At My Wedding Twitterring And Facebooking At The Altar [YouTube]

And yet, because of the wish for more opportunities in the west, women continue to enter into the marriages - in many cases, the parents spend all their savings to raise the traditonal dowry. As one women's rights activist estimates, "There are 15,000 to 20,000 abandoned brides in India."

Tracking down the men is complicated and expensive. The Indian government has, says the BBC, "set up a department to provide assistance to the thousands of women who live in hope of being reunited with their husbands." But the odds aren't good. As a Canadian report found, "Exasperated police, faced with hundreds of such cases, were resorting to a mix of threats and family counseling sessions to reunite couples or at least get some of the dowries back."

Indian 'Holiday Brides' Abandoned By British Husbands On The Rise [BBC]
Abandoned Brides: A Province Special Investigation [Canada.com]
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Indian Brides, Marrying to Go Abroad, Often Find Themselves Abandoned at Home [VOA]

At least Karen's fiancee had some balls and put her in check.


Not that his words worked, though. She was still rude to his relatives, who were kindly stopping by to welcome her to the family.


Take a look at their resulting "not tacky" wedding.

Karen loves talking about money and the amount that's spent on her. She's been bragging about her $7,500 wedding dress for the past two episodes, as though the price tag makes her appear "classy" rather than déclassé, and frankly, pound-foolish. During her final fitting, she noticed a snag and a stain on the gown, which were barely noticeable enough to show up on camera, and looked easy enough to fix. Still, she turned managed to take this whole stupid "bridezilla" thing to another level. It's actually surprising that she didn't shit herself in that dress. Nothing says money like emptying one's bowels on $7,500 worth of crinoline and satin.

What is it about Staten Island weddings that drive people into insanity and a deluded sense of entitlement? In this clip, Karen explains her state of mind, "Thinking is a waste of time."

Earlier: Vintage True Life: Staten Island Wedding

LaDrienna was pretty terrible to the women in her bridal party, which seems to be par for the course with the brides on this show. Her attitude caused one of her bridesmaids to quip, "She's the bitch, bitch!"


LaDrienna made her bachelorette party a mandatory event for her bridesmaids. When four of them didn't show up, she kicked them out of the bridal party, because she was sick of the "bitchassness."

There must be amazing stories about offices full of ridiculously priced gowns; mysteriously "missing" Waterford crystal vases; hilariously awful reader letters; Vegas photo shoots gone awry and cake ideas no one would ever really dare to serve guests. Former staffers: Time to fess up! Email me at dodai@jezebel.com with your tales. I'll keep you anonymous, and you can finally get that story about the "misplaced" engagement ring off your chest.

Note: If your story is particularly juicy, we're open to publishing it as freelance contribution — and will offer a fee.

While, as Angier puts it, "observers of human mating customs have long contended that serial monogamy is really just a socially sanctioned version of harem-building," in fact, she suggests, perhaps women are, by nature, also inclined to live polygymously.

In a report published in the summer issue of the journal Human Nature, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder of the University of California, Davis, presents compelling evidence that at least in some non-Western cultures where conditions are harsh and mothers must fight to keep their children alive, serial monogamy is by no means a man's game, finessed by him and foisted on her. To the contrary, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said, among the Pimbwe people of Tanzania, whose lives and loves she has been following for about 15 years, serial monogamy looks less like polygyny than like a strategic beast that some evolutionary psychologists dismiss as quasi-fantastical: polyandry, one woman making the most of multiple mates... "We're so wedded to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women won't, that women are victims of the game," Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said. "But what my data suggest is that Pimbwe women are strategically choosing men, abandoning men and remarrying men as their economic situation goes up and down."

