When Canadian-born Marshall McLuhan coined the term ‘global village’ in the 1960s, he wasn’t referring to intercontinental lovemaking. Rather, he was more concerned with the “instantaneous movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time”.

Humans would soon follow suit, scratching the itch left by the travel bug’s first bite. In 2013, there was an average of 99 726 flights per day across a global highway with 49 871 routes. Mal, hey?

Anyways, let’s get back to why it would be easier not to marry a foreigner in the motherland.

What’s the rest of the world doing? Huff Post has the goods:

According to a report in the Economist, in 2010 over 10 percent of marriages in South Korea included a foreigner. In France, international marriages reached 16 percent in 2009. Local numbers are scarce, but one estimate put the share of South African men married to foreign women in 2000 at 3,3 percent.

So we’re behind, but maybe it’s a good thing. Reddy, a mid-30s law graduate from Durban is living with her husband, Andy, in Germany. She’s got first-hand experience:

Indian families don’t really recognise personal space whereas Germans take that very seriously.

In Germany, I have to keep explaining things like my South African Indian history.

That doesn’t sound too intense though, does it?

Rebecca Kaissi is married to a Moroccan dude – Ilyas – with cultural ties that go deeper than one would think. Their toughest challenges came in the form of family and friends who thought that Ilyas was just “in it for the papers”.

On top of that, Home Affairs were up to their usual:

It was a real emotional struggle, I mean we had almost been married for a decade and we had a child together and when the new visa laws came out in 2014, I thought it was all going to fall apart.

If this isn’t enough to scare you off, we’ve compiled a little list that may slow your heart rate next time you see an outlandish foreign beauty. As promised, here are five reasons why not to marry a foreigner in SA:

• Your foreign spouse’s family may have vastly different ways of raising children. Trust me, this one is big.
• Either one of you will be without your family – on the other side of the world. Skype is cool and all, but you can’t hug an iPad without looking weird.
• It’s not uncommon for a foreign partner to wait years for a work or spousal permit.
• Oh ja, the language barrier. What you’re saying can and most probably will be interpreted completely differently to how you meant it.
• Ever spent a couple of gruesome hours in the Home Affairs queue? Sorry, stupid question.

Another Saffa, Nikki Schöntauf, gave Huff Post some more insight into her husband’s battle with residency in SA:

“It was our dream to live in South Africa, but we are at the mercy of a system that is messing with people’s lives with no accountability.

They’re pretty much left with no choice but to leave the country.

How far would you go to leave?

[source: huffingtonpost]