Marriages between non-Muslim Malaysians and foreign women increased by 78 percent between 2001 and June 2006, but Deputy Home Minister Tan Chai Ho is hard-pressed to explain why.

"Malaysian men prefer foreign women because they are more manageable than local women, but that is only what I know," he said with tongue in cheek, when fielding questions from the press at the Parliament lobby today.

The brides are mainly from Indonesia, China Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Phillippines.

Earlier, he told the House that 30,465 men had married foreign women, compared to 11,112 women who were married to foreigners from Britain, India, Singapore, Indonesia and China.

Responding to Dr Mohamed Hayati Othman (PAS-Pendang) during the Question session, he explained that the data was limited to non-Muslims because information on marriage between Muslims and foreigners falls under the ambit of state religious bodies.

Fong Po Kuan (DAP - Batu Gajah) then quizzed the deputy minister as to whether the high number of men marrying foreign women could be marriages of convenience to enable these women to remain in the country.

Replied Tan: "This issue is about love affairs (laughs). When two people fall in love, it is difficult for us to determine whether marriage between two people is genuine or not.

"When they apply for a marriage certificate we will check whether the documents are valid, especially for foreign women. If you don't know what a love affair is, then you should go find a boyfriend."

This drew laughter from parliamentarians.

Tan also told reporters that his ministry is currently investigating cases of very young girls marrying senior citizens, as well as a case in Sabah where a young boy is married to a woman in her 60s.

"When we visited them and asked why they weren't living together, the woman said she knows for a fact that he won't sleep with her. It is difficult to investigate, but she showed us the marriage certificate," he said.

"If marriages are found to be fraudulent, we will send the foreigners back and revoke the marriage licence."

Tan also disclosed that non-Muslim divorce rates increased from 3,236 cases in 2001 to 5,244 in 2005.

Reasons cited were irreconcilable differences (30 percent), financial problems (20 percent), sexual problems, physical and mental violence, third party intrusion and irresponsibility (10 percent each).

Of the total number of divorces, 18 percent involved 18-29 year olds.