In Glamour , a popular fashion blogger admits to being a mail-order bride . Why does a feel-good story leave us feeling so uneasy? Lera Loeb grows up poor in the Ukraine, in a family that values education and achievement. She studies hard and gets the opportunity to do an exchange in America, where she’s impressed by the greater intellectual freedom, the opportunities for women, the diversity. At 19, she resolves to find a way back. After talking to my parents, I found a possible solution: to advertise myself on an international marriage brokerage website. These agencies charge men, mostly from the United States and Western Europe, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to match them with a foreign bride, usually from poor or developing countries like Ukraine. In the States, it would be shocking for parents to accept …