In addition, the researcher found, these multiple-marriers are not deemed the flighty "bolters" of Western perception, but, rather, "considered high-quality mates, the hardest working, the most reliable, with scant taste for the strong maize beer the Pimbwe famously brew." While this is obviously a specific study of a certain group's practices, as Salon's Judy Berman puts it, these are "Darwinian extremes," and as such it's tempting to extrapolate about a society not mired in our constructs. I'm wary of this, as a rule; because a society doesn't have our mores doesn't mean it can't have its own, surely equally entrenched and capable of altering a society's shape? To suggest anything else seems both reductive and patronizing. But let's say we take the argument to this far-fetched extreme and start the perennially-popular par;or game of "what-if." What if this says something about basic human nature? What do we learn? That women are security-minded? Angier's circumspect, saying only, "the results underscore the importance of avoiding the breezy generalities of what might be called Evolution Lite, an enterprise too often devoted to proclaiming universal truths about deep human nature based on how college students respond to their professors' questionnaires." I'm inclined to concur: if we choose to regard this as some kind of triumph for evolutionary equality, the results lead themselves equally open to far-flung "gold-digger" interpretations. The best conclusion to draw, to my mind, is what I'll call the creationist's paradox: you can use loosely-interpreted evolutionary arguments to back up as many arguments as a Bible-thumper can find Good Book justification for his.

If we need proof, keep in mind that the "husband-snatcher!" furor is still going strong. A rather cavalier piece in the Houston Chronicle sports the same sort of reductive headline that's been snaring views since the rather more complicated Journal of Experimental Social Psychology results came out. In short, she reports that "mate poaching" is real, and that it says a lot of bad stuff about women. Then readers, who also haven't read the research and are drawing their own conclusions based on this rather sketchy pop-summary, say things like, "fellas if your wife has hot looking girlfriends, leave the house, cause those b—-h's are cheating to. ladies, if your husband has hot looking friends, chances are they are cheating with your hot looking girlfriends." And "THE ALPHA MALE, just like the lion of the jungle his role is to get as many lioness's pregnant." Does a moron need "facts" to bolster his grandstanding? No - but he'll use them.

"Facts" as we know can be dangerous things. It's not, obviously, an exactly analogous situation, but I thought of this earlier while reading a piece about Marriage Works USA, a campaign of the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative that promotes marriage by using statistics on its ads like "married people earn and save more money" and "married people enjoy better health." As Christopher Wanjek sagely points out on LiveScience, these stats derive, universally, from studies and surveys whose results are, unsurprisingly, far more complicated and less neatly reductive than the campaign would suggest, and as such, misleading. I'm not saying people who want to shouldn't get married (and be able to) but the decision shouldn't be dictated by pop sociology, and if that marriage ends, let's not invoke evolutionary imperatives, either. Sure, facts and studies are great. But a fact, noun, doesn't in itself bolster an argument, also noun. These various studies are fascinating, enrich the discussion and, when used as intended, can teach us a lot. But we've eschewed plenty of "evolutionary imperatives" to live as we do, and as a result have pretty much forfeited the privilege of using it as an excuse. Apologies to THE ALPHA MALE.

Skipping Spouse To Spouse Isn't Just A Man's Game [NY Times]
The First Husbands Club [Salon]
Are You Or Do You Know A "Mate Poacher"? [Houston Chronicle]
Marriage Works: An Exaggerated Message [LiveScience]

1. If he can't support you, do you earn enough to live comfortably without either family's help?
- Define "comfortably." Also, define "help," "family," and "enough."

2. Is there enough money in the bank — in his account, yours, a joint bank account - to meet any emergency? If not, how long will it be before enough funds are available?
-Define "emergency." Ok, then: Late middle age, if there's no inflation. With inflation, never.

3. With rentals on the increase, can you afford quarters that you are accustomed to?
-YES! (Granted, I'm accustomed to roaches, mice, and no AC, but really who isn't these days?)

4. Have either of you a source from which to borrow money should the need arrive?
-Does the bank count? Cause if so, I'm giving that a YES.

5. Rather than estimate roughly how much your joint expenses will be, have you written down, as precisely as possible, where and how your income will be spent, including not only food, clothing and shelter, but such nitty-gritty details as your facial makeup, stockings, accessories, his shaving cream and blades, laundry, toothpaste, and all the other essentials?

- BO-RING! Does writing "a lot" down count? (In good news, my stocking budget is an affordable $0.)

6. Are you sacrificing anything for marriage - school, a career, giving up certain friends?
- NO. See #1. Wait, is this supposed to be a YES?

