Twenty years ago, the 20-year-old daughter of a distant relative left for the United States with her fianc? who was more than 30 years her senior. We didn?t even know she was engaged until her mother came over afterward to gush about her daughter?s good fortune. She was marrying a very wealthy man, she told us. How did she know he was wealthy? The whole family has had their taste of his money. While courting her daughter, the American bought the family home furnishings and appliances that they would never have been able to afford. So, although the daughter had other ambitions (she was a very pretty mestiza and she wanted a career in media, if not in show business), her mother told her that the wealthy American was her best shot at a much better life.

So, the daughter left for America with her fianc? and they eventually got married there. The next time we saw her mother, she was singing a different tune. All the furnishings and appliances that the American showered on the family turned out to have been bought on credit. And, as soon as her daughter married him, he insisted that she find employment to pay for all the gifts that her family received.

Not that the American turned out to be completely evil. As far as we know, his wife stayed with him and they are still together. Where else would she go? By the time she had finished paying off all the credit card purchases (she was also sending money back home to her family in the Philippines), she had also given birth to a couple of children. Her stressful home-work-home lifestyle had taken its toll, she had lost her youthful looks and could no longer entertain the idea of coming back to be an actress.

They weren?t rich, this girl. She was the youngest of seven siblings, their father had been unemployed for years before she met the American suitor, and, all her life, they had been living in a rundown rented apartment in Pasay City. Her older sisters, much prettier than she was, all married ?well? and one had moved abroad. They had been living off largely on what money the older sisters could send home. It just seemed ?natural? that by the time she reached a marriageable age, she would do the same thing?marry the wealthiest suitor and help support her parents. At least, that was what her mother expected.

Twenty years ago, the mail-order bride phenomenon had not hit full force. But Filipina women wanting to marry foreigners? this has been going on since the American occupation when propaganda about the American dream had been on the mind and heart of almost every Filipino family who did not have much future to look forward to in the country. It?s a kind of ?liberator? mentality. The Americans ?liberated? the country from the Japanese and the Americans would liberate every damsel in economic distress.

These days, the concept of ?liberator? has broadened. Every male from every rich country is a potential liberator. In a study made recently by the Country Gender Assessment of the Asian Development Bank, statistics show that the number of Filipinas who married foreigners has tripled in just a span of eight years from 7,819 in 1998 to 24,954 in 2006. Data also show it has to do with the inability of the Philippines to provide well-paying jobs so much so that marrying foreigners has become a way to provide for the families of impoverished Filipinas.

I used to flinch at how women flaunt themselves on the Internet, in skimpy attires and in the most provocative poses, to attract foreigners. But from another perspective, if we can get over the feeling that there is degradation when women marry for money, it actually has one liberating aspect. These women aren?t allowing traditional norms to dictate what their reason should be for marrying? religion and culture and the notion that marriage is a spiritual union be damned. It isn?t the Church or culture or their rules that will go into the marriage anyway, why should they have any say in the matter?

If we study history, this phenomenon of marrying off daughters to the wealthiest suitor is nothing new. It?s a centuries-old practice in Europe. Girls from wealthy families had their public debuts (coming out balls) precisely to parade them before suitable bachelors. Why should the rich have a venue for parading their daughters but not the poor? They?re all after the same thing anyway?rich husbands.

When cause-oriented and conservative groups start sloganeering about saving Filipinas who are ?forced? to marry foreigners because of poverty, I don?t know if they are objecting based on moral or real grounds. Granted that the element of danger is present, the situation of girls who fly off to marry total strangers and find themselves in a foreign land (often disadvantaged with severe language barriers) without a familiar support group is a rather difficult one. And if the husband turns out to be a total nut, how does a girl get out? If groups who seek to ?help? these women do so from that perspective, I can appreciate their concern and effort.

But if they are objecting based on purely moral grounds, do they have a right to do so? Do they have a right to impose their moral standards on these daring women who find it more liberating to thumb their noses on tradition and religion-based values?

The author blogs at http://houseonahill.net, http://pinoycook.net and http://www.sassylawyer.com