Bhutan Marriage and Family Life
Bhutanese girl, wearing traditional kira and
jewelry
Courtesy Bhutan Travel, Inc., New York (Marie Brown)
The traditional practice, arranged marriages based on
family
and ethnic ties, has been replaced in the late twentieth
century
with marriages based on mutual affection. Marriages were
usually
arranged by the partners in contemporary Bhutan, and the
minimum
age was sixteen for women and twenty-one for men. The
institution
of child marriage, once relatively widespread, had largely
declined
as Bhutan modernized, and there were only remnants of the
practice
in the late twentieth century. Interethnic marriages, once
forbidden, were encouraged in the late 1980s by an
incentive of a
Nu10,000 (for value of the
ngultrum--see Glossary)
government
stipend to willing couples. The stipend was discontinued
in 1991,
however. Marriages of Bhutanese citizens to foreigners,
however,
have been discouraged. Bhutanese with foreign spouses were
not
allowed to obtain civil service positions and could have
their
government scholarships cancelled and be required to repay
portions
already received. Foreign spouses were not entitled to
citizenship
by right but had to apply for naturalization.
Polyandry was abolished and polygamy was restricted in
the midtwentieth century, but the law in the 1990s still allowed
a man as
many as three wives, providing he had the first wife's
permission.
The first wife also had the power to sue for divorce and
alimony if
she did not agree. In the 1980s, divorce was common, and
new laws
provided better benefits to women seeking alimony.
Family life, both traditionally and in the contemporary
period,
was likely to provide for a fair amount of
self-sufficiency.
Families, for example, often made their own clothing,
bedding,
floor and seat covers, tablecloths, and decorative items
for daily
and religious use. Wool was the primary material, but
domestic silk
and imported cotton were also used in weaving colorful
cloth, often
featuring elaborate geometric, floral, and animal designs.
Although
weaving was normally done by women of all ages using
family-owned
looms, monks sometimes did embroidery and appliqué work.
In the
twentieth century, weaving was possibly as predominant a
feature of
daily life as it was at the time of Bhutan's unification
in the
seventeenth century.
Landholdings varied depending on the wealth and size of
individual families, but most families had as much land as
they
could farm using traditional techniques. A key element of
family
life was the availability of labor. Thus, the choice of
the home of
newlyweds was determined by which parental unit had the
greatest
need of supplemental labor. If both families had a
sufficient
supply of labor, then a bride and groom might elect to set
up their
own home.
Data as of September 1991
|