7. Have you given up certain things because he dislikes them, and has he done the same?
I think "sleeping with other people" qualifies, yes?

8. Have you ever done something together like working to complete a chore at work or school, shoveled snow or mowed the lawn, painted a room, or combined your monies to buy something?
-Heck, YES! We combined monies for a Rolo only yesterday! And haven't they been following? We don't have a lawn.

9. Do you associate with married friends your own ages?

-A couple of our friends are thinking about getting married before she has the baby. Sometimes we see them for drinks - okay, not that much since she got pregnant, I guess. But only because she hasn't been answering our emails. Whatever, her mom's in town, I know that's stressful. She's got a few years on us, but we're talking ballpark, right?

10. Do you argue often over trifling matters? And do either of you insist on being right?

-Okay, so yesterday he refused to pet a dog because he bites his nails compulsively, and this kind of became a thing because I was like, is it worth offending my parent's neighbor because you're so neurotic and infantile? Why don't you just wear a Hazmat suit, Howard Hughes?

11. Do you love him less after a scrap, or do you continue to love him just as much?
-Well, he agreed on the dog thing, so we're good.

12. Do you give up your friends that he dislikes?
-Um, just because I used to date someone and almost married him before you, doesn't mean he isn't awesome!

13. Even if it hurts him, and puts you in a bad light, can you tell him the truth?
-About what? No, really, what is this getting at? That that one friend of his is super-creepy and really skeeved me out when I ran into him on the street and he started talking about socks? Cause we handled that.

14. Do you consult your mother, an older sister, or a friend when you have a problem?
-Well, that's kinda what we pay a shrink for. Where do you think the stocking budget's going?

15. Can you make a decision and hold to it in spite of criticism of older people?
-You mean that bum on the corner who insulted my new shoes? It hurt, but I'm still wearing them - sometimes.

16. Can you defy your mother's and/or father's wishes and stick to it, whether it's an important or trifling matter?
-Hell, given her druthers, my mom would take me off meds! So, yeah. But look, she hates the big glasses so much, sometimes it's just not worth it for one dinner. Isn't compromise adult, too?

17. Are you uncomfortable being alone at night if he has to go out of town on business or goes bowling with the boys or must train for two weeks during the summer with his military or naval service unit?

-Truthfully, I might be a little uncomfortable to learn he'd been doing secret naval training behind my back. Or bowling. Or a business trip, for that matter - but only because he's unemployed.

18. Do you insist that he telephone you while he's away?
-What? No. Everyone knows I don't answer my phone!

19. Do you prefer to spend the evening with him at home, alone, or in the company of friends?
-Well, look, we don't have air conditioning, so that kind of effects these decisions in August. And whether we're talking about the creepy friend with the socks.

20. Can you ignore your own bad mood to pull him out of his?
-If by "ignore" you mean "treat with pudding," then, YES.

21. Can you prepare all of his favorite dishes?
-Well, I'm sure I could prepare that hippy-dippy brown rice-tofu thing he's so into, but that doesn't mean I will. So, YES?

22. Do you retain leftovers from your meals, know how to prepare them attractively?
-Well, I take a relativist's approach to "attractiveness."

23. Can you sew his socks, iron his shirts, press his trousers, mind ferrying his clothes back and forth from the tailor and laundry, his shoes from the cobbler?
-If I got to take an actual "ferry," I would do this. So I'm giving myself a YES.

24. Have you ever decorated and furnished a room?
-Funny you should ask: I just bought the freakiest antique doll, which I placed under a jar on the mantelpiece. Wow, I'm on a roll!

25. Do you insist that he adhere to your tastes, styles, and colors?
-Yes. Moving on. Purple is for wizards and Lisa Frank.

26. Are you efficient in housekeeping - sweeping, dusting, polishing, washing windows, even to such details as cleaning the blinds and tidying the closet?

-If by "efficient", do they mean, it doesn't take up a disproportionate amount of my time? Cause if so, that's a YES.

27. Are you willing to get up every morning to prepare his breakfast and see him off to work as well as taking care of yourself before going to business or school?

-"Going to business" in the next room really facilitates this. And I mean, he's welcome to some of the coffee.

