I just ran across an article in the Bangkok Post that talks about an issue of interest to many farangs my age. Actually, it is nearly a year old, but these articles live on on the internet for some time, and this one is not out of date. The last six paragraphs talk about something that has all kinds of side effects, including some that impact our foundation’s work.
Farang men come to Thailand with a small to medium retirement and marry a Thai woman thirty years younger. I am in my early 60′s and see some other men my age or older even here in Nang Rong. Almost all have a young Thai wife who originally came from this area. She would have to come from here: otherwise how would the two of them ever find their way back?
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The news article assumes the lifestyle upgrade that lifts the woman out of poverty is the only attraction. It states that “love is an unlikely reason because of the huge age difference.” I think it is not that simple. Among the farangs and young women you have people with different motives. Some of the men just want a sexy young woman and have not thought further than that. Some of the women can get a lump sum from the retirement spent on a house which due to Thai laws she ends up owning. Within a year she has divorced the guy and gone back to her Thai boyfriend. Men have committed suicide in Thailand over such things.
On the other hand, you have farang men who want and will cultivate a companion. They are old enough to know how to do it. Some farangs from the U.S. or Europe have been brought up to treat women differently than Thai men. A lot of Thai women appreciate that.
It also depends on the man and the woman. Did he come to Thailand because he could not handle relationships at home? Is she a bar girl he met a few months ago? Or are they from more similar backgrounds, education and cultural levels (even if the cultures are different).
In Asia women do look at marriage differently. The average less educated woman here works unbelievably hard whether it is on the farm, selling food on the street from 7 AM until 10 PM in the city, or in a factory. While some may take the farang for whatever they can get, others truly appreciate his support and return love as real as any good marriage can have. It may not seem ideal to us, but when both parties have their needs met, it can and does work.
Of course it would be better to meet a young Thai man with at least an adequate income who treats her well. How likely is that? I have seen several articles here in the last year that young educated Thai women are doing the same thing as their counterparts in Japan. They are just not getting married. If the lighter skinned educated girls in the city have this problem, how much worse it is for an Isaan girl with darker skin and less education?
While the man dying way before the woman is an issue, he can leave behind some of that retirement, small by our standards, so his wife will not have to work like a slave the rest of her life. In short, it may look bad, but it can work and seems to me to work as often as marriages in the West do.
This got pretty long. I’ll have to talk about how this affects our foundation in a subsequent post.
