What It Means to Make a Military Man: Masculinity and Marriage in the Armed Forces

Many militaries have explicitly or implicitly benefited from the connections between military service, masculinity, and marriageability. Writing on the British military in the 1700s, Hurl-Eamon observes that soldiers could be enticed both by the military’s reputation for swashbuckling womanizing (noting “the words of an early nineteenth-century ballad refrain: ‘storm the trenches court the wenches’” expressed “key elements of the soldiering life”) and because marriage may have been easier as a soldier than as an apprentice (Reference Hurl-EamonHurl-Eamon, 2014: 105). Such associations between access to women and military service remain relevant hundreds of years later. Reflecting on Bolivia, Gill writes that men serve “to earn respect from women (mothers, wives, sisters, and girlfriends) and male peers, both as defenders of the nation and, more broadly, as strong, responsible male citizens who can make decisions and lead” (Reference GillGill, 1997: 527). Similarly, one American veteran recalled:

The link between military service, masculinity, and marriage is not merely used to entice recruits – in many cases, marriage becomes an important part of the way the military regulates soldiers’ lives. Studies of military management of marriage underscore how the measures taken to regulate soldiers’ sexual activity include the creation of systems of sexual slavery (Reference SohSoh, 2008), tolerating and regulating prostitution (Reference LieLie, 1997; Reference BrathwaiteBrathwaite, 2017; Reference RoblinRoblin, 2018), and dictating whom soldiers can marry and the services provided to those partners (Reference BranstetterBranstetter, 1983; Reference ZimmermanZimmerman, 2020). Thus, the regulation of soldiers’ sexual and romantic lives is often a way to bolster the ranks of the organization, as well as to maintain order within the group and cultivate loyalty to it. The prospect of maintaining military order by way of regulations on marriage relies on the idea that there are ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ forms of marriage and masculinity – and the notion that the organization offers a path to the former.

Reform regarding military marriage regulations often came about not only because of shifting social or political mores but also because of assessments by military and political leaders that the benefits outweigh the costs for the military as an organization (Reference Parsons, Killingray and OmissiParsons, 2017).Footnote ¹² Reflecting on the British Army in the Victorian era, Reference TrustramTrustram (1984) notes that

Lest we historicize state efforts to regulate the sexual and marital lives of soldiers, it is worth underscoring that modern militaries extend considerable effort managing marriages among soldiers. For example, the US military has reportedly provided more than a quarter of a million marital and relationship counseling sessions in recent years, representing a significant expenditure of time and resources (Reference KimeKime, 2020). While some military organizations embrace marriage, others see it as incompatible with the military lifestyle and rely on single recruits. The French Foreign Legion’s website, as of June 2023, states that the “lifestyle” of legionnaires “corresponds to that of a single person” (emphasis in original).Footnote ¹³

Furthermore, as a venue for peer socialization, marriage can contribute to or detract from a military member’s commitment to service.Footnote ¹⁴ Zimmerman notes that “West African administrators lauded mesdames tirailleurs,” West African women who actively contributed to the colonial conquest through their relationships with West African men within the colonial branch of the French military, “as essential to troop retention and stabilization on colonial campaigns” (Reference ZimmermanZimmerman, 2020: 64). In the modern US Army, Family Readiness Groups (FRGs) are a form of support to military families that depends upon the uncompensated time and emotional labor of army spouses (generally the wives of servicemen). Reference GassmannGassman (2010) underscores that “Family members influence soldiers’ decisions to enter and stay in the Army, and Family Readiness Groups became increasingly standardized as the Army sought, also increasingly, to protect its investment in soldiers willing and able to continue to serve” (p. 249). While designed to support military families, involvement in FRGs is also a way of socializing army spouses and of making service a family affair, with the objective of retaining soldiers. Failing to effectively engage military spouses can be detrimental to retention, as demonstrated by a study of the partners of British reservists and their spouses who were frustrated with “picking up the slack” at home during their partners’ service (Reference Basham and CatignaniBasham and Catignani, 2018: 155). Thus, both formal marriage regulations and informal socialization processes shape the lives of military spouses, and especially military wives.

In short, we have compelling evidence that marriage has been and continues to be an important aspect of soldiers’ lives that is subject to regulation by military higher-ups. These accounts suggest a cost-benefit analysis undergirding militaries’ approach to marriage – an approach we will apply to rebel groups in the section on the STORM framework.