28. Has he ever seen you when you're aware that you don't look your best - your face smeared with facial cream, hair in curlers or bundled up in a bandanna, or showing the effects of a bad cold, or made dirty from housecleaning?

-Well, of course not.

29. Have you ever seen him when he's not at his best - in need of a shave, a haircut, unpressed apparel, showing the effects of a cold, wearing old clothes to putter around the house?

-You know, I really prefer to avoid people who show "the effects of a cold." It sounds like said people really need a tissue.

30. Have you considered that you will be married to this man, that you will spend the rest of your life with him until death do you part?
- Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can we get back to the china pattern now, please?

Test Your Readiness for Marriage with a Comic Book Quiz [PW]

People are within their rights to want to know when I'm getting married - because I'm, you know, engaged. Most people regard our engagement as a signal that in a year or so, we'd have a wedding; it denoted a timeline, goals, and endpoints. For me and Slim, it meant that we'd decided we wanted to get married - some day. Since our engagement, over a year ago, several couples I know have successfully gotten engaged and married. We are starting to look like slackers, which is in fact totally accurate.

But by any standard, we're in no "position" to marry. It's generally understood that before you make it legal, you should have an adult life in place: financial stability, career, ideally a few dollars in the bank. Given that we have approximately none of these things, marriage hasn't seemed realistic. But lately, we've been having a lot of "screw it, let's go to City Hall" moments. The reason for this is twofold: we've realized we are never going to be adults, and we want to get married.

In an article in the latest Texas Monthly, Rena Behar recalls that
Mark Regnerus made serious waves last year when he suggested that people should just go ahead and get married. What seemed like a retrograde return to mid-century form to much of the feminist blogosphere was, he says now, misinterpreted: he merely wanted to suggest we remove the stigma from those who do choose to marry young. While this is a sticky issue - and no one's objections were conjured out of thin air - there was something to be said for the argument that there is no "right time," and that a list of requirements has become one of the inarguables of "enlightened" modern life almost without our knowledge.

It's true: whereas even a generation ago a youthful, impecunious marriage could feel romantic and bohemian (as contrasted with the trousseau-ready child-brides of an earlier era) nowadays we tacitly consider it the purview of hicks and zealots. The literal child-brides of the FLDS do little to combat this notion; those married undergrads I knew in college were largely regarded as curiosities. Even those friends of mine who married pre-25 were cause for comment - and, it's true, most of them had parents who'd married younger than mine or came from communities where this wasn't such a big deal. At 28, I'd be an old maid in plenty of homes, but south of 30 is still considered young amongst my parents' friends - not least because it's assumed one will have completed grad school and established a career by the time the wedding rolls around. Plenty of people live together, of course, and it's assumed that they'll marry - but when the time is right.

There are many sound reasons for this, obviously. In a perfect world, I'd have my ducks in a row - not least because it means I could actually afford a wedding. But at the same time, I'm starting to bridle at the notion that you need to be a fully developed adult before making such a personal decision - because I have no problem growing up a little more with someone else. Even if it means there are some growing pains on the way.

The Young and the Restless [Texas Monthly]

While faux-marriages are nothing new (Green Card, anyone?), apparently recently there's been a huge upswing in the number of Eastern European immigrants using New York's expat community to contract "delovoy brak," or "business marriages." The piece in the Post reports that in one week, a Russian-language weekly ran 34 ads by people openly seeking the illegal arrangement. (That pic ran with one of the ads, and is typical.)

When a reporter contacted a marriage broker, he was told a marriage would run him about $30 grand, of which $25,000 would go to the "wife," to be paid in full after a successful interview with immigration. And while immigration officials quoted in the article claim they're cracking down hard, they admit sham marriages can be hard to prove - and several who've engaged in them say, for their part, that the interview's a breeze. Although the issue's been on lawmakers' radars for more than 20 years, few provisions and little legislation has ever passed, and it's apparently regarded as a low priority, a victimless crime that doesn't call for much attention - although many "legitimate" couples do claim that the practice subjects them to humiliating and unfair scrutiny.

