Picture bride

A Picture Bride was a practice in the early 1900s of arranged marriage between people from Japan, who lived in Japan, and people from the US, who were looking for wives from Japan. This practice was started by Japanese immigrants in the US who were unable to find wives in the US, because of the laws which did not allow Asian women to come into the US. Since picture brides were unable to legally travel across the ocean, the couples would exchange photographs to get to know one another and make a plan for when the bride could come over. The men would send money to the bride’s family in Japan to pay for a passport, travel expenses, and a dowry. When the bride arrived, the couple would be married in a traditional ceremony. The bride was often young and did not have a choice in the marriage, but this was the only way they could gain citizenship or have the ability to pass on citizenship to their children.