Interlaced Love: Marriage among Bhutanese Refugees
The practice of arranged marriage has historically been considered central to many Southeast Asian and Indian societies. However, perceptions of this once popular custom are starting to change. Among Bhutanese refugees, arranged marriages are still commonly practiced, but the phenomenon of marriage for love is gaining popularity among both the younger and elder refugees in the camps. Schools within the camps have fostered an environment for the refugees to pursue romantic relationships with each other and have contributed to the popularity of love marriages. Education has given women more confidence in their abilities to perform jobs inside and outside of the camp, provided a space for men and women to interact outside of their traditional gender roles, and improved religious tolerance.

Although not a new phenomenon, mixed marriages between the refugees and the local Nepali community have further diversified the marriage arena. Mixed marriages have always been a potential source of conflict and confusion for refugees, but the rise of resettlement has created new avenues for tensions to arise, particularly concerning how mixed marriage affects the resettlement process, and access to Nepali citizenship. While access to education within the camps has facilitated the popularity of refugees’ love marriages, including those with local Nepali residents, resettlement has complicated how these marriages will affect their futures.

Education and Love Marriages
In each refugee camp, there are schools for children to attain up to a high school level education. Such ready access to schools was a luxury not available to the refugees who grew up in Bhutan, where many of them lived on farms far from the nearest school and were expected to work on the farm to support their family.  Today, with free education and food rations provided within the camps, the refugee children have both the means and the time to go to school and be educated.

Access to education within the camps has incentivized both men and women to pursue further education outside of the camps. Some refugees continue their schooling in nearby towns, while others move to India for school. This can affect the possibility for arranged marriages, because in arranged marriages, a man or his parents usually proposes an engagement to the woman’s family. If men and women are attending school away from the camps, it can limit possibilities for arranged marriages. While in Bhutan children could be married at as early an age as 5, it is illegal to get married in the camp before age 18. This age limit encourages young refugees to focus on other activities geared towards self-sufficiency, such as further education or employment. Rather than resorting to marriage for economic and social support, men and women can choose marriage based upon individual desires or love. This age pre-requisite, coupled with pursuing higher education outside the camps, has not only postponed marriage, but allowed young men and women to make personal and informed decisions about their marriage options.

In addition to schools, many programs exist within the camps that provide men and women vocational skill training to prepare them for jobs. These programs are supported by several international organizations such as the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). There are also distinct programs targeted for women’s empowerment that have helped improve gender equality in the camps. The emphasis on work for both men and women diverts some attention away from early marriage and allows them to think about their future in ways that incorporate employment as well as marriage. 

Rajendra is a 25-year-old pastor from Beldangi. While he spoke with us at great length about his Christian faith, he also spoke animatedly of his wife, whom he calls his “best friend.” When asked what his most significant moments have been in his life, he responded, “Finding Jesus is one, and meeting my wife is the other. She shares my happiness and sorrows with me.” Rajendra met his wife at the age of 19 when they were school classmates. As they went to school together and traveled together to college, their love developed over the course of two or three years.

Access to education has allowed younger men and women, such as Rajendra and his wife, to interact outside of gender-specific settings. Although responsibilities between genders within the camps are changing, there still remain various divisions between the responsibilities men and women hold within the camp. Women tend to spend more of their time doing domestic chores such as cleaning and food preparation. Men typically spend their time working outside the camp to provide for the family, playing caroms, or socializing at the Older Person Recreation Center. However, younger people’s social lives are much more intertwined across gender lines in school and through the activities of the Youth Friendly Center (YFC), a camp-based organization that focuses on providing enrichment activities for youth aged 18 to 25.

Rajendra and his wife’s love could develop because they had the opportunity to go to school together, exemplifying a more general phenomenon. Attending school together in the camp and beyond provides opportunities for young men and women to get to know each other as individuals. They can build relationships based on personal attraction instead of family connections. Personality, hobbies, taste, and shared experiences begin to define relationships more than family status, caste, or religion.

While camp-provided education increases the likelihood of love marriages, this is not to say that love marriages occur only among young, educated persons living in the camps. Mitra, a 60 year old man residing in Beldangi, never received an education as a child, but he had a love marriage with his wife in Bhutan. They met each other because they both grazed cattle for their families and would walk together from the fields back to their houses. After a few years, they developed a very close relationship. However, older men and women would talk about them as they walked from the fields together and criticize them for not following “proper” norms. Although Mitra and his wife got married despite their community’s criticism, it was clear that their experience of a love marriage was far from typical in the cultural context of their Bhutanese village. Decades later, love marriages are both widely accepted within the refugee camps, and are more likely given increased opportunities for young men and women to form friendships that could lead to romance.

Besides creating new spaces for young men and women to develop relationships, education has also led to less religious-based discrimination in the camps, further broadening the community’s attitudes toward marriage. Buddhism, Hinduism, Kirat, Lovism, and Christianity are all practiced within the camps. Most of these religions used to follow the practice of arranged marriage. Followers of these religions also used to believe that marrying outside one’s caste or religion was taboo. “Marrying a Christian,” Rajendra says, “used to be taboo as well. Now, with increased education, discrimination among religions does not exist.” Decreased religious discrimination in the camps has made people more accepting of non-traditional practices, including marriage across religious boundaries.

Resettlement and Marriage 
Arina, a 25-year-old woman living in Beldangi, tells us, “Due to resettlement, there has been an increased rate of arranged and love marriages.” People want to resettle as fast as possible, but at the same time they don’t want to be separated from their loved ones. Therefore, people who are in love are getting married in the camp so as not to be separated in the resettlement process.

