跨國婚姻大勢所趨:德國先生娶法國太太,英美小姐嫁西班牙丈夫

IF SHAKIRA, a Colombian pop star, marries her boyfriend, the Spanish national footballer Gerard Piqué, the only unusual things about it would be that she is even more famous than he is and ten years older. Otherwise, theirs would be just a celebrity example of one of the world’s biggest social trends: the rise of international marriages—that is, involving couples of different nationalities. A hundred years ago, such alliances were confined to the elite of the elite. When Randolph Churchill married Jennie Jerome of New York, it seemed as if they had stepped from the pages of a Henry James novel: brash, spirited American heiress peps up the declining fortunes of Britain’s aristocracy. Now, such alliances have become almost commonplace. To confine examples to politicians only: the French president Nicolas Sarkozy is married to the Italian-born Carla Bruni and his prime minister Fran??ois Fillon has a Welsh wife, Penelope Clarke. Nelson Mandela is married to Gra??a Machel (from Mozambique). Denmark’s newprime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is married to a Briton, Stephen Kinnock. And two leading ladies of Asian countries, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar and India’s Sonia Gandhi, are both widows from international marriages. In rich countries alone such unions number at least 10m.
試想哥倫比亞流行明星夏奇拉和她的男朋友西班牙國腳Gerard Piqué結婚了，唯一引人關注之事就只是她比她丈夫更有名氣，她丈夫比他小十歲這兩件事。他們的結合其實只是一個當今社會最大趨勢之一的名人案例。什麼趨勢呢？那就是跨國婚姻的崛起，既包含了兩個不同國籍的夫婦的婚姻。一百年前，這樣的婚姻只限定在精英與精英之間的聯姻。Randolph Churchill 和 Jennie Jerome的婚姻，就像是從Henry James的小說走出的現實故事：自以爲是、年輕氣盛的美國年輕女繼承人讓英國沒落的貴族在資產財富上重新振興。現在這樣的婚姻已經是司空見慣的事了。單單就政治家而言，就有很多例子:法國總統薩科奇，他的夫人Carla Bruni就是意大利生的，法國總理Fran??ois Fillon有一個威爾士夫人Penelope Clarke，納爾遜曼德拉娶了來自莫桑比克的夫人Gra??a Machel，丹麥新的總理Helle Thorning-Schmidt也娶了外籍的英國的妻子Stephen Kinnock，還有兩個亞洲國家女領導人緬甸的昂山素季和印度的索尼婭??甘地，她們都是跨國婚姻的遺孀。就只發達國家，跨國結婚的夫婦至少有一千萬。
International marriages matter partly because they reflect—and result from—globalisation. As people holiday or study abroad, or migrate to live and work, the visitors meet and marry locals. Their unions are symbols of cultural integration, and battlefields for conflicts over integration. Few things help immigrants come to terms with their new country more than becoming part of a local family. Though the offspring of such unions may struggle with the barriers of prejudice, at their best international marriages reduce intolerance directly themselves, and indirectly through their progeny.
跨國婚姻之所以重要，部分原因是因爲它不僅符合並且就是全球化浪潮的產物。人們在國外度假，到異域留學，在別國生活或工作，這些拜訪的客人遇見了心上人，然後和當地人喜結連理。他們的結合象徵着文化的融合，也充滿了文化融合過程中的摩擦。比起成爲當地家庭的一分子，他們更多的感觸是接受移民國家時的無助無奈。也許他們的後代會與由於偏見產生的隔閡抗爭，但這些跨國情侶會以最佳的方式寬容忍讓，或是直接通過自身的努力，或是通過他們的後代。
The mists over marriage
籠罩婚姻的烏雲
So it is all the more disappointing that until recently so little has been known about these unions. Records are patchy. Some countries do not collect annual information about the citizenship of couples. Official figures may say nothing about a marriage if it takes place abroad (for example in the country of the immigrant spouse).