Military Wife, Military Life

Militaries’ efforts to manage marriage have profound implications for the nonmilitary spouse in these unions (who is often, though certainly not universally, female), both in times of war and in times of peace. Feminist security scholars have identified how the concept of a “military wife” has been a way of militarizing women’s lives, harnessing their (often unpaid) labor, and sustaining the war effort (Reference EnloeEnloe, 2000). This organizational benefit is conditioned on women performing certain tasks and adopting certain behaviors. The socialization of women into their roles as “military wives” entails dressing and comporting themselves in a certain way; failure to conform can result in ostracization and can even imply ramifications for their partner’s career. Within American military communities, derogatory terms (such as “dependapotamus”)Footnote ¹⁵ and stereotypes (such as being unfaithful to deployed spouses) have emerged to police spouses’ behavior (Reference Cornelius and Monk-TurnerCornelius and Monk-Turner, 2019).

The marriages and sexual relationships that soldiers have during war have implications for the postwar social, political, cultural, and legal order – and for women’s lives especially. Consider, for example, the War Brides Act adopted by the United States in 1945, which paved the way for the immigration of more than 100,000 spouses and children associated with US servicemen abroad (Reference ReimersReimers, 1992: 22). Images of these foreign “war brides” became important political and cultural symbols; Reference SimpsonSimpson (2002) notes that “settling into domestic life in the 1950s, with little fanfare, as unfamiliar national subjects who had formerly been citizens of an enemy nation, Japanese war brides soon became meaningful figures in the discourse on racial integration and cultural pluralism” (p. 151), contributing to the debates about racial integration in the United States.

Zimmerman notes that there was greater support from the French colonial system to repatriate children that resulted from relationships between West African soldiers and Vietnamese women than to facilitate the movement of Vietnamese women to West Africa. Separating mothers from their children was a traumatic affair; she writes “the Vietnamese mothers who reported to ports to surrender their Afro-Vietnamese children to representatives of the French military did so in hysterics. Veteran Bakary Bieye believed that these women would have thrown themselves into the sea if there had not been a tall barrier at the quay” (Reference ZimmermanZimmerman, 2020: 191). Those family units that lived together in West Africa faced a series of challenges, including the difficulties of navigating significant cultural differences (Reference ZimmermanZimmerman, 2020).Footnote ¹⁶

In summary, the literature on marriages and state militaries underscores the variation between countries and over time. It also highlights the ways in which marriage is a subject with implications for both organizational operations and individual experiences (particularly for women), both during and after war. With these dynamics in mind, we can now turn to the literature on rebel marriage specifically.

Rebel Marriage Systems at the Organizational Level

Though generally overlooked in the security studies literature, accounts examining rebel marriage have attributed these practices to a variety of rebel characteristics, including ideology, their efforts to recruit, retain, and control their members, and their system of governance in their areas of operations. In this section, I consider these explanations for rebel marriage regulations in turn and underscore the gaps in our current understanding.

A number of accounts underscore the relationship between rebels’ approach to marriage and their ideology or organizational objectives. Reference DonnellyDonnelly (2018), for example, underscores the connection between gender norms and rebels’ strategy and asserts that “if we do not see decisions about marriage as strategic, we miss key insights into a group’s values and operations” (p. 460). Reference MoghadamMoghadam’s (1995) study of revolutionary movements contrasts the “Women’s Emancipation Model” of revolution with the “Woman-in-the-Family Model”; in the former, women are regarded “as part of the productive forces and citizenry, to be mobilized for economic and political purposes; she is to be liberated from patriarchal controls expressly for that purpose,” whereas the latter “constructs an ideological linkage between patriarchal values, nationalism, and the religious order” and “assigns women the role of wife and mother, and associates women not only with family but with tradition, culture, and religion” (pp. 335–336). Rebel marriage policies may be an important articulation of rebels’ gender ideology, defined as the “attitudes regarding the appropriate roles, rights, and responsibilities of women and men in society,” and can thus play an important role in rebel governance or state-building (Reference Kroska and RitzerKroska, 2007; Reference AhramAhram, 2018).Footnote ¹⁷ Thus, the organizational objectives and beliefs of rebel groups shape their approach to marriage.

