actually a [[UnsettlingGenderReveal "ladyboy"]] and born in London) until she eventually invites her whole family to Britain, kicks Dudley out of his house and turns it into a Thai restaurant. ''Little Britain Abroad'' shows that Dudley's brother has a Russian mail-order bride as well.

* ''Series/BarneyMiller'': Inspector Luger has a Filipina mail-order bride. He coerced Barney into [[PlayingCyrano writing his letters for him]]. They remain (more-or-less happily) married through the end of the series.
* In ''Series/TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr'' Brisco & Bowler help a trio of women who had set themselves up as brides to some western characters sight-unseen. Brisco talks to them about how awful this idea is and they agree - although apparently, it's better than the alternative.
* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/VeronicaMars''. A woman claiming to be a Russian immigrant looking for an ex-boyfriend she met through the Internet turns out to be [[spoiler:a member of Russian mafia searching for a witness.]]
* One episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' had a mail-order bride desperate for a real life, whereas her husband just wanted a maid he could fuck. The bride and her lover were two of the more {{sympathetic murderer}}s in the franchise history.
* A similar episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' had the detectives learning that their VictimOfTheWeek was one of three sisters who came to America this way and that her husband had been abusive as well as being like the husband described above (he wasn't her killer, however). Her twin sister's husband was much nicer and the two are HappilyMarried. The twins' younger sister was rejected by her husband and forced into prostitution so the women who arranged the whole thing could get her money back.
* "Mudd's Women" in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode of the same name. [[HonestJohnsDealership Harry Mudd]] is taking them to be the brides of a mining colony.
* In the German improvisational comedy show {{Series/Schillerstrasse}} Cordula get's the direction to believe Maddin's new girlfriend is a mail-order bride from Russia.
* An episode of ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' had Salem stealing the aunts' money to buy whatever he wants, a Japanese mail-order bride being one of them. [[BrickJoke At the end of the episode]], the bride shows up and merely shrugs when she learns her new husband is a talking cat.
* ''Series/DrQuinnMedicineWoman'': Loren seeks out one of these, realizing that he's getting on in his age and not wanting to be alone for the rest of his life, but ultimately decides against it.
* Creator/LouisTheroux examined the phenomenon in the ''Weird Weekends'' episode "Thai Brides", even going through part of the process himself (though stopping before actually going on a date, since he already had a girlfriend). Surprisingly, not all of them were of the UglyGuyHotWife variety.
* The RealityShow ''90 Day Fiance'' deals with couples proving that they're not this. Several of the couples are average-looking Americans with attractive foreign wives (whom they often barely knew before getting married) and a lot of the plot is them getting over cultural differences, as well as proving it's not just a CitizenshipMarriage.
* ''Series/BlackSaddle'': In "Client: Dawes", Clay defends a mail order bride who is accused of murder when he new husband dies in a seeming accident. Maggie Dawes mentions her husband having picked her out of a catalogue.
* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': In "Mail Order Bride", a blacksmith sends away for a bride, but his delivery includes the Dead Man's Gun.
* Healy from ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'' married Katya as a mail order bride from the Ukraine.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'' features a body with all its bones removed. It turns out the woman was a Chinese mail order bride, but her American husband got a ''refund'' because she was sickly (and therefore, not what he ordered). Rather than lose their investment on her, the company then killed her and sold her bones to a local Chinese family to act as a "Ghost Bride" for their dead son (at least in universe, a Chinese man ''needs'' a wife in the afterlife, so if he dies without one, the family acquires a skeleton for that purpose). Angela somehow finds the conclusion romantic.
* The ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Ministry of Virtue" is set around a Christian charitable organisation, the Virtue Ministry, which gives female convicts in London's Holloway Women's Prison the option of being [[SentencedToDownUnder transported to Canada]] for "virtuous marriage" to the men who've paid their passage (based on the RealLife "Salvation Girls"). Murdoch is uncertain about the morality of this, but rationalises that they had a choice. Dr Ogden doesn't feel they had any choice at all, while Inspector Brakenreid opposes it for the opposite reason; the UK is sending criminals to run free in his city. The VictimOfTheWeek is one of the brides, and it eventually transpires [[spoiler: that in fact the organiser's "charges" killed her, and the supposed victim took her place]].

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* Played very seriously in ''Film/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.]]

See also the SpanishPrisoner variant Russian Bride for the scam version of this trope.

* In the 1932 drama, Joan (played by Creator/BarbaraStanwyck) decides to be a mail-order bride to escape her gangster ex-boyfriend and begin a new life.

* The RealityShow ''90 Day Fiance'' deals with couples proving that they're not this. Several of the couples are average-looking Americans with attractive foreign wives (who they often barely knew before getting married) and a lot of the plot is them getting over cultural differences, as well as proving it's not just a CitizenshipMarriage.

* Played in the short-lived sitcom ''Thanks''. Differing from the usual, she's an English woman being sent to Puritan-era America. When she arrives looking like a modern-day supermodel, her husband-to-be is horrified. (People of that era having a much more healthy ideal of beauty.) She ends up with the town's blacksmith instead.

* Played in the short-lived sitcom ''Thanks''. Differing from the usual, she's an English woman being sent to Puritan-era America. When she arrives looking like a modern-day supermodel, her husband-to-be is horrified. (People of that era having a much more healthy ideal of beauty.) She ends up with the town's mayor instead.

* Briefly referenced in ''Discworld/TheShepherdsCrown'' as available for the lumberjacks in the remote forest areas of the Ramtops. This being the Literature/{{Discworld}}, the "mail-order" bit is taken entirely literally, with the brides ordered from the same catalogue the lumberjacks use to buy everything else.

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