失望的是，直至近期這樣的婚姻組合才引起人們關注。各國的婚姻記錄都對這種形式一知半解的。有些國家每年收集有關這類夫妻的公民身份的信息。官方公佈的數字對在國外登記的婚姻可能隻字未提（比如在本國移民夫妻）。
Defining what counts as international is tricky too. A wedding of a local man and a foreign-born bride is easy. But the marriage of two foreigners in a third country sometimes counts and sometimes doesn’t. Trickiest of all is how to treat the marriage of a second-generation immigrant who has citizenship of a host country (say, the child of a Moroccan in France or a Mexican in America). If such a person marries a native Frenchwoman or an American, that usually does not count as international, even though it is an alliance across ethnic lines. Perversely, if he marries a girl from his parents’ country of origin, that does count as international—but this is not a marriage across an ethnic divide and may indicate isolation not assimilation.
怎樣的婚姻纔算作跨國的呢？這也需要慎重定義。當地的男子和出生在國外的女孩結婚的情況簡單，肯定算作是。但兩個外國人在第三個國家結婚卻是有時或許是，或許不是。最具技術性的是一個已經有了所在國綠卡的移民的下一代的婚姻（比如，法國籍摩洛哥人的後代或美國籍墨西哥人的後代）。如果這樣的身份人和當地的法國人結婚，和美國人結婚，這樣的通常就不算作是跨國的，即使仍然跨越了民族種族。偏偏如果他娶了來自家鄉的女孩卻算作是跨國，但不跨民族種族，這意味着移民後是被孤立，還是同化。
Belatedly, answers to these questions of scale and definition are coming, chiefly thanks to the efforts of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), a professional association of demographers, and, especially, of Doo-Sub Kim, a professor at Hanyang University in Seoul who chairs its panel on cross-border marriages. Global figures remain sketchy, but marriage patterns in Asia and Europe, at least, are becoming clearer. Some tentative, often surprising, conclusions are emerging.
最終，回答完這一系列問題，跨國婚姻的定義姍姍來遲。這主要歸功於一個專業的人口統計組織，International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP)，尤其是擔任跨國婚姻研究專家組主席的首爾漢陽大學的Doo-Sub Kim教授，全球的數據很粗略，但至少亞洲和歐洲的婚姻組合的模式逐漸清晰。暫時的研究結論已經浮出水面，帶給了人們驚喜。
Asia is the part of the world where cross-border marriages have been rising most consistently. According to Gavin Jones of the National University of Singapore, 5% of marriages in Japan in 2008-09 included a foreign spouse (with four times as many foreign wives as husbands). Before 1980, the share had been below 1%. In South Korea, over 10% of marriages included a foreigner in 2010, up from 3.5% in 2000. In both countries, the share of cross-border marriages seems to have stabilised lately, perhaps as a result of the global economic slowdown. The country with the biggest share of such unions is Taiwan, where 13% of wives in 2009 were foreigners, about the same level as in 1998, but a big fall from the peak in 2003, when 28% of all weddings involved a foreign-born wife. Chinese citizens are not considered foreigners in Taiwan and if you include marriages in which they are one of the spouses, the proportion is still higher. International marriages have played a significant role in modifying the ethnic homogeneity of all these East Asian countries.
在世界上，亞洲是一個跨國婚姻現象一直都在持續攀升的地區。根據新加坡國立大學的Gavin Jones的研究，2008至2009年間日本5%的婚姻都是日本人和外國人的組合（外國媳婦是外國丈夫的四倍）。1980年以前，這種情況的概率低於1%。在韓國，這個數字從2000的3.5%上升到2010年的10%以上。近期，在這兩個國家跨國婚姻的現象趨於穩定，這也許是全球經濟衰退的原因造成的。這種現象最常見的地區臺灣，13%的新娘是外國人，和1998年持平，但比起2003年的峯值28%，下降了很多。中國大陸的公民在臺灣不被認作外國人，否則，如果加上這種情況，結婚雙方一方是大陸的，比例將更高。在改變東亞國家的種族單一性上，跨國婚姻扮演了十分重要的角色。
International marriages are common in much of Europe, too. Calculations by Giampaolo Lanzieri, an Italian demographer, show that in France the proportion of international marriage rose from about 10% in 1996 to 16% in 2009. In Germany, the rise is a little lower, from 11.3% in 1990 to 13.7% in 2010. Some smaller countries have much higher levels. Nearly half the marriages in Switzerland are international ones, up from a third in 1990. Around one in five marriages in Sweden, Belgium and Austria involves a foreign partner.
