Pinch of the Past – Mail Order Bride

Women typically responded to advertisements for mail-order brides more out of necessity, and even desperation, than actual romance. Many women answered the call to marry men in different regions to escape hardship, emigrate to another country, and sometimes to seek adventure.

James Town

In the early colonial days, male settlers would return to England to marry or they would marry Native American women and leave the colony to live with their wives. In 1620 the Virginia Colony sponsored 140 brides for James town. The average age of these ladies was 20 years old. They were sometimes referred to as “tobacco wives” because the men who married them were required pay for their passage by way of reimbursing up to 120 lbs. of leave tobacco. These women had the right to choose who they married, even if that man was too poor to pay the full amount of the passage.

A romanticized depiction of the King’s daughters arriving at Quebec in the mid-seventeenth century. Before Louis XIV brought New France under direct control, it was a poorly administered commercial branch operation whose private interests preferred male indentured servants. National Archives of Canada / C-20126

The French

In the mid-1600s, 800 brides emigrated to New France which is now a part of the United States and Canada. These mail-order brides were sponsored by the government and known as the King’s Daughters. In addition to paying for the passage and recruitment of these wives, the government also paid each woman a dowry of at least 50 livres.

When New France started their Louisiana Colony in 1699, they requested brides. However, this venture was less successful than the Kings’ Daughter. These women, called Pelican girls, were misled about the conditions of the colony and when word reached France, French ladies refused to go to the Louisiana Colony. At this time France resorted to raiding the streets for undesirables to send. Houses of correction were emptied, and in some instances, women who had been convicted with their debtor husbands were sent. In 1719, 209 women felons were sent to the colony.

These women were known as Correction Girls. Fortunately, this practice was discontinued in the mid-18th-century.

The visa and marriage documents of Tomeno Hamade. Intrigued with the possibility of living in North America, she consented to correspond with a young Japanese Canadian man, Risuke Hamade. They married by proxy on May 2,1927; she emigrated in October of that year, age nineteen. Photos and documents courtesy Tomeno Hamade

Picture Brides

Asian men working in America in the 1800s often worked with agencies to attain mail-order brides from home. Settlements were mostly male and so the demand for wives grew. A system of Picture Brides developed in the early 20th century with the Japanese-American Passport Agreement of 1907. The US barred unmarried Japanese ladies from immigrating. Working with a matchmaker, the men and women developed a system of communication that included the exchange of pictures and ended with a recommendation to marry or not.

These four men in Montana (near Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park) at the turn of the 20th century advertised their want for wives on the side of a cabin. From left-to-right they were: Bill Daucks, Frank Geduhn, Esli Apgar, and Dimon Apgar. Frank, and Dimon eventually married, but not mail-order brides. (Courtesy of Glacier National Park Photo Archives)

Mail order Brides in American

In the 1800s many young men who traveled west found they were want for female companionship. After settling land and making homes, they didn’t have anyone to share them with. Many wrote home back east asking friends and family for help. Others advertised in newspapers and would then begin a correspondence with the intention of leading to an offer of marriage.

Some quotes from Mail order bride advertisements from woman to men and men to women.

Each edition of The Matrimonial News opened with the same positive affirmation for both sexes: “Women need a man’s strong arm to support her in life’s struggle, and men need a woman’s love.”

Here is are actual ads that ran in the paper:

282—A widower, merchant and stockman lives in Kansas, 46 years old, height 6 feet, weight 210 pounds, brunette, black hair and eyes, wishes to correspond with ladies of same age, without encumbrances and with means, must move in the best society and be fully qualified to help make a happy home: object, matrimony.

233—Answer to 82—There is a lad in Missouri with a foot that’s flat, with seeds in his pocket and a brick in his hat, with an eye that is blue and a No. 10 shoe—he’s the “Bull of the Woods” and the boy for you.

266—I want to know some pretty girl of 17 to 20 years. I am 29, 5 feet 9 inches tall, a blonde: I can laugh for 15 minutes, and I want some pretty girl to laugh with me.

214—Respectable young man, with good position in city, 20 years old, desires the acquaintance of a modest young lady, between the ages of 17 and 21, with home nearby. Object: to attend operas and church; perhaps more.

The mothod of connecting marital parties through mail correspondence of some fashion or other have been used throughout the centuries in many different countries. Australia, Belarus, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Japan, and the United States to name a few. While unconventional to a modern way of thinking, it this was an acceptable and popular method of connecting in the past. A modern study of French Canadians that shows that the King’s Daughters and their husbands were “responsible for two-thirds of the genetic makeup of over six million people”.

If you enjoy a good Mail Order Bride read, here are some Christian titles that might suit your fancy.

The Bride Ship Series by Jody Hedlund is one of my favorites. In fact, Jody is a lead author for Sunrise Publishing with Suzy May Warren, so we can expect three more books in that series.

When I asked on our Facebook listeners group, one of our listeners, Christy said she just finished A Bride for Keeps and A Bride in Store, both by Melissa Jagears.

If you’re looking for a box set A Bride for All Seasons: The Mail Order Bride Collection by Margaret Brownley, Robin Lee Hatcher, Mary Connealy, and Debra Clopton. is very good.

Mail Order Revenge by Angela K Couch is available on Kindle Unlimited.

The first book I ever read that used a mail-order bride trope was One for the Pot by Louise L’aMour.

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