For example, reflecting on the policies of the LRA in Uganda, Reference BainesBaines (2014) notes that “the regulation of sexual relations became an organizing principle of the ‘new Acholi’ and forced marriage became a way of reproducing – literally giving birth to – the nation” (p. 406). Reference DonnellyDonnelly (2018) connects their system of forced marriage and bans on extramarital sexual activity to their political objectives, underscoring how “the control of women’s bodies and sexual behaviour was in line with the LRA’s political goals because they wanted to protect the moral purity of the new Acholi nation they were trying to create” (p. 469). The system of courtship and marriage established by the rebels differed significantly from traditional Acholi culture; Reference BainesBaines (2014) notes that “the LRA both duplicates and purposefully violates Acholi sociality” (p. 409) through this practice in order to create this new society. As such, life in the rebellion was meaningfully structured around the family unit, with a system of forced marriage at its core.

Other rebel organizations’ political objectives and ideological commitments lead them to never allow marriage or to approach the institution with skepticism. For example, though the organization has operated for decades, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has not permitted marriage among rebels. Rather than allowing marriages, the FARC established a system in which many “relationships were fixed term contracts” that could be dissolved by members of the relationship or by their military superiors (Reference Gutiérrez-SanínGutiérrez-Sanín, 2018: 639).Footnote ¹⁸ Reference Estrada-FuentesEstrada-Fuentes (2016) relays an illustrative account from a female ex-combatant from the FARC who recalled:

Thus, romantic and sexual partnerships were permitted in the FARC but were carefully managed to discourage romance displacing commitment to the cause. Maintaining women’s presence in the rebel group is an important component of the rebels’ political project (as a leftist organization with a commitment to gender equality) but one that is threatened by romantic ties undermining individual commitment to rebellion and the possibility of pregnancy reducing their readiness and fighting forces. To reduce the potential cost to the organization, the rebels strictly controlled the sexual activities of its members. Thus, even in a situation in which marriage was not permitted, the rebels’ management of affairs of the heart should not be read to imply a laissez-faire approach to rebels’ sex lives; rather, the FARC’s admission of women and its regulations with respect to rebel sexuality reflect its efforts “to absorb the totality of the life of its fighters,” fulfilling the rebels’ ideological program (Reference Sanín and Carranza FrancoSanín and Carranza Franco, 2017: 770–771). The FARC’s approach to marriage reflects competing organizational interests and beliefs.

While rebels’ belief systems and objectives exercise some influence over their approach to marriage, there is striking intra-ideological variation among groups. While the FARC’s leftist ideology has been paired with a long-standing ban on marriage, other leftist groups like the CPN-M and the TPLF have allowed marriage.Footnote ¹⁹ One of the few comparative studies of rebel marriage, Donnelly’s path-breaking study of the LRA and al-Shabaab argues that the system of forced marriage that rebel groups construct reflects whether they have an “ideology of social control” (meaning those who “are seeking to create an ideal community” and which Donnelly connects to religious and patriarchal beliefs) (Reference DonnellyDonnelly, 2019: 18) and the type of cohesion that they want to build, whether within the rebel group or by developing closer ties to the community (Reference DonnellyDonnelly, 2019: 17). Donnelly’s work suggests that we must consider not only the beliefs of the rebels but also the operational considerations and personnel requirements of rebels if we are to understand their approach to marriage.

Indeed, a number of accounts suggest that rebels’ marriage policies can attract recruits to the organization and encourage them to remain loyal to the rebellion (Reference MarksMarks, 2013; Reference Hudson and MatfessHudson and Matfess, 2017). As I detail elsewhere, there are several ways that rebel groups can leverage grievances with marriage practices to facilitate recruitment: by providing resources to make it easier to get married, lowering the cost of marriage, identifying potential wives and arranging marriages, or offering a more appealing vision of marriage. Furthermore, these recruitment tactics can be used to attract support from both men and women.Footnote ²⁰

Of course, rebel groups are not only concerned with the number of recruits in their ranks; they are also concerned about the quality of these recruits and their commitment to the organization. Weinstein’s foundational account of rebel recruitment suggests that material resources and incentives attract opportunistic – and thus perhaps low-quality – recruits (Reference WeinsteinWeinstein, 2006). So, when rebel groups provide tangible incentives to recruits, they must be wary of attracting flighty members. In order to account for the possibility of their marriage-related recruitment strategies attracting opportunistic members, it appears that rebel groups have adopted practices associated with marriage to render it both a recruitment tool and a screening mechanism. Reference ForneyForney (2015) notes that screening and “rites of passage” (p. 827) can impose costs on members that deter opportunistic recruits from committing to the organization. One of the ways that rebels can structure marriage recruitment policies to ensure that they are recruiting committed rebels is to put preconditions on marriage or to use it as a reward for service to the rebellion.Footnote ²¹ In the LRA, for example, the rebels’ lack of “material wealth or popular support” resulted in the rebels using the allocation of wives as a reward system and incentive structure (Reference KramerKramer, 2012: 28). Reference KramerKramer (2012) notes