在歐洲的大部分地區，跨國婚姻也是常見的。意大利人口學家Giampaolo Lanzieri計算得出，法國跨國婚姻在所有婚姻中的比率從1990年的10%上升到2009年的10%。德國的上升幅度略低從1990年的11.3%到2010年的13.7%，一些小國的比例高得多。瑞士將近一半婚姻都是跨國的，比1990年的數字上升三分之一。在瑞典、比利時、奧地利大約五分之一的婚姻的一方是外國人。
The Mamma Mia factor
The rate seems to be rising fastest in Mediterranean countries: in Spain and Italy, cross-border marriages accounted for less than 5% of the total in 1995; by 2009, the share had reached 14% in Italy and 22% in Spain. Cyprus is a special case: no less than three-quarters of marriages there in 2009 were international (up from half in 1995). But that is because Venus’s birthplace has a thriving wedding-and-honeymoon market. Many couples from abroad wed there.
在地中海國家中，這個比例似乎是增長最快的：在西班牙和意大利，1995年跨國婚姻只佔總數的5%，到了2009年，意大利這個比例上升到14%，而西班牙則上升到22%。塞浦路斯則是個特殊的個案：2009年至少四分之三的婚姻都是跨國組合（1995年的數字是二分之一）。其原因是誕生了維納斯的地方也滋生了一個蓬勃發展的舉行婚禮和度蜜月目的地的甜蜜市場。許多別國的情侶會在那登記結婚。
Such figures are based on wedding records. Another way of getting at the trends is census micro-data (ie, from detailed samples collected as part of the census). These have a wider coverage, are extremely precise, and go back decades, which is helpful. On the other hand, many countries do not provide them. Researchers from the Centre for Demographic Studies (Barcelona) and the Minnesota Population Centre have for the first time trawled through the censuses of more than 50 countries in every continent for people aged 25-39. In general, they find that cross-border marriages are rising in most places, but the most significant fact is the big difference between levels in rich and developing ones.
一些數據是基於婚禮記錄。另一個搞清楚這個趨勢的方法是靠人口普查的微觀數據（即收集的部分人口普查的有具體細節的樣本）。這些的覆蓋面更廣，非常精確，並且能得到有用的歷史數據。另一方面，很多國家不提供這樣的信息。位於巴塞羅那的人口研究中心以及明尼蘇達州人口中心的研究員們第一次查閱了所有大洲五十多個國家的處於25到39的人口普查數據。大體上，他們發現跨國婚姻現象在很多地方都持續上升，但是最有意義的發現是發達國家和發展中國家之間的水平上的巨大差距。
In most developing countries, the share of men married to foreign women was less than 2% in 2000 (0.7% in Ghana and Bolivia; 0.2% in Colombia and the Philippines; 3.3% in South Africa). In contrast, three rich countries—America, Britain and France—account for half the total in the sample. America alone has a third. Because it is so large, though, the share of international marriage remains low: only 4.6% of Americans were married to a foreigner in 2010, up from 2.4% in 1970.
在大多數發展中國家，2000年時，本國男子與外國籍女子結婚的概率還低於2%（加納0.7%；玻利維亞0.7;哥倫比亞0.2%；菲律賓0.2%;南非0.2%）。對比之下，三個發達國家—美國、英國、法國，樣本中一半的跨國婚姻都來自於這三個國家。僅美國就佔據樣本中的三分之一。但是人口太多的原因，致使跨國婚姻的比例仍然很低：2010只有4.6%的美國人選擇了跨國婚姻，1970年這個數據是2.4%。
Albert Esteve of the Autonomous University of Barcelona reckons that the total number of cross-border marriages among 25-39-year-olds in his sample was about 12m in 2000. The sample excludes several countries with large numbers of such unions—Japan, Taiwan, Australia and Canada—so the grand total is certainly higher, probably 15m, possibly more. Compared with the very roughly 500m marriages within that age group round the world, 15m may not seem like much. But it is more than it used to be and, in some countries—senders and recipients of foreign spouses alike—the growth in cross-border marriages is having a significant social impact.
