Marriage Preference in Tibetan Society

Tibet under the rule of Ganden Palace before 1950 perhaps has the most variety of marriage type than any other society. The marriage preference in Tibet is very different from others. Generally, there are two types of marriage – monogamy (singular marriage) and polygamy (plural marriage). Within polygamy, there are polygyny (one husband, more than one wife), polyandry (one wife, more than one husband), and polygynandry (more than one husband, more than one wife). Among all the forms of marriage, general economic concerns were fundamental. The marriage were arranged to be efficient and practical, rather than considered to be religious or moral.

The social stratification and household formation in traditional Tibet had tremendous impacts on marriage preference. With that in mind, we have to analyze the property ownership, economy, and social classes in Tibet first. In Tibet, the fundamental productive resource was land and the basic unit of production was the household (Kapstein, 175). Under the Dalai Lama's regime, ordinary people were not the legal owner of the land where their livelihoods depended. In general, the land was the property of the ruler, this means, the Dalai Lama. The lands were organized into estates, which had been granted by the Dalai Lama's government to the three major landlords – a noble (gerpa), a monastery (gompa), or the government itself (the state). These landlords retain their estates by hereditary entitlement so that they are not technically the property owner, but they do have supremacy over peasants and they had the responsibility to ensure peasants to fulfill their obligations. The estates were where most peasants live, they were granted the right to use the lands with inalienable obligations of service and tax payment. So the common people were basically bound to the estates. This is very important for the marriage preference in Tibet, because the land was one of the main considerations in marriage arrangement.

The Tibetan government was financed by the taxation of peasantry. Taxes were mostly non-monetary, but often in the form of goods and services. The ordinary people in Tibet were generally called miser, literally means the "yellow men". The most important class among miser was the taxpayers (trelpa). Trelpa are the landed commoners and they are relatively more affluent than other misers. They had hereditary rights to farming or grazing lands as long as the household continued to exist. However, they must pay taxes to the central government, mostly in the form of their productions, labor, and transport service (corvée). Since they are tight to the estates, they were not allowed to move freely. Other misers included the landless düchung (small smoke) who normally survived by tenant farming or by employment in trelpa family; and drokpa (nomads), who were also commoners but did not till the soil or live on a fixed allotment of land.

From those of the higher to