A New Visa Scheme

Here's a thought.

Bernard Salt, the ubiquitous demographer, recently wrote this article in which he highlight that there's a 'shortage' of men in Australia. The issue is particularly worrisome for those women born in the 70s.

As an example, Salt notes that for the 169,000 women in Australia born in 1971 there are only 156,000 men in Australia born in 1969 (noting that a two year age gap is the norm for couples). This means we are short 13,000 men for that year alone - and that's before we factor in the higher incidences of homosexuality among men, or the fact that many of those men may be cloistered away digging dirt out of some Western Australian hole.

Now, as we all know from the well-worn generalisations dragged through the media, those 13,000 women are all sitting at home with their cats eating ice cream direct from the tub and lamenting that they can't "get a man". They all want to get married and have babies and for many of them time is running out.

Urgent action is required. If we don't get these women married there is likely to be catastrophic social consequences, probably in the form of a feline-borne plague.

So, here's what I propose. We should start up a visa system that will allow men (and men only) to enter into the country - but only on the proviso that a woman in her 30s wants to marry them. If they get divorced at any point in the first five years of the relationship, they will automatically be deported.

This departs markedly from the current visa system - mainly because there are no work or educational requirements and the couple don't have to know each other before the man arrives.

The details could be worked out, but the idea is that the man has to pay his own way to get here. The visa may grant a stay of three months, but during that time the man has to either be in a committed relationship with long term prospects, or have secured at least five dates per week with single women in the target age bracket. Failure to meet the requirements means deportation.

"But what if," I hear you ask "these women are not in relationships because they haven't made relationships a priority in their lives? Or what if some if them are unattractive, or emotionally manipulative or if they're not very nice people?"

All of these points are moot. Sure, the law would be stupid and is that blatantly exploitative of the men involved, but these women have needs and we as a society have to acknowledge that whether we like it or not, these needs have to be met. Besides, immigration is the "world's oldest travel".

If this post sounds logically flawed, inconsistent with our existing legal framework and blatantly sexist, please note it's just a reframing of the stupid arguments used to justify legalising prostitution.