It’s a custom almost every Bhutanese knows about, but would rather not discuss. An old courtship ritual that—depending on who you ask—is “predatory” or just “misunderstood”.
Bomena, as ‘night hunting’ was originally called in the Bhutanese tongue, literally means ‘going towards a girl’. “…this courtship involves a boy stealthily entering a girl’s house at night for courtship or coitus with or without prior consultation,” Dorji Penjore, a researcher at Centre for Bhutan Studies and GNH Research, writes in his book Love, Courtship and Marriage in Rural Bhutan. “(Bomena) is an institution through which young people find their partners and get married… Ideally, the process culminates in the morning, with what is locally called jai da jong (meaning ‘coming to the surface’) when the boy is found on the girl’s bed, which is an indication to declare them husband and wife,” he writes.
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