There are many companies promoting marriages of Ukrainian women to foreign men, with some reporters dubbing Ukraine the ‘matchmaking capital of the world’. But what locals think about the whole “marry a foreigner” thing?

Poll results: Is it worth to seek happiness in a marriage with a foreigner?

Segodnya.ua asked its online readers whether they think it is worth to seek ‘family happiness’ (an euphemism for ‘marriage’) with a foreigner.

Over 2,000 people responded to a poll, which is not too low but not too high. Sharp topics such as choosing the symbol of Kiev city or evaluation of the government reforms attract 3,800-4,500 voters, while the question about the quality of medical help after the recent government reform only bringing in 1,2 thousand votes. For instance, nearly 2,5 thousand people (20% more) expressed their opinions in the poll how the property should be divided after a divorce.

So, locals have some interest in the topic of marriages of Ukrainian women with foreigners, but they are not too concerned about it.

In the view of this knowledge, we can now consider the results of the poll.

Should Ukrainian women marry foreign men or not?

The poll only provided 4 standard responses to choose from, with 2 of them being positive about marriage to foreigners, one neutral and one negative. One positive response emphasized a change for a better life abroad and the other focused on family values of overseas males, which are thought to be stronger.

About the same share of people who care about the issue (other readers simply disregarded the online survey) are positive and negative: 19% of readers responded “Yes” and 20% responded “No”.

The majority of poll participants picked the neutral option, “A woman should get married to the man she loves, no matter what country he is from.”

The online survey was expressly targeted towards discussing marriages of Ukrainian women with men from other countries through the use of gender-specific verbs: There are two different words used to describe the word ‘marry’ for males and females.

It’s worth noticing that Russians are also considered to be foreigners in Ukraine, which worked very hard to separate itself from its long-term ally and ‘big brother’ since mid-2000, through promotion of the Ukrainian language and prohibition of ads in ‘foreign languages’, which in this case was mostly about Russian.

What is important, the share of people who are openly negative towards the issue is only 20% or 1 in 5. It’s rather low. If the same poll was ran in Russia, the results are likely to be very different, with the majority of people repeating the phrase, “No, foreigners have a very different mentality and it’s too hard to build a relationship with them,” — such is the official view promoted through the media. In Ukraine, as we can see, the attitude towards marriages with foreigners is rather positive, with the view that if a woman is in love, she can choose a man of any nationality and it’s OK.

Elena’s Models research on reasons why women seek to marry foreign men

Elenasmodels.com previously ran a focus group, asking women on reasons why they decided to seek a partner abroad.

The majority of ladies expressed the opinion that it was hard to meet a potential match at home, which was the main reason that prompted them to consider seeking a partner abroad.

The results of the survey are available here online. The survey was completed by female members from various countries of the former Soviet Union, not only Ukrainians.

Read also:

• 5 reasons why Americans (Australians, Europeans, etc) want to marry Russian, Ukrainian women
• Top 4 reasons to date a Ukrainian girl
• Why there are more brides than grooms in Ukraine
• 8 myths about foreign brides—and why they are wrong