Two seemingly unconnected stories, one from the Thai media and one from a UK local newspaper, involving Thai women and marriage caught my eye today.
In the first case reported in the Harborough Mail(Northants,UK) under the headline, "Thai woman and lover jailed over murder," the paper reports the life sentences handed out by a Thai court to the murderers of Ian Beeston a British Expat who was married to a Thai woman and living in Thailand at the time of his death. The convicted couple were Beeston's former Thai wife and her lover.
The second report is from the Bangkok Post forum under the title, "Foreign husbands move to impoverished Isan," this post has been running a while and explores the motivation and background to elderly(mostly) Western males marrying Isaan (pronounced e-saan) women and moving to this somewhat remote rural area of NE Thailand.
While both of these stories are unlikely to make international headlines they do for me at any rate once again raise the thorny issue of relationships between Thai women and Western men, along with the motivation behind such unions which I explored in a post entitled, "Thai women-for love or money."
In the Beeston case you have a 69 yr old man married to a woman 26 years his junior. He had moved to Thailand about 10 years ago and set up a business. Reports suggest that he had invested his life savings of £350,000 (20 Million Baht) in this business and a home in Thailand. Being married to a Thai he effectively owned very little here and his wife stood to inherit everything on his death.
Now I am not suggesting for one minute that its just Thai women that marry older men for money, lets face it it happens all over the world. Here's a quote from a comment by Sheila to a previous post I wrote on this subject.
"Love is often nothing but a favourable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market. "
The quote Sheila used is from psychologist Eric Fromm.
My main concern is that the outcome of many of these relationships, particularly in Thailand, seem to end in tragedy, usually nothing worse than divorce in which the foreigner loses everything, but occasionally as in the Beeston case something far more devastating.
So what do the foreign correspondents to the Bangkok Post forum think about the thread regarding relationships with Isaan ladies? As with any forum the posts are a mixed bag and of course you can read them for yourself. Some contributors are positive while others remain very sceptical. Here are a couple of quotes:
"To me, Farang guys who end up in Isaan with some uneducated, "Baan Nawk" girl, who's hardly been anywhere, but the bar in Bangkok or Pattaya from which she was "rescued" are deluding themselves and have compromised greatly, for a bit of easily-obtained LoSo sex and a simpler, quieter (read: mind-numbingly boring) life."
"Wise up suckers, if you want to marry a Thai you'd better be bloody sure you've got a good one, or you might spend your life in a state of paranoia. My Thai wife is fantastic, but I know, absolutely, that in the case of my life in her country or, (hopefully not), our divorce, I will be mercilessly screwed. It's just a case of managing the situation with a bit of maturity and a lot of prior knowledge!"
The suggestion in both news sources is that many relationships between older foreigners and Thai women are based solely on money and perhaps that the principle of "buyer beware" should be applied. Of course some older men may well be happy to "purchase" a few years of happiness with a beautiful Asian lady, but the consequences can sadly see them in the same boat as Mr Beeston.
Thai women and marriage? Personally I go along with Eric Fromm.
If you enjoyed this post why not subscribe to my RSS feed
4 comments:
It doesn't always work the other way either. I've met several women here who have been seriously mistreated when living with their husbands in Europe. And in UK, lots of Thai women are 'disappointed' by their husbands' status.
Incidentally, wives stand to inherit everything on a husband's death just about everywhere, don't they?
Lawrence you make an interesting point particularly regarding status (or perceived status).
I think part of the problem is that Thais in my experience link money & status as meaning the same thing. They have little idea what living in a country like the UK might involve partly due to their education.
I am sure there are many social factors that come into play from both Western men and Thai women.
You are of course right about inheritance on death, I wanted to emphasis in that paragraph that Western men who come here, spend a lot of money on property etc often leave after a divorce with nothing-I know this can happen in the UK too but people do tend to have equal rights there and a court system that at least appears impartial.
The same kind of thing happens all over the world every day. An American guy will meet an American woman in a bar, they "click", and then he is shocked when after they marry she goes out to bars and clicks with others. Many times one or both are already married, they divorce, then they are shocked when the same happens to them a few years later. Go figure.
Only a small minority of men I have met in Asian-American relationships are simply "purchasing" a young Asian bride. Most simply feel there is a cultural difference that is attractive. And unfortunately, if you find the right girl, most of the time that is true. I'm not being negative about American women. My mother is American, I have American daughters too, but it is a lot different here.
I think a lot of what drives the man's choice is the desire to rescue someone. It's a misdirected chivalry of sorts. He's looking for love but also has a desire to be a hero, not just a husband. So instead of finding someone that is looking for true love and security (nothing wrong with that), he instead focuses on someone who just wants to get out of her living conditions. This, many times, can lead him to someone with less than honorable intentions on her mind.
Now, how is this for an observation (am I nuts?)- Another thing that I believe drives a lot of this is the belief that is ingrained in Americans from birth that given the opportunity, EVERY person on the entire planet, given the opportunity, would immigrate here and give up everything they have to do so. And in turn, we don't have any sort of cultural desire to immigrate to other countries. Expats are considered "oddballs" to a degree. Why would anyone LEAVE here?
And don't get me wrong, America is a great country of opportunity to immigrants. My family immigrated here. Yet as I've traveled the world, I've found that not every person I've met spends their days and nights trying to find a way to America. People the world over are happy where they are at.
So for many of men searching for foreign brides, they don't see the warning signs from a prostituting bargirl, because in their mind, the CEO of a bank would behave the same way. It doesn't raise a red flag that she shows all the goodies on webcam the first time they chat, because in his mind, a nun would certainly do the same thing, if those actions could just get her to America!
And all of this adds up to certain disaster, sometimes of the worst consequences.
Tony what a great contribution-worthy of a post I fancy. Its good to get a different perspective on things particularly in this case through the eyes of am American.
Thank you.
Post a Comment