Unfortunately, marriage can actually slow down the resettlement process since newlyweds must be incorporated into a single resettlement file. This leads some people who are not already involved in a love relationship to actively avoid marriage. Instead, they focus on preparing themselves to further their education and find employment after resettlement. “School is like a temple,” says Kamala, a 19 year old woman from Beldangi. Kamala is not married and has already begun her process for resettlement. She “wants to continue to study and find a part-time job in America,” and doesn’t plan on marrying before her departure. “I want to learn about American culture and not be focused on marriage, she explains.

Before resettlement, marriage in the camps provided the refugees with a social support system central to their culture and lifestyle. With resettlement in the near future, however, educated young adults like Kamala do not see a compelling reason to find a spouse. Providing for family in the country of resettlement means getting a job and making money, which is accessed through education. Resettlement seems to have emphasized individual and career goals over marriage, whether based in love or arranged. While education has facilitated the formation of love relationships, recent resettlement has complicated the connection between education and marriage, often influencing the refugees to prioritize education over marriage.

Mixed marriages between the Bhutanese and their Nepali neighbors have become more popular over the years. Since the refugees have been in Nepal since 1992, their presence has become more intertwined with the Nepali community, particularly through work. Out of these interactions have emerged opportunities to find marriage mates. Such marriages have always been more legally complicated than marriages between refugees. Prior to resettlement operations, complications mainly related to a Nepali spouse’s ineligibility for food rations and a refugee spouse’s uneven access to Nepali citizenship through marriage. However, in light of resettlement, additional problems have arisen.

When there is a marriage between refugees who have already applied for resettlement, their resettlement status changes. Their case is moved from the control of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) to the UNHCR. Then, it must go through verification by both the Government of Nepal and the UNHCR before going back to the IOM, which then finalizes the case for resettlement. As mentioned earlier, if a refugee is already undertaking the resettlement process, marriage can significantly slow down his or her case for resettlement. A mixed marriage between a refugee and a Nepali person can delay this process even longer. Many of the refugees do not understand why marriage slows down the resettlement process, the extent to which marriage slows this process, or how they can expedite the process.

Jagat, a 35 year old man from the Sanischare camp, is married to a local Nepali woman. They met while both were teaching in a nearby town. In the summer of 2010 he applied for his family to be resettled, but nothing has happened. He has asked the UNHCR multiple times why his case is taking so long, but he says they don’t tell him anything. He is tired of waiting and he is confused. “I know because I have a mixed marriage, it is taking longer for my case to be processed. But, why? I know other couples in mixed marriages who have already resettled.” For many like Jagat, the legal complexity of this issue has created overall confusion and tension, because they don’t understand why their cases are taking longer to be processed than those of their neighbors and friends.

Citizenship, divorce, and resettlement
If a refugee is married to a Nepali person, there may be some possibility of accessing Nepali citizenship. Legally, only female refugees can gain citizenship through a mixed marriage because citizenship is accessed only through males. Male refugees can marry Nepali women, but they do not gain Nepali citizenship and are still considered to be refugees. Furthermore, despite a female refugee’s legal option of acquiring citizenship through her Nepali husband, knowledge about where and how to obtain citizenship papers is minimal in practice, and access to the process is complicated even for men and women born in Nepal. Thus, citizenship is rarely a by-product of mixed marriages, and the refugee in such a marriage often remains stateless. If a female refugee does gain citizenship, however, being involved in a mixed marriage can act as a double-edged sword for her resettlement case. As a legal Nepali citizen, a former refugee cannot have access to resettlement. When a female refugee chooses to marry a Nepali and gains citizenship, she is choosing to leave her Bhutanese community in the camps, as well as the communities in third countries, for the rest of her life. Resettlement, thus, further complicates the question of accessing citizenship through a mixed marriage.

Barshais a 35 year old woman who lives in the Sanischare camp with her children. She is married to another Bhutanese refugee, but he has left her for a Nepali woman and is currently living outside of the camps with his second wife. Barsha and her husband are not divorced.  Similar to the ambiguity of accessing citizenship cards, the divorce process is unclear for both Bhutanese refugees and Nepali citizens. Furthermore, although Nepalese law states that a husband cannot have more than one wife, this law is rarely enforced and polygyny is still accepted. Barsha’scase exemplifies how resettlement is extremely difficult for a female refugee whose refugee husband has left them for a Nepali wife. In such cases, the Bhutanese woman becomes legally trapped because she is not technically divorced from her husband. Since resettlement is administrated by family case and Barsha is still legally bound to her absent husband, the entire family’s resettlement case is put on hold. Until she gets a divorce from her husband, she is in limbo. Resettlement operations can thus unintentionally force refugee women like Barsha, whose husbands have abandoned them to marry Nepali women, into a period of immobility and future insecurity.

Conclusion
Access to education has been a monumental factor contributing to the increase of love marriages in the Bhutanese refugee camps. Men and women have more of a choice regarding whom to marry and whether or not to have an arranged marriage because marriage is no longer the only option for economic and social support. Experience in school and in other camp organizations that bring Bhutanese refugees together across religion and gender lines also has increased the pool of potential marriageable mates.  These changes are generally viewed positively in the camps. However, those involved in mixed marriages across the Bhutanese and Nepali communities are facing more difficulties with the recent implementation of resettlement operations. It remains to be seen how the practice of love marriage will evolve in the next few years, both in the camps and in the countries of resettlement. If the refugees cannot support themselves economically in the new country, will there be an upsurge in arranged marriages? What will happen to the refugee women who don't have legal divorces from their spouses whom have left them for Nepali women? Will they ever be able to resettle?