In other instances, rebels have required that members serve for a certain number of years prior to being wed; in the LTTE, for example, one of the two partners had to have spent at least five years as a member (Reference RodrigoThamizhini, 2020). These reforms reflect concerns about the effect of the institution of marriage on the durability of rebellion and the quality of the recruits.

As several accounts of rebel marriage systems underscore, marriage is not only a way of attracting members; it can also serve as a way in which the rebels maintain order and control within their ranks (Reference BainesBaines, 2014; Reference DonnellyDonnelly, 2019). Not only did the LRA’s policies regarding marriage help reproduce the “New Acholi,” but it also was designed to strengthen intra-rebel cohesion. The LRA’s system of forced marriages “created dependence and loyalty to commanders in the LRA that transcended kinship lineages” (Reference BainesBaines, 2014: 411); furthermore “restricting sex outside of forced marriages may have been strategically beneficial for the LRA because it enforced the cohesion created through its marriage system” (Reference DonnellyDonnelly, 2018: 469). Marriage became a marker of intra-rebel hierarchy, as the number and individual characteristics of a man’s wives reflected his status within the organization (Reference Carlson and MazuranaCarlson and Mazurana, 2008).

Similarly, in Sierra Leone the Revolutionary United Front’s approach to marriage contributed to the rise of a “parallel society in the bush” (Reference MarksMarks, 2013: 364). Reference MarksMarks (2013) notes that marriage served several objectives for the organization, particularly related to maintaining control and hierarchy within the organization:

Yet, just as not all rebels see marriage or affection as furthering their political or ideological objectives, not all rebel groups see marriage as imparting greater control over their members. In some instances, romantic love and the desire to be married have been interpreted as threats to the cohesion and continuation of the rebellion. A defector named Makai from the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a militant group in India, told the BBC in 2002, after surrendering to police, “I was fed up with killing people. I was fed up with running around in the jungles. When I fell in love with Sharmila [a female rebel], I was determined to marry her and flee.” Makai and Sharmila were not the only members of the NLFT who fell in love and left the organization; the report notes that “after marriage, many of the guerrilla couples started fleeing from the bases and some of them surrendered” (Reference BhaumikBhaumik, 2002). Those who were caught by the rebels were executed; not only did rebel leadership deem it necessary to kill those rebels but it also stopped accepting women into its ranks (Reference BhaumikBhaumik, 2002). Thus, rebels falling in love, getting married, and seeking to leave the group was recognized as a significant threat to the rebels’ activities and prompted a shift in their policies and practices. These changes had personnel and operational implications, particularly with respect to the inclusion of women and girls.

Weaving together the ways in which political objectives and operational concerns influence rebels’ approach to marriage, recent studies connect rebels’ marriage policies to their state-building (Reference AhramAhram, 2018) and governance efforts. These are, of course, connected to groups’ beliefs and political objectives but also reflect the organization’s capability, material resources, and organizational capacity. As Giri (2023) notes,

Similarly, Reference AhramAhram (2018) underscores that “rebel state-building is a distinctly gendered practice,” meaning that the rebels’ regulations regarding things like marriage are integral to such projects.

Rebel governance efforts can extend beyond the group’s ranks to affect civilians’ marriage practices and eligibility. Such governance can bolster or threaten the rebels’ odds of survival and success. As Reference DonnellyDonnelly (2019) notes, the reception of community members to the rebels’ marriage policies can have significant implications for the rebels’ reputation and ability to operate. While some rebels’ practices of marriage have led to community condemnation, other rebels have brokered important alliances through marriage. Consider, for example, the marriages of Mokhtar Belmokhtar (“a central player in the West African jihad”) to Berber and Tuareg women, which “further extend his network in the Sahel”.