None of this is exactly shocking. Nor is the fact that these situations are ripe for exploitation, one imagines particularly for the women involved. What was, rather, is the insouciance with which the quoted "grooms" discuss the business. Says one guy, a Ukrainian immigrant who has U.S. citizenship, "I get calls asking me to marry one of these girls every other week...It's easy money, and the girls are really hot."

Then there's a sidebar, "I was taken for a bride." While the headline implies that the man in question, "Ivan," was duped by a goldigger, his quotes tell a rather different story. While it's true that some men - lonely, naive - are indeed "duped" for money when they think they're involved in a romance, this is clearly a case in which the guy knew exactly what he was doing - and that he's fairly typical of the "legalizer" in these situations.

Her name was Yelena. She was really hot, in her 20s.She had come over on a student visa. We went over the figures that night at dinner. The next week, we went to City Hall. I let her move in with me. I wanted to be real secure with this. I didn't want to get arrested. I actually wanted to be with her. I was attracted to her. Everything I told her to do, she did. I would scare her on purpose. I would say, "If you don't do so and so, I am going to report you."

Ivan says that Yelena was "shoplifting like crazy," was "cheating on him," stole from him, and "was probably an escort" to boot. She served him with divorce papers while he was in the hospital recovering from an injury. Nevertheless, despite seeming to feel he was ill-used, he ends by saying, "Who knows? I might do it again."

What's especially weird about his account is the matter-of-factness of tone, the expectation that the two would try to use each other for whatever they could, and the casual way he admits to blackmailing her for, what? Sexual favors? One can only assume. And this story, while typical, is hardly as bad as it gets: rates of domestic abuse in green-card marriages are extremely high, and as happy-ending "mail-order bride" Lera Loeb told Glamour, "In Ukraine the potential dangers of the so-called mail-order bride industry are not as well known as they are in America." Perhaps a woman who is, unlike a "mail-order," already living in America has a bit more of a support network than someone who is completely on her own, but as this story demonstrates, she's still in a uniquely vulnerable position, and completely at the mercy of those who have some leverage over her, to say nothing of money and power. In such a situation, two years can be a long time. It's also true that, given the high rates of domestic abuse in many of the same Eastern European countries, in these arrangements there might be a tacit communal blind eye turned on such abuse. As in any unregulated sphere, in short, the potential for institutionalized abuse is very, very high. And what's worse, it's what people on both sides have come to take for granted. Even if everyone involved ends up a victim of sorts - and even if it's what they sign on for - this is not a situation that anyone should be taking lightly.

FROM RUSSIA WITH $$ [New York Post]
I WAS TAKEN FOR A BRIDE [New York Post]
Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name: Inside The Green Card Marriage Phenomenon [Center for Immigration Studies]
Yes, This Woman Is A "Mail-Order Bride" [Glamour]
Mail Order Brides And The Abuse Of Immigrant Women [No Status Quo]

Stop Violence Against Women [StopVAW]

Related: Mail-Order Bride Finds Love; Hopefully No Others Read This

• Researchers have found that, among men convicted of consuming child pornography, viewing the images alone did not increase their risk of committing a "hands-on" sex offense in the next six years. Only 1% of the men studied went on to abuse another person. • Soldiers Gilbert Parker and Matthew Delia have been accused of filming and photographing female members of their unit while they were in the shower. If convicted, they could face up to 18 years behind bars. •  According to a report released by the charity Oxfam, there has been a surge in sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past six months. They found that there had been a dramatic increase in sexual assault since the government launched an offensive against the rebels in January. • Women prone to migraines are 74% as likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than those who have never suffered from migraines, a new study says. However, researchers still do not know why the two diseases are linked. • A Canadian court has found Dr. Juan Tejeda guilty of two counts of sexual assault. The psychiatrist was found guilty of assaulting one of his male patients during their sessions, which he claims was all part of the treatment. •  Scientists from Northwestern University have reportedly grown human eggs to near maturity in a laboratory. Cue conservative freakout. • A recent panel on women's role in Iran found that women are often the "front lines" in the Green movement and election battles. Despite what many assume, this is not a sudden change; for decades women have been part of quiet educational and organizational work, including networking through forums like blogs. •