巴塞羅那自治大學的Albert Esteve認爲在他選擇的樣本中25到39的跨國婚姻的總數2000年大約是一千二百萬。這個樣本除去了日本、臺灣、澳大利亞、加拿大的龐大數據，那麼真正的總數必然更高，也許有一千五百萬，更多也有可能。與這個世界上該年齡組五億的夫婦相比，一千五百萬似乎並不多。但是比以前多了很多，並且在一些國家婚嫁往來的增多正在深刻影響着社會。
Everywhere, cross-border marriage rises with migration, but more slowly. According to Mr Esteve’s figures, the correlation is roughly one international marriage for every two new migrants. That would seem to mean that half of new migrants are marrying into their host society and the other half (presumably) into their own communities. So a surge in immigration usually leads to only a more modest rise in cross-border marriages; the process is slower and more complex.
每時每處，跨國婚姻都隨着移民的增加而增加，但是比移民增長速度慢。根據Esteve先生的數據，這之間的關聯大約是每兩個新移民中有一個會選擇跨國婚姻。這似乎意味着一半的新移民都融入了所在移民國，另一半留在了自己的原來的集體中。所以移民潮通常導致的只是跨國婚姻的更平穩的增長；這個融入的進程更慢也更復雜。
Research into four European countries by Suzana Koelet of the Free University of Brussels and others confirms that international marriages have not risen as much as one might have expected in Europe. On her calculations, rates of marriages with a person from another European Union country have been flat in Belgium and the Netherlands since 2000 and shown only a modest rise in Spain. Marriage rates between Swiss and EU citizens have also not budged. True, marriages with foreigners have increased sharply in Spain—but that was because of a spurt of marriages with non-EU citizens: Spain had huge immigration flows from Latin America during the 1990s and 2000s. By implication, the closer integration that the EU is supposed to be bringing about seems to be having no discernible impact on the marriage choices of Dutch, Belgian and Spanish citizens.
布魯塞爾自由大學的Suzana Koelet等人對歐洲四國的研究結果證實國際婚姻在歐洲的發展狀況並不是大家想象中的一夜暴漲，朝夕之間增長至此。根據她其他的計算結果，在比利時和荷蘭，婚姻中一方來自歐盟其他成員國的增長情況並不景氣，而在西班牙只呈現小幅整張。瑞士人和歐盟公民的結婚機率也並未改變。在西班牙，跨國婚姻雖然大幅增長，但是卻不是歐盟成員國公民的功勞：上世紀末和這個世紀初，1990到2010年間，規模浩大的的拉美移民潮涌入西班牙。這纔是真正的原因。這意味着，加入歐盟而帶來的進一步社會融合似乎對荷蘭、比利時和西班牙的婚姻選擇沒有明顯的影響。
Why not? For part of the explanation, Ms Koelet points to the intriguing marriage patterns of the Swiss. The country has one of the highest rates of international marriage in the world (surpassed only by Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Cyprus). But the Swiss “marry out” in particular ways. The German-speaking Swiss marry largely neighbouring Germans; the Francophone Swiss marry the French; Italian-speakers marry is the same with Belgians: Flemish-speakers tend to marry Dutch partners, Walloons marry French people. Language, it appears, remains a persistent barrier to international marriage in Europe and the spread of English as a second language does not seem to have changed that.