Yet, as the literature on rebel governance and state-building in general underscores, aspirations and objectives alone cannot “deliver the goods,” so to speak. Armed groups’ capabilities, such as their degree of territorial control, extent and sources of funding, efforts to broker ties to the international community, and organizational infrastructure, shape the extent to which they can provide services and the manner in which they do so (see Reference MampillyMampilly, 2017; Reference FloreaFlorea, 2020; Reference Huang and SullivanHuang and Sullivan, 2020; Reference Loyle, Cunningham, Huang and JungLoyle et al., 2021). With this in mind, we must also consider how the rebels’ material conditions and operational concerns shape the nature of their regulation of marriage.

Worth noting is that once a decision with respect to managing marriage is made by rebel leaders, it is not an ossified feature of rebel life – rebels can shift their approach to marriage over time. Leaders in the Hukbalahap Rebellion (also called the Huks) in the Philippines, for example, were initially skeptical of marriage before eventually adopting policies to permit and regulate unions. Huk leadership first understood rebels’ sexual appetites and romantic attachments as a threat to the rebellion’s cohesion and reputation among civilians (Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer, 2013: 353).Footnote ²² Pomeroy, an American veteran who became an important leader in the movement, wrote that the leadership recognized that “relationships spring up [within the movement], they cannot be denied. So if they are going to exist they must be controlled” (Reference PomeroyPomeroy, 2011: 142). In this case, we see a change adopted in response to a recognition of the limits of the rebels’ control.

Furthermore, there can be a wide chasm between rebel leaders’ platonic ideal of marriage and the realities of these unions. To adopt Wood’s parlance, the “policies” and “practices” of marriage may differ (Reference WoodWood, 2018). Reflecting on the practice of ‘revolutionary marriage’ among the leftist Naxalbari uprising, Reference RoyRoy (2006) observes that “movement participants defied the institution of marriage as they did with all other social institutions, displaying their revolutionary zeal and progressive nature … The rejection of traditional arranged marriages to emphasize partnerships based on love, equality and comradeship is accompanied by a rejection of both the religious and civil nature of marriage” (p. 103). Yet Reference RoyRoy (2006) underscores that these marriages often fell short of the rebels’ lofty ideals. She writes:

As such, our investigation of marriage in rebel groups must go beyond the formal policies articulated by rebels to consider the ways in which marriage is experienced by those the union binds together (see Reference WoodWood, 2018).

Individual Implications: The Postwar Significance of Rebel Marriages

Wartime unions have long-lasting legacies; attitudes, institutions, traumas, and social ties associated with rebel marriages often persist into the post-conflict period (Reference HuangHuang, 2017: Reference ZaksZaks, 2017; Reference LazarevLazarev, 2019; Reference Themnér and KarlénThemnér and Karlén, 2020). These legacies can manifest in forced and voluntary marriages, as well as in those unions that continue into the postwar period and those that are terminated shortly after (or during) the war.

The ways in which marriages originate may not determine how they are eventually experienced by spouses. Consider Amina Ali, one of the Chibok Schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria in 2014, who eventually escaped with the man she had been forcibly married to within the group. She told CNN that they were separated and that “I’m not comfortable with the way I’m being kept from him” and addressed him directly, saying “I want you to know that I’m still thinking about you, and just because we are separated doesn’t mean I have forgotten about you” (Reference Busari and JonesBusari and Jones, 2016). One study of marriage under the Khmer Rouge found that these unions were just as stable as other marriage cohorts in Cambodia – despite the fact that these marriages were coerced and out of line with Cambodian courtship practices (Reference Heuveline and PochHeuveline and Poch, 2006).

The termination of wartime marriages can have profound implications for women’s lives and well-being, divorcing them not only from their partner but also from wartime gender norms and relations. Consider postwar Eritrea, where marriages between male and female members of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) often ended in divorce.Footnote ²³ In the early years of Eritrean independence, the Washington Post reported

Such divorces represented a sharp break from wartime patterns, where women were lauded for taking on traditional male tasks and defying gender norms. A female veteran of the EPLF lamented that the termination of wartime unions was another manifestation of female veterans’ postwar marginalization:

Male former fighters confirmed these perceptions; male ex-combatants of the EPLF told one researcher that female fighters were not sufficiently feminine or modest to be wives (Reference MehreteabMehreteab, 2002). The dissolution of wartime unions of EPLF fighters not only left individual women in economically precarious situations; it also reflected a shift in society’s willingness to accept the gender-deviant behavior that women had engaged in as members of the rebellion. These changes hint at the stigma that women formerly associated with rebel groups may face in the postwar period.

