“I bought you, and I spent much on you.”
This was but one of the common rebuttals older ‘white’ husbands would resort to based on accounts of Filipina ‘bride-machines’. Dr. Janet Arnado, a professor of the Behavioral Science Department, and a researcher on the phenomenon of Filipinas marrying older ‘white’ men, recounted these in the lecture titled Marrying Older ‘White’ Men: The Formation of Filipina ‘Bride-Machines’ and their Transgression of Patriarchy and Coloniality held last February 15 at room 509 in Yuchengco Hall.
What is a bride-machine?
Arnado coined the term bride-machine, a combination of the two stereotypical images of a Filipina—the mail-order bride and the waschmachine. Mail-order brides are women who seek out marriage by having themselves catalogued on mail-order magazines, which has since evolved into an online service. Waschmachine, German for “washing machine”, meanwhile, is based on the view of women as those who do round-the-clock work.
According to her study, Filipinos’ attraction to ‘whiteness’ is a by-product of the country’s long history as a colony under Western rule. More often than not, she argued that Filipinas are more attracted to ‘white’ men and even initiate marital relationships with them.
Being a wife to a ‘white’ man herself, Arnado shared that she receives judgmental looks from people walking past them. She elaborated that this is the result of stereotypes people associate with ‘white’ men and Filipinas being together in public, especially if there is a clear generation gap between the couple.
Arnado stressed that she did not fall under the category of the bride-machine, as she had married her husband out of love. Bride-machines, on the other hand, experience a type of mechanized love wherein love develops over the course of their marriage rather than being present at the start of the relationship. Arnado explained that most Filipinas marry older ‘white’ men for financial security. While it is not the case for all Filipinas, there are women who admit to this claim, as Arnado had learned during the course of her study.
Ten-year research
A study years in the making, Arnado expressed that the topic of her research “grew with her as a person.” In 2005, Arnado joined an online forum where Filipinas congregate and share stories about their personal lives.
She admitted that it was a challenge to extract information from Filipinas who refused to label themselves as mail-order brides. However, when she identified herself as a wife of a German, she was able to form relations with her fellow Filipinas. Finally, three women opened up to her about their experiences, revealing to her the nature of bride-machines—she recounted these in the lecture as the stories of ‘M’, ‘C’, and ‘G’.
“M married a ‘white’ man 20 years older than her,” Arnado prefaced. Even if seen and treated as an inferior, M decided to enter into marriage as a “self-sacrifice” to provide for her family. When she reached her 40s, M “wanted things to be different” and would begin “doing things without consulting her husband.” Arnado highlighted this phenomenon as a “transgression of power” from male to female that usually happens in later stages of marriage for bride-machines.
Bride-machines also have a sense of security, Arnado stressed. Aside from present financial bearings, bride-machines are assured of inheritance if their partners pass away. The story of C, Arnado revealed, followed this pattern: when her husband died, she received a pension, a small hotel, and a farm.
However, Arnado reiterated that not all Filipinas who marry older ‘white’ men are classified as bride-machines. In the case of G, she graduated cum laude from college with a mathematics degree and worked as a successful programmer in different parts of the world. G fell in love with an Australian and acquired citizenship through their marriage.
But unlike a bride-machine, G’s relationship with her spouse was that of equals, and as Arnado pointed out, the couple even “share housework and bill payments.” Even if these were the case, G was still stereotyped as a mail-order bride and was not spared from public ridicule.
“Where there is power, there is resistance”
Arnado concluded her lecture by saying that these bride-machines—although oppressed by the dominance of their older, ‘white’ husbands—are still capable of obtaining independence.
Although it may seem that they are in positions of weaker power in the hierarchies of gender, race, and class, they have shown various forms of resistance in subtle and covert ways. They have slowly used the system that oppresses them to achieve their personal goal of upward mobility, Arnado emphasized, adding that being able to obtain work and citizenship has helped these Filipinas sustain their financial obligations to their families in the Philippines.
More importantly, these women have slowly liberated themselves, building their self-esteem through slowly working toward being economically independent from their husbands through actively engaging in paid work.
“They are in a disadvantaged position, but it doesn’t mean that just because [bride-machines] are in that position, [they] cannot do anything [about it],” Arnado summarized.