到底是衛生什麼呢？Ms Koelet做出了部分解釋，指出瑞士的婚姻模式的特別之處。瑞士是世界上跨國婚姻率最高的國家之一（只低於列支敦士登、盧森堡、塞浦路斯）。但是這高的跨國婚姻率的原因卻特別。說德語的瑞士人大部分和鄰近的德國人結婚，說法語的瑞士人和法國人結婚說意大利語的和意大利人結婚。比利時的情況亦然：說弗林明語（荷蘭方言的一種）的和荷蘭人結婚，Walloons marry French people.在歐洲，語言似乎永遠都是跨國婚姻的障礙，即使將英語作爲第二語言傳播，也沒有改變這個現狀。
Asia is different. In Europe and America, marriage tends to follow migration. In Asia, people marry to migrate. Marriages in South Korea, for example, are often arranged by a broker in an unromantic process that takes two or three days and costs the Korean groom $20,000-30,000. Similarly, Taiwan has many marriages between its male citizens and Vietnamese women. The growth began when Taiwanese companies started investing in Vietnam
異於歐洲和美洲，歐美地區的跨國婚姻是伴隨移民而生，而亞洲，人們確是爲了移民而選擇跨國婚姻。拿韓國舉例，婚姻經常由一箇中間人導演，在兩三天的時間內結束，新郎花費兩三萬美元，毫無愛情相遇這些浪漫的過程。無獨有偶，在臺灣，男子和越南女子的婚姻也是這樣。這個增長始於臺灣企業開始在越南投資。
Local men in such countries, Mr Jones argues from Singapore, look for foreign brides for two reasons. First because of the so-called “marriage strike” affecting some East Asian societies. In the richer countries of East and South-East Asia, like Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, a third or more of local women are not marrying; and those who do wed late, at 31 or 32. This is causing some men to look to foreign shores for potential mates. The other reason—specific to a few Asian societies—is because a combination of traditional preference for sons and the availability of sex-selective abortion skewed the sex ratio at birth 20 years ago, leaving too few native-born women now. South Korea is an example. In 1990, it had 117 boys born for every 100 girls. Men are looking abroad to plug the gap in their local marriage market.
Mr Jones說，證據表明在這樣的國家和地區，當地的男子娶外地的新娘，出於兩個原因。首先是因爲我們稱之爲“新娘罷工”的現象襲擊着東亞社會。東亞和東南亞的富裕國家和地區，例如日本、新加坡、韓國、臺灣，當地三分之一以上的適婚年齡的女子不結婚，或晚結婚31歲或32歲。這就導致了一些男士將目光投向海外，尋找合適的可能的伴侶。另一個原因是，在個別少數亞洲的國家，傳統上的重男輕女加之20年前，無限制的人工選擇性流產導致的出生性別比率傾斜而致使現在本國婚育年齡女子太少。例如韓國，1990年時，出生時男女比例爲117比100.爲了堵當地婚姻市場的窟窿，男人們只能轉向海外。
For their part, the young women, often from poor areas of China and Vietnam, are looking for economic opportunities. Marriage with a man from a richer country is seen as a means of advancement and a way of helping their families at home. In Asia, it seems, cross-border unions are products of distorted local marriage markets; in Europe, they are results of gaps in labour markets that encourage migration. In both parts of the world, diasporas play a role: as immigrants settle down they encourage friends and family from back home to follow in their footsteps.
站在那些年輕女子的角度，她們多數來自中國和越南的貧困地區，到富裕的地區尋找財富。她們把和當地的男子結婚視爲自身發展的一種方式，幫助家鄉親人的一種方式。這樣看來，跨國婚姻在亞洲是當地不平衡的婚姻市場的產物，而在歐洲則源於勞動力市場的短缺而發展壯大的移民潮。在這兩大地區亞洲和歐美，大規模的移民潮都起着一定作用：一些已經定居的移民鼓勵着朋友和親人跟隨他們的腳步，離開家鄉去遠方。
Hard noses, not soft hearts
Many Asian men also seem to be looking abroad for wives in the hope that immigrant women will bear them more children. This indeed happens in Europe and America: the fertility rate of new immigrants is higher than average, though it reverts to the local mean within a few years. So at first, migration adds to the birth rate. Strangely, this higher initial fertility does not seem to happen in Asia, or at least not in South Korea. According to Kwang-hee Jun of Chungnam National University, non-naturalised immigrant women have on average just 1.08 children—even fewer than native Koreans, whose average is 1.79.