Wartime marriages often exert considerable influence on the perception of former rebel women,Footnote ²⁴ affecting their ability to reintegrate. The stigma that former rebel wives face as a result of their wartime activities and relationships can make it more difficult for them to find a new partner and participate in their community. For example, some women previously with the LRA struggle to find husbands, despite expressing an interest in doing so. These women’s marriage prospects were hampered by community perceptions about their morality and character (see Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 2007). While mistrust and stigma did not necessarily prevent all former LRA wives from remarrying, there is some evidence that these women can end up settling for unions in which the traditional courtship and marriage rituals were not completed. One study found that many of these women remarried through elopement; it notes that

This style of marriage has implications for the social status of both the husband and the wife, as well as for the legitimacy of the marriage in the eyes of the community. Reference Kiconco and NthakomwaKiconco and Nthakomwa (2018) note that

Furthermore, accounts of women who left the LRA with their children born of wartime unions underscore the perilous social position they and their children navigate. While some women have sought to provide for themselves and their children absent any assistance or recognition from the father or paternal family, in other cases “the importance of paternal identity in Acholi” encourages women to connect with the child’s father and family, so as to not contribute to “a child’s sense of not belonging” (Reference Oliveira and BainesOliveira and Baines, 2021: 763).

In other instances, some wartime marriages have proven durable and have bolstered women’s prospects and status after war. Writing on Ketiba Banat, the women’s wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), Reference PinaudPinaud (2015) notes that:

Thus, these women’s wartime marriages provided them with post-conflict economic security and status.

Whether or not a female rebel is married, to whom she is married, and the nature of this marriage are all relevant dimensions for understanding women’s wartime experiences and their post-conflict prospects. Though we have clear evidence regarding the difficulties and opportunities that female ex-combatants and rebel wives face after war, we lack a framework to help us trace how the features of wartime marriages among rebels affect these women during and after war.

Concluding Notes

Rebel groups adopt a wide variety of approaches to marriage and can change their approach over time. Efforts to understand this variation are still a relatively new area of study. The literature that has engaged with rebel marriage typically is focused on case studies,Footnote ²⁵ rather than comparative analysis, and often examines instances of forced or coerced marriage (See Reference GoodwinGoodwin, 1997; Reference Annan, Blattman, Mazurana and CarlsonAnnan et al., 2009; Reference CoulterCoulter, 2009; Reference BainesBaines, 2014; Reference PinaudPinaud, 2015; Reference Hynd, Bunting, Lawrance and RobertsHynd, 2016; Reference Hudson and MatfessHudson and Matfess, 2017). Despite the limited comparative work done on the subject, synthesizing the case studies on marriage in rebel groups reveals some areas of consensus that provide a foundation for a broader study of this phenomenon. Furthermore, examining military management of marriage also provides us with a background for understanding the importance of marriage for organizations at war.

There is no clear-cut or singular explanation for how rebels approach and manage marriage. Any examination of this phenomenon must account for a variety of rebel concerns and characteristics. As Reference DonnellyDonnelly (2018) concludes, the LRA’s forced marriage system “was a benefit to the group for many potential reasons, including serving as a reward system for men, to reinforce its political goals and to create cohesion” (p. 471). As the following section on the Strategies and Tactics of Rebel Marriage (STORM) describes, I suggest that understanding rebel marriage systems requires considering not only rebels’ political objectives and belief systems but also the dynamics of internal cohesion and membership retention, as well as the rebels’ logistical concerns. Rebels’ regulations on marriage may vary over time, as the conditions in which the group is operating shift or the priorities of the organization change. The following section will introduce the Strategies and Tactics of Rebel Marriage (STORM) framework to facilitate an understanding variation in rebel groups’ marriage practices at the organizational level.

Introducing the Strategies and Tactics of Rebel Marriage (STORM) Framework

I consider three general, possible benefits of marriage for rebel groups: that it will help the rebels further their political project, that it will promote loyalty to the organization and facilitate recruitment of new members, and that it will improve the rebels’ logistical capabilities and reputation among the civilian population. I also consider three ways by which marriage may undermine rebels’ objectives along these three dimensions: that it will replicate or entrench gender relations or social norms that the rebels seek to overturn or that are in contravention of their ideology, that it will displace rebels’ commitment to the cause with commitment to a partner, and that the logistical burden of managing the reproductive lives of married rebels will detract from their military efforts or degrade their reputation among civilians.

