Is it just me or is this case a weird gender double standard?
She’s 59, he’s 22 and fighting to stay in NZ
A couple’s age gap of nearly 40 years is being cited as one of the reasons Immigration New Zealand declined an Indian man’s visa application – a move he says is “ageist”.
Balwinder Singh, 22, met New Zealander Glyn Kessell, 59, at a hair salon in Glenfield last year.
The relationship started with texts, progressed to “intimacy” within three weeks and then marriage two months later.
Mr Singh said he was “madly, passionately in love” with his wife and the relationship had “hit off right from the start”.
But officials do not believe the partnership is genuine and stable.
What is the real issue here? I see old white men walking hand in hand with much younger asian women all the time in Central Auckland, society doesn’t blink an eyelid at that, yet the idea a younger man might find an older woman attractive enough to fall in love and marry them is a suspicious move that must be investigated?
How many times do Immigration investigate those older white chaps and their new brides from overseas? Doesn’t this reek of a double standard?
I get the feeling that it’s our cultural norms dictating this investigation rather than any genuine concerns. Aren’t we really revealing what we think of older women here?
It smells bad.
I have noticed over the years that Immigration seems to be ruled by a kind of weird tribal male unconciousness as
… we can let in women, coming here to marry, cos that increases potentially available females but don’t let in men, to marry ,cos that increases the competition.
Sounds crazy and not logical, I know, but that is the conclusion I have come to after many years of dealing with them.
Even if the relationship isn’t stable, what the hell is the problem? Can’t we fit one young Sikh guy?
In my experience, the older Kiwis who find young 3rd world wives blame Kiwi women for their plight – for being too demanding, not staying in the kitchen enough, etc. I’d say this is just another example of the same thing – this woman is supposed to accept some boring old drunk or get nothing at all. Of course it’s a double standard, and part of the general way in which Kiwi culture is biased against women.
I wish them luck, and hope they can both stay.
This is the bit that bugs me. Immigration have gone into the home and, IMO, determined that the two sleep in different rooms. From this and what they consider the norm (that couples always sleep together) they’ve decided that they’re not married. If that’s the case then it just shows immigration’s ignorance. Plenty of couples sleep apart (appears it’s a growing trend) and many believe that doing so improves their sex life and their relationship.
Yes, I’m reading between the lines but I’d say that it was a bunch of officials putting their own version of what’s normal forward and getting it wrong.
Even if the relationship isn’t stable, what the hell is the problem?
There isn’t a problem. The Immigration dept enforces the rules we’ve set for immigration. One of those rules is that a marriage of convenience isn’t an acceptable basis for immigration. The dept is trying to figure out whether this one falls into that category or not. As far as I can see, everything here’s working like we asked it to.
Immigration have gone into the home and, IMO, determined that the two sleep in different rooms.
I expect so. If you suspect a marriage of convenience, you’ve got to take what evidence you can get when it comes to deciding whether it is one or not. Usually the evidence is crap.
A friend of mine married someone to help them get permanent residency once (decades ago, before immigration became Winston Peters’ plaything). Immigration smelt a rat and gave them a really good going over to see how well their “marriage” fit the mould – which didn’t really work, because among alternative types a marriage never looks the way ordinary people think it should. You most likely don’t have wedding rings, the same names etc. His marriage of convenience didn’t look much less like a real one than mine, which was a real one.
An unstable relationship is not a marriage of convenience. Please try to keep up.
Try reading the linked article. Immigration thinks this is a marriage of convenience – how diplomatically they word it is irrelevant.
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