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From Our Own Correspondent: Weekend Edition 28 Sep 2013: The Love Hunters

Weekend Edition 28 Sep 2013: The Love Hunters

28/09/2013

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Weekend Edition 28 Sep 2013: The Love Hunters

Stories of courtship and family life from China, Italy, Turkey, India and Martinique

Courtship and marriage: the "love hunters" stalking China, recession-hit Italian Romeos, bride prices in Turkey, India's "sorority of the abused" and Martinique's 'belles chabines'

Tales of courtship, marriage and family life from around the world. Lucy Ash meets the "love hunters" scouring China's malls for suitable brides for their agencies' wealthy clients. It might seem with a shortfall of millions of women in the population, men would be willing to settle - but not these ones. Meanwhile, in rural areas, poorer men woul be happy to meet and marry "anyone at all". In Milan, Emma Jane Kirby lends a sympathetic ear to the Italian Romeos hit hard by economic contraction. Is the Casanova figure a man of the past? Diana Darke explains why Turkey's enormous dam-building project has bumped up bride prices in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. Rupa Jha speaks out for India's "sorority of the abused" - the uncountable victims of sexual abuse within the family home. And in Fort de France, Lindsay Johns reflects on what Martinique's obsession with skin colour and 'belles chabines' reveals about the island's deepest desires.

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