Reassessments of the relative costs and benefits of marriage in each of these three categories can occur throughout the course of the conflict, producing changes in how rebel groups approach marriage over time. Where marriage once constituted an insurmountable logistical burden, an intolerable drain on military resources, or an impediment to the actualization of the rebels’ political project, it may eventually become a regulated and endorsed feature of rebel life. As such, the rebel groups discussed in the following subsections do not fit neatly into “ideal types” that correspond to the individual cells in Table 1. Rather, we can see how changes in the assessment of the threats and opportunities that marriage presents across these three dimensions change how rebels approach marriage. These categories are overlapping and interdependent: rebels’ broader political project can condition the anticipated effect on rebel cohesion and the anticipated logistical implications can override ideological or cohesion-related concerns. The framework developed in this section is intended to be an analytical tool for understanding how rebels approach marriage, rather than serving as a formula for predicting a static set of policies or attitudes. In what follows, I briefly introduce the considerations in each of the columns described in Table 1.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)

In the early years of the TPLF’s activities, marriage was banned for members. There were a variety of justifications for this ban. One such justification was that marriage could “distract” from their objective “to destroy and overthrow the Derg” (Reference VealeVeale, 2003: 32). Additionally, the subordination of wife to husband that often accompanies traditional heterosexual marriage arrangements was incompatible with the gender-egalitarian ideology espoused by the TPLF. Not only was the rebels’ skepticism about marriage in the first years of the war connected to their political project but it was a way of attracting support and recruits by helping some women avoid unwanted marriages. One former fighter recalled, “I had an older and younger brother. They were allowed to go to school, but I was not because I was a girl. My parents were planning to marry me to someone when I was 13, so I ran away and joined the TPLF. Because of the TPLF, I have my freedom” (Reference Negewo–Oda and WhiteNegewo–Oda and White, 2011: 173).Footnote ³² In recruiting women on this basis, the rebels bonded their freedom to their identity as a rebel, as well as making good on their claims of supporting gender egalitarianism.

Importantly, the TPLF expended energy regulating rebels’ romantic lives even when marriage was not permitted. Female veterans of the TPLF recounted that prior to the lifting of the ban on marriage they were given “lessons on how to control pregnancy, both using contraception pills and natural methods” (Reference VealeVeale, 2003: 64) and that women who became pregnant had abortions.Footnote ³³ Given the rebels’ resources at the time, it appears that providing instruction and contraceptives was a more viable approach than attempting to care for children and new mothers.

However, the TPLF changed course in the mid-1980s with respect to its policies on marriage. Just as there were a number of reasons for banning marriage, there were a variety of justifications for allowing it. The TPLF’s shift corresponded to changes in the balance of power between the rebels and the government; at the time that the rebels changed their policies with regard to marriage and childbirth, they had significant territorial control and could develop an infrastructure to manage rebel marriage and ensure the safety of young children and pregnant women.Footnote ³⁴ Furthermore, the TPLF’s “hotly debated” decision to lift its ban on marriage in part reflected that “the pressure to legalize marriage was mounting as most of TPLF fighters were youngsters in their early twenties” and “the pressure coming from the increase of young unmarried girls as a result of the flow of the male youngsters to the ranks of the TPLF” (Reference BerheBerhe, 2018: 137–138). Thus, the reform to allow marriage reflected concerns about internal cohesion. As one veteran noted, there were demands from community members that the TPLF “replace” the youths who had been killed in the war against the Derg.Footnote ³⁵ Changing marriage policy was apparently important for the TPLF to maintain good relations with civilians, a critical part of the rebels’ military strategy and a condition for their continued operations. Additionally, the marriage policy reflected (or was justified by) a shift in the rebels’ gender ideology. One high-ranking woman in the TPLF told a foreign journalist that the rebels’ approach to “the woman question” had been “emphasising the combat side too much” (Reference HammondHammond, 1989: 69) and that allowing marriage was a part of rectifying that imbalance. She further noted that this policy involved shifting women’s contributions away from combat roles and towards positions managing the areas under the rebels’ control (Reference HammondHammond, 1989: 69).

The TPLF’s version of marriage was qualitatively different from the types of marriages practiced in prewar Tigray – both among rebels and in rebel-held territory, the rebels implemented minimum ages of marriage for girