The wedding in Kro Bao Ach Kok
Two women, one village, one celebration: in 1995, Khav Sokha and Pum Eth married with the blessing of the authorities. An isolated case.
On 12 March 1995, the village of Kro Bao Ach Kok, about fourteen kilometres from Phnom Penh, celebrated a wedding that the whole country was soon talking about. Khav Sokha and Pum Eth said "I do". Both were women.
More than two hundred and fifty guests came: relatives, neighbours and many curious onlookers. Sokha, then thirty-five, wore a shirt and trousers, had short hair and referred to herself in the male form in Khmer. Eth, thirty-one, simply called her "my husband". The two had met only a few months earlier. Sokha travelled from village to village as a healer and treated Eth, who had been ill for years. After her recovery, the proposal followed in January. Eth said yes at once and sent two male suitors away.
The road to the wedding was nevertheless rocky. The authorities found the request strange. In the end, they were convinced by a very practical argument: Sokha already had three children from a previous marriage. Two childless women, it was said, would not have been allowed to marry. By the wedding day, the ice had melted so far that one of the governors of Kandal province gave the couple fifty dollars.
Legally, this marriage should never have existed. The 1989 family law describes marriage as a contract between a man and a woman, and the 1993 constitution speaks of "a husband and a wife". Nevertheless, the union is considered the only known same-sex civil marriage in Cambodia's history.
After three days of honeymoon with Eth's parents, the couple moved in with Sokha's mother. There, the two told the Phnom Penh Post, every day was a honeymoon.
The wedding nevertheless remained an isolated case. Since 2018, same-sex couples in many communes have at least been able to sign a "declaration of family relationship". It is not legally binding but offers a first measure of protection.