All I Wanted was to Buy a Nice Wife

The Zambian fiancee and I continue to work on formalizing our relationship and importing her permanently.

Previous research suggested the best thing was to try to get a K-1 or “fiancee” visa. They let you bring your fiancee to the US for 90 days, and during that time, you must get married. After that, you have to file for a green card and permission for your new spouse to stay in the US for two more years.

I had read that K-1 visas were better than spouse visas because they took less time. Having looked deeper into it, I am hearing that the time difference is very small. I thought a K-1 was the way to go, but now we are thinking of changing our plans.

If we marry in another country, we will no longer have to be concerned about male/female sin. We won’t have to worry about separate beds and rooms. That would be a big plus, because marriage with limited intimacy is a strain. We wouldn’t be united permanently right away, but we would have considerably more liberty during pre-immigration visits.

So where should we marry? Right now we’re considering Iceland.

You may wonder why Iceland came up. It’s pretty simple. There are very few non-Muslim countries that will take us in right now, within reasonable flight times from our homes, where we can marry without excessive red tape. Even Mexico requires things like chest x-rays. Iceland demands a pile of papers you can file in advance, and that’s about it.

Malta and Mexico are available as rendezvous locations, and we will probably need a few of those while we wait for Rhodah to be issued her visa. Iceland is not a good place to visit except in warm seasons, so if we choose to go, we should do it before the end of September. That, along with the possibility of a trouble-free wedding, makes it a good choice for our next stop.

What’s in Iceland? I don’t know much about it. Volcanoes and glaciers, I’ve heard. People who have been there say great things about it, so I am satisfied that it will work for us. It won’t be as dirty or hot as Egypt, and there will be real stores and restaurants serving things other than traditional Arab food, so it’s looking pretty good to both of us. I’ll be honest. After Egypt, just about any clean, peaceful place with normal access to food and merchandise would look great.

I heard from my friend Mike yesterday, and when I told him we were considering Iceland, he was surprised. He and his girlfriend are planning a trip there. Now we may have to make it a double date. They wanted to go to Paris, but there were various issues, and somehow he came up with Iceland.

They would not be able to stay as long as we would, but they would be around for a little over three days. That ought to be fun. Then we would be alone together, and that would also be fun.

I talked to Mike about the women he knows who are suspicious of Rhodah, and I’ll tell you my sexist conclusion, which is nonetheless correct. I don’t blame them for thinking she just wants a green card. Why? Because they’re women, and women understand women. They are used to seeing other women deceive men. They hear what women say about men when men aren’t around. A big percentage of women would lie to a man about a green card, paternity, love, attraction, or any number of other important issues. It’s no wonder they assume Rhodah is up to no good.

Men get what they want through their careers. Many women do the same thing, but many others achieve their goals by manipulating men they’re not attracted to. It’s an ancient truth.

Iceland requires a strange document from people looking to marry. You have to have a certificate stating that you’re not married already. In the US, many jurisdictions don’t provide these. It appears the answer is to swear an affidavit, notarize it locally, and then get an apostille, which is like an international notarization. Whatever. I’m working on it. Zambia issues the required certificate, so Rhodah’s job is easier.

When all this is done, we may have to wait a year for a visa. Should I give up on Rhodah and look for an American? Of course not. Women are not fungible. I can find an American bride, but I can’t find an American Rhodah. I’ll just have to wait. Thank God I can pay for occasional visits.

I’m going to start looking up restaurants, hotels, and things to do in Iceland. Mike wants an AirBnB. I don’t get that. In a hotel, they clean up after you, and they provide room service. In somebody else’s second home, that would all be on me and Rhodah. Mike says he wants a kitchen. I can’t really see myself going to a weird Icelandic grocery and then trying to cook on someone else’s hopeless foreign rental cookware.

Imagine the kind of cooking equipment people leave in their houses for tourists. It can’t be good.

Rhodah is also against AirBnB. She says you go to a foreign country to try their food, not yours. Like me, she wants room service and maids.

I don’t want the homey feeling of someone else’s house. I want to avoid it. I like the cold, impersonal cleanliness of hotels. I want to know the toilets are clean, everything has been dusted, and no one’s heart will be broken if I break a glass or leave a stain on a carpet or towel.

Nothing is set in stone now, but it’s possible we could be married in a little over a month. How about that? Until today, I didn’t see it happening that soon. Marriage will open up new questions I wasn’t thinking much about. How does God feel about birth control? Should we risk having Rhodah carry and bear a child in Zambia, even if the risk is small?

Here’s a question: do I want to risk having a child who is not an American?

America has an idiotic law which says any person born on our soil is a citizen. It makes no sense, and it encourages hostile foreign women to come here to have children. It originally came from English common law. The idea was that the British king wanted to rule over everyone born in his kingdom. Why the Founding Fathers, with their leftist, sovereign-hating bent, allowed this ridiculous time bomb of a law to be adopted is beyond me. Maybe they felt America needed to build up its population.

As a result of the internal conflict over slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment reiterated the common law principle. Now we’re stuck with it.

Even the children of illegal aliens are citizens, as long as they’re born here. Unbelievably, however, there is no blanket law that makes the children of Americans citizens. Some children born abroad are citizens, and some have to apply for citizenship. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise anyone, since birthright citizenship was originally intended to help the state at the expense of the people. Maybe it makes sense that the law isn’t always helpful to us.

It sort of looks like my children would be citizens, because their mother and I would be married. A State Department release says the foreign-born child of at least one American citizen is considered a citizen at birth, as long as his parents are married. A press release isn’t the same thing as a legal opinion, however, so I don’t know how reliable this one is.

It boils down to this: marriage is not a lovers’ paradise, free of all earthly cares. I had lost sight of this well-known fact. I was thinking mostly about the other aspects of marriage. I thought I should have a partner in life. I wasn’t focused on generating my own tribe.

New blessings always bring new challenges. Like Rosanne Roseannadanna said, it’s always something.

I hope to post exciting news some time between now and the end of September.