Whom to Marry?

This work analyzes spouse selection preferences between Kyrgyz men and men from Western countries of highly-educated Kyrgyz women in terms of their Western education and international experience. By referring to the literature about spouse selection patterns and mixed-marriages, this work shows that the women of the study tend to pay more attention to the kinship relations in their spouses¿ families than to any other of the marriage aspects. The study argues that these Kyrgyz women prefer nuclear families with Western men over joining extended families of Kyrgyz men in order to avoid the downshift in the hierarchical structure of the Kyrgyz families from a higher position of an ordinary member of their own families to the disadvantaged position of a kelin (the daughter-in-law) in their Kyrgyz husbands¿ families.