NCJ Number
199530
Date Published
2003
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This chapter provides an overview of the kinds of Internet sites that provide brides and babies and considers the potential benefits and risks of such enterprises.
Abstract
Internet sites that promote brides include international correspondence services that post women's names, photos, and descriptions, with a contact fee for each mailing address; group tours to countries where interested women may be found; and e-mail pen-pal clubs that are generally free of charge. Babies are for sale on Web sites that market adoption, surrogacy, and "gametes for sale" (sperm and egg sales). When wives and children are "bought" rather than attracted or conceived in ways that are considered to be "normal" and "natural," their purchase and the marketing that accompanies it is likely to elicit hostility and moral censure. It can be argued that women and men who pay for assistance in establishing a marital relationship or who pay for the adoption or conception of children via the Internet are putting a price on a priceless "commodity." Further, they may be criticized as acting selfishly. Certainly, the Internet marketing of women and children is open to abuse and exploitation, both by the marketers and those who pay for their services; however, society must guard against viewing such practices as inherently harmful. Marriages and families that provide happiness and constructive development for their participants may be spawned through the services marketed on the Internet. The authors advise that one's lifestyle choice is often influenced by the socially constructed "ideal," and so-called "deviant" behavior may in fact be a person's only possibility of getting close to the myth of the ideal family. 3 notes