似乎很多亞洲丈夫傾向於海外妻子，還希望她們能生育更多的孩子。這樣的情況確實也發生在歐洲和美洲：儘管經過幾年的改善，生育率將會接近當地中游水平，但新移民的數據現在依然高於平均水平。所以起初，移民人口會提升出生率。但奇怪的是，在亞洲，移民起初發生的高於當地均值生育率的現象並未發生，或者，至少沒有發生在韓國。根據Kwang-hee Jun of Chungnam National University，未能入籍的移民女子平均1.08個孩子，甚至比本國婦女1.79的平均水平還要低。
This finding was a shock and a puzzle. Why are immigrants in South Korea behaving so differently from those in Europe and America? One explanation may be that the age gaps between husbands and much younger wives discourage large families. Another is that in the past decade, about 60% of foreign brides have come from China, where the fertility rate is also low, especially among Chinese of Korean ethnicity. Jungho Kim of Ajou University also suggests poverty. Both spouses will usually work and may be unable to afford to bring up a child in a society where half of the cost of pre-school education comes from the household budget. Evidence for this comes from families with a Vietnamese-born bride: when they do have children, says Danièle Bélanger of the University of Western Ontario, they send some of them back to be raised for a few years by grandparents in Vietnam, where schooling is cheaper.
這個意外既是一個震驚，也是一個謎題。爲何韓國移民的表現和歐美地區如此不同?一種推測的合理解釋是丈夫和妻子年齡巨大差距阻止了家庭的壯大。另一個合理解釋是在過去的十年間，60%的外國新娘都是中國人，中國的生育率也很低，尤其是中國朝鮮族的生育率。來自亞洲大學的Jungho Kim也提及了貧窮也是原因之一。通常，在韓國這個一半學前教育的費用都由家庭承擔的國家，婚姻的雙方都工作，這樣，才能負擔起一個孩子。加拿大西安大略大學的Danièle Bélanger舉例說，和一個越南籍的女子結婚生了孩子後，他們會把一些孩子送回上學費用較低的越南，讓父母撫養幾年。
Victims or opportunists?
受害者還是投機者？
Marriage between girls from poor countries and older men from rich ones are controversial. As Sang-lim Lee of the International Organisation of Migration centre in Goyang says, when men pay the brides’ family “they tend to think they have bought a good. If it has a defect, they think they can send it back.”
但是，發生於貧窮地區的年輕女孩和富裕地區的大齡男子之間的婚姻卻是飽受爭議的了。正如Sang-lim Lee of the International Organisation of Migration centre in Goyang說，當給新娘家付了錢後，他們就會認爲自己買了一個商品，要是有什麼瑕疵或是意圖逃走，還可以將他們退回。
It is certainly true that the men tend to be older, often much older. Doo-Sub Kim finds that Korean husbands are on average 17 years older than their Vietnamese-born brides. They usually have around three years’ more education as well. One fifth of Korean husbands have been married before. All this is very different from the typical pattern in native Korean marriages.
的確，丈夫的年齡太大了，比新娘年長許多。Doo-Sub Kim發現韓國丈夫平均比越南新娘大17歲。他們通常受過三年左右的教育，其中五分之一結過婚，完全有別於韓國本土的婚姻形式。
It is also true that some young women are victims of cruelty, neglect, physical abuse and trafficking. Women in strange countries are almost always vulnerable. A Vietnamese interpreter married to a Korean man complains that “if I run away here, my parents will be embarrassed in Vietnam.” That, she explains, would leave her unable to return home, but with “no place to go here”. The media in Vietnam tend to portray migrant brides either as victims of trafficking or people driven by desperate poverty to migrate. Children of international marriages in South Korea have more health problems than average. In Taiwan, they do less well at school—something that occurs in European countries, too.
