Reconstructing the Small Family After Democratic Kampuchea

Abstract

This chapter describes how in Cambodia, the communist Khmer Rouge regime, which was responsible for widespread death and destruction, also banned all prerevolutionary wedding traditions. The state organization (Angkar) took over the spouse-matching process. Given the importance of marriage in Cambodian society for personal and family networks, the authors find that the Khmer Rouge regime’s attempt to alter wedding traditions profoundly affected the country’s social fabric. Despite the unorthodox marriage practices during the Khmer Rouge, many of these couples stayed together after the regime’s collapse. Drawing upon 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork among survivors of forced marriage and their families, the authors examine how these socially and spiritually problematic unions affected the children born as a result of the arrangements. Within these complicated family environments, children of forced marriages often feel pressure to both manage their parents’ emotions and to help compensate for what their parents lost during decades of violence and turmoil.