Bhutan’s rare form of polygamy, in which men or women take several sisters or brothers as partners, is dying out as the kingdom modernizes, with last week’s royal wedding another sign of its demise. The king, 31-year-old Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, married and crowned Jetsun Pema, the commoner daughter of an airline pilot, on Thursday in a colorful Buddhist ceremony in the ancient capital of Punakha.
In his speech announcing the nuptials in May, Wangchuck made clear that Pema would be his only wife — a distinct departure from his father, who married four sisters in 1979, all of whom were crowned queen in the same ceremony.
The Wangchuck dynasty dates back to 1907 and includes four other kings before the current monarch, three of who married multiple women.
The practice has its roots in traditional Bhutanese social structures, explained Francoise Pommaret, an expert and author on Bhutan.
“Living with several sisters, mostly found in the center or the east, or with several brothers, mostly found in the north, allowed them to keep property in one family,” she said.
The decline in polygamy is linked to changing attitudes in Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation sandwiched between India and China that has resisted outside influence for centuries.
The country banned television until 1999 and continues to restrict the number of tourists who visit its stunning mountains and valleys with rules ensuring minimum spends of up to US$200 a day.
However, with TV and the Internet now widely available and foreign education more common, young Bhutanese are increasingly turning their backs on some of the more unusual parts of the local culture.
Polygamy exists now only in small nomadic communities which live with their animals for most of the year high in the Himalayas, according to Dasha Karma Ura from the Center for Bhutan Studies, a think tank.
“The king is rooted in the modern age. He announced to the country during his address to the parliament that they’ll [he and his bride] devote their life to each other until his death,” he said.
The king’s monogamous intentions are not the only difference between him and his father, who abdicated voluntarily in 2006 to make way for his son and a fledgling democracy.
The young Wangchuck is openly affectionate, holding hands with his new queen and even kissing her in public on Saturday on the last of three days of public celebrations to mark the event.
Public displays of affection are not uncommon in Bhutan, but the sight of the love-struck king being so open with his emotions represents a severe rupture from the past.
“We know that they love each other so much,” said high-school student Rinzin Dema, who was in the crowd to see the royal couple on Saturday.
“Seeing our king and the queen, it’s like an inspiration to us that in the future we should be the same husband and wife like that,” he added.
Pommaret says the idea of relationships has changed, partly because of soap operas on TV.
“Relationships on the basis of practical considerations have given way to the idea of romantic love. And the king is an example,” she said. “You should have seen him go red in the parliament when he announced the name of his fiancee!”
The head of the opposition in parliament, Tshering Tobgay, said he remembered many more polygamous couples as a child, but now there are barely any in or around the capital.
He joked that he would be interested in multiple wives — if only it were practical.
“I’d love to do it, but I can’t see how I could be happy,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing