From Client to Matchmaker: Social Capital in the Making of Commercial Matchmaking Agents in Malaysia

In the last two decades, there has been a dramatic rise in international marriages in East and Southeast Asia. A large proportion of these have been between men from wealthier countries and women from poorer countries, many of which are mediated by commercial matchmaking agencies. Agencies that offer men instant marriages with Vietnamese women began to make an appearance in Malaysia in the early 2000s, following closely behind Singapore and Taiwan. In this paper, we use the concepts of objective centrality and social capital to examine three interfaces that marriage brokers in Malaysia have to bridge: the interface with male clients, with access to the supply of potential brides from Vietnam, and with the bureaucratic procedures of immigration and marriage registration. We present one story in greater depth to illustrate the sociability and social capital accumulation process of one Vietnamese bride as she works to establish relationships of trust with her husband and his family. As she makes the transition from marriage migrant to “good wife”, she is able to access the social networks of her husband and his family to transform herself into a marriage broker, increasing her own autonomy and access to resources in the process. The surface observation that entering the commercial matchmaking industry does not require much economic capital conceals the considerable amount of social capital that is required.