It’s easy to assume that a woman might agree to a mail-order marriage as an act of desperation. That’s certainly true in some cases, though history is littered with examples of women actually improving their lives through this unusual system of matchmaking. This hour, we’ll talk about the practice with University of South Carolina associate law professor Marcia A. Zug, author of “Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches” (NYU Press).