Mail Order Bride/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A man "purchases" a wife through an agency.

  • Played Straight: Bob has had no luck with dating, and is surfing the Internet one lonely night. He decides to click on a banner ad for a Mail Order Bride, and "purchases" Valentina from Russia.
  • Exaggerated: Besides Valentina, Bob purchases an entire harem worth of brides, either from the same agency (to get bulk discount!) or from different sites.
  • Justified: Bob is desperate.
    • Bob is gay, but still in the closet. And his parents are coming over...he feels like he needs a wife to show them.
    • Bob is looking for a Sex Slave.
  • Inverted: Bob dates Alice, a woman from his hometown, and marries her.
  • Gender Inverted: Alice purchases Ivan over the Internet.
  • Subverted: Bob brings Valentina to his home, but mentions nothing to her about marriage; in fact, although he met her online, they met through an actual dating site or social-networking site, not a Mail Order Bride site.
    • Alternatively, Valentina decides she's not happy or any better off with Bob in America, and heads back home.
    • Valentina is held up due to complications with paperwork.
    • Valentina is not a real person; she may be a doll, a dog, a robot, etc., but Bob buys her online (and everyone erroneously assumes he ordered himself a wife.)
  • Double Subverted: But Valentina lives in Bob's home and does all the things a wife is expected to (cleaning, cooking, gardening, sex, etc.). Eventually, she and Bob have a Citizenship Marriage.
  • Deconstructed: Valentina could be deported, as the agency may not be scrupulous about getting those Fiancee Visas in order in a timely manner if at all. She could also be in danger if Bob turns out to be abusive.
  • Reconstructed: The agency gives Valentina a Fiancee Visa, and makes sure that both parties understand that if things don't work out, divorce is always an option. They also screen both the women and the men, to make sure no one has a criminal record, or a tendency towards Domestic Abuse. Everyone enters into this like an otherwise normal Arranged Marriage.
  • Lampshaded: "Check out my new wife. She's from Russia; I met her through Buy A Lovely Bride Dot Com."
  • Parodied: Bob orders Valentina, who turns out to be...an inflatable sex doll.
  • Averted: Bob doesn't order a bride online or through a catalog.
  • Enforced: "Let's show what a Hollywood Dateless Straw Loser Bob is! I mean, no one in their right mind would order a wife over the Internet unless he were really desperate, right?"
  • Invoked: See "Played Straight"
  • Defied: Bob decides he isn't that desperate, and decides to tough it out on the dating scene a bit longer.
    • Valentina refuses to come home with Bob, for whatever reason(s).
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs: Valentina's profile said she was young, slim, and beautiful, but when Bob goes to actually meet her at the airport, she's fat, old, and homely.
  • Played For Drama: Bob is abusing Valentina and using her as a Sex Slave, along with several other women. Until he gets tired of them...

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