Marital Practices

The Bhutanese culture of courtship and marriage differs from region to region. In many parts of central and eastern Bhutan, the young men court their lovers under the cover of dark in a practice of night prawling. In other parts, marriages are arranged either by the family or by friends. The common Bhutanese do not have weddings; the couple simply began their life together by co-habiting. The nobilities of Bhutan often had arranged marriages and wedding ceremony styled on Tibetan weddings. Southern Bhutanese who are descendants of immigrants from Nepali followed a courtship and marriage similar to the ethnic practices in Nepal. However, some unique courtship and marriage cultures exist among the remote ethnic communities in Bhutan.