事實確實是一些年輕女孩成爲了家庭暴力的受害者，承受身體上的虐待，處於社會忽視的邊緣，加上交通上的不便，處境悲慘。偏遠地區的婦女幾乎毫無反抗之力。一個越南女人充滿怨恨地親口對我們“我要是逃跑，會讓我在越南的父母蒙羞的。”她的回答解釋了她不能回家的原因，當然也沒有別的容身之所。越南當地的媒體更願意把她們描述爲落後交通的犧牲品或是爲了擺脫可怕的貧困而走上移民之路的新娘。相對於平均水平，跨國組合的婚姻結晶的身體問題更多一些。在臺灣或是歐洲，在學校這樣的孩子都表現欠佳。
Yet this is not the dominant pattern, still less the sole one. International marriages often seem to work for the couple involved—at least if the longevity of their union is any guide. And they seem to have social benefits, as well as costs, for both receiving and sending countries.
這仍然不是主要類型，更不是唯一類型。跨國婚姻似乎對於婚姻雙方來說是行得通的，至少從維持的時間上就可以得出些端倪。無論是新娘“輸出國”還是“輸入國”，都在嚐到甜頭的同時，付出了代價。
Though the gap in background, age and education between spouses in international marriages is greater than in those between compatriots, it does not seem to affect these unions’ durability. Doo-Sub Kim plotted the time that cross-border marriages have lasted in South Korea against the couples’ ages and educational backgrounds. Amazingly, the bigger the difference, the longer the marriage. It is hard to know why this should be. Maybe those who marry foreigners invest more in their marriages. Or maybe younger, poorer wives find it harder to leave.
儘管婚姻雙方在背景、年齡、受教育水平上都有巨大的區別，非同胞可比，但這似乎並沒有影響到婚姻的長長久久。Doo-Sub Kim繪製出了關於跨國婚姻的持續年限與夫妻雙方的年齡、教育背景之間的關係的圖。令人吃驚的是，雙方差異越大，婚姻越是維持長久。原因我們不知，也許是投入婚姻的精力更多吧，又或是那些年輕又貧窮的妻子們覺得離開不易吧。
Vietnamese girls are seen in much of Asia as the paradigm of the submissive foreign bride. But a study of their role in Taiwan by Ms Bélanger shows that many are married to men whose companies trade with Vietnam—and they are vital to the companies’ future. As one man told her, revealingly: “I have six trusted subordinates. One is my wife. One is her younger sister. They will not betray me.” Remittances to their families help keep the practice alive in Vietnam, even though many young men there dislike it and say they have been driven out of their villages by the shortage of brides and forced to migrate to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Similarly, marriage abroad is seen as so desirable by the Punjabi diaspora that the press in Punjab is full of advertisements offering to arrange marriages abroad.
亞洲大部分地區都把越南女孩視爲恭順的外籍新娘。但是Bélanger先生關於臺灣地區的越南媳婦的研究表明，那些娶了越南媳婦的男人們多數都在越南做生意，聯姻對公司的未來至關重要。一個男士向其透露，“我有六個值得信賴的下屬，其中我老婆和她的妹妹就不會背叛我。”把生意交給家裏人對生意的持續興隆有好處，就算很多當地適婚男子不喜歡這種狀況，聲稱新娘的短缺將他們去趕出了家園，被迫移居到Hanoi或胡志明市。同樣，聚居在旁遮普省(印度、巴基斯坦的)的猶太人迫切希望和外國人結婚，以至於媒體上充斥着跨國婚姻的廣告，安排提供相外國親的機會。
Not all international marriages in Asia are those of poor brides in rich lands. In a “reverse migration” Japanese women from rich Tokyo have married into poor peasant families in South-East Asia—especially in Bali and Thailand—and settled down to live a more “authentic” rural life, perhaps as a way of escaping the strictness of Japanese family life. That same impulse may well be behind the surprising growth in the numbers of Japanese women married to Africans in Japan (probably as many as 3,300 in all). As one wife told Djamila Schans of Maastricht University, “I had doubts marrying a foreigner but he waited for me at the station every day. Sometimes even with flowers! A Japanese man would never do such a thing.”
