Marry an Asian woman.

• Author: Lesser, Larry
• Position: Essay

I'm thinking about a man I saw when I was a consular officer in the American Embassy New Delhi back in the '60s. He was an American citizen; I'll call him Abner Strong. He came in one day and told our able Indian assistant that he'd like to talk to an American consular officer. He sat down in front of me with my desk taking up space between us. (I was a newly-minted Foreign Service Officer and didn't as yet have the poise to come out from behind my desk to talk.)

Abner was slightly built and fair of complexion. He had an eager look. He had a short relatively light-colored haircut that stood up an inch or so above his scalp--longer than a crew cut. He was wearing a short-sleeve shirt with narrow vertical stripes--light red as I recall. Jeans. I'd put his age as early-40s. He didn't make eye contact when he spoke; he looked down almost as if he was talking to himself, and he spoke quietly and quickly. It was a little difficult to catch everything he was saying.

He told me he had come to India to obtain a bride. He was on the engineering staff (not the faculty) of a great American university in New England. He had been working there for a number of years. He lived on a farm that he owned out in the countryside. He told me he was telling me this to establish that he was a responsible and stable person.

Once Strong started talking there was no stopping him. He told me he had been married more than once to American women and it didn't work. American women don't make good wives, he said. Then he stopped because it occurred to him that he needed to clarify something before going on. He asked me if I was married. Yes, I answered. "Is your wife American?" he asked. "Yes, she is," I replied. "Well I'm not saying it's impossible to have a happy marriage with an American wife," Abner said, "but the odds are against it." He elicited the information from me that I had been happily married about five years and that my wife and I had two small children.

Abner's point was that American women are too independent, too demanding, too selfish. They don't pay enough attention to making their husbands happy, attending to their husbands' wishes. They argue too much. They can be very frustrating.

Asian women on the other hand know how to take care of their husbands. Strong had done a lot of research. He was determined not to make another mistake. He had concluded that his best bet was to marry a young Asian woman who would depend on him to teach her everything she would need to be a successful wife with a satisfied husband. Women from anywhere in Asia would meet his criteria but he had decided--based on assiduous research because he wasn't about to go lightly into something as serious as getting married again ... he had decided that taking all the relevant factors into account his best bet was to marry an Indian woman...