The woman is looking for ticket to the US and finds out she married a pig.
The man is looking for a submissive Russian sexpot and finds out he married a gold digger.
Yeah, it's difficult to figure out what to make of these things.
Hardly all of these are symbolic marriages, many legitimate couples meet this way. (Though statistically it's not many, something like 9% of K-1 Visa holders return to their home country after a year).
I'll wager that the guys aren't always pigs.It's just like divorce here in this country.It's now SOP for a woman in a divorce case to claim spousal and/or child abuse. Even if it's not true,she has an important leg up in the case.
Same with Russian women.They come here,they claim abuse, they get an immediate green card (under current Federal law) and before you know it,she's got a green card,a welfare check and she's hooked up with a guy named Vladimir from Brighton Beach.
Sad but true.
I would think the success rate for these marriages is spectacularly low.
I suppose every now and then a couple finds love this way, but with such crass cross purposes, it has got to be damned rare.
That bout summs it up don't it ;-)