在亞洲並不是所有的跨國婚姻都意味着生活在富饒土地上的貧窮新娘。在“反移民潮”中，來自日本的女人，離開東京，遠嫁東南亞的小鄉村，尤以巴里島和泰國爲甚，定居當地，過着“真正”的鄉村生活，這也許是就是逃離日本嚴厲緊張的家長式生活的方法。同樣的衝動也可見於數量驚人攀升的“日非”婚姻（大約總數爲3300）。一個和非洲人成婚的日本新娘向Maastricht大學的Djamila Schans講述，“我本對嫁給一個外國人持懷疑態度，但是當看到他每天都在車站等我，甚至有時拿着鮮花，我不再懷疑了！日本男人永遠不會如此。”
Most demographic trends are irresistible forces. It is rare that government policy can make a big difference. But international marriage is sensitive to public policy. In the mid-2000s, Taiwan’s government, for example, took alarm at the number of foreign brides coming into the country. It did not slam the gates but started to wrap the marriage process in licensing and permits, insisting on better treatment of immigrant women. This reduced the number of foreign brides by more than half between 2003 and 2010. Malaysia also maintains an array of secular and religious permits which foreigners must get not only for marriage, but also for residence and work. It seems effective: less than 2% of all Malaysian marriages involve a foreigner, against almost 40% in neighbouring Singapore.
人口的大潮無法阻擋，政府政策總是收效甚微。但跨國婚姻卻對政策敏感。例如，21世紀的第一個十年的中期，臺灣政府向境外新娘的數量發出警告。這項政策並沒有直接“砰”的一聲關上跨國婚姻的門，但是開始將此類婚姻“保護”在發放證件環節，並堅持用更體貼的方式對待移民婦女。這樣，2003至2010年間的境外新娘數量降低了一半。馬來西亞也設置了一連串的宗教的和非宗教的許可，不僅包括婚姻，更針對居住權和就業工作。結果似乎有效：相較鄰國新加坡幾近40%的數字，馬來西亞僅有不到2%的婚姻屬於跨國婚姻。
Governments impose restrictions in the belief that cross-border marriages can destabilise their societies. Sometimes, their fears are understandable. In Taiwan, the share of international marriages doubled in five years. But such rapid change is highly unusual. By and large, marriage between people of different nationalities has grown more slowly than immigration. In the past few years, the increase in marriage has slowed further, probably reflecting global economic problems.
政府強行管制，是因爲堅信跨國婚姻不利於社會穩定。有時候看，這種擔憂是可以理解的。臺灣地區這類婚姻所佔比重五年內翻番，引起的變化是極不簡單的。總的來說，其增速慢於移民增速。近幾年，其增幅減速，大概也反映了全球經濟問題。
International marriages are often attacked as exploitative, because they typically take place between an older richer man and a younger, less well-educated woman from a poor country. Terrible examples of abuse do exist. Yet the evidence suggests that international marriages often last longer than average and that migrant wives come to play important roles in their husband’s host country.
跨國婚姻總是揹着剝削的罵名，之所以這樣的原因就是它總髮生在一個年邁的富人和一個生於貧國的缺乏良好教育的女人之間。極端的虐待的例子的確存在，但證據卻表明此類婚姻歷時更久，也表明了移民了的女人在其丈夫所在國漸漸扮演着重要角色。
Marriage remains, for the most part, an institution that promotes economic improvement and personal happiness. It also tends to boost social assimilation—the main exception being when a second-generation immigrant weds a girl from a village his parents had left long before. Over the next few years, international marriage is likely to continue its quiet upward crawl. Governments should protect its victims—but not prevent the process.
大多數國家中，婚姻始終是促進經濟發展、提升個人幸福的一種制度。現在也趨於促進社會同化，唯一的逆勢的例外就表現在移民的第二代和一個來自其父母遠離已久之處的女孩結婚。以後的幾年內，可能跨國婚姻的步伐依舊平緩而向上，政府要做的不是阻礙其進程，而是想辦法保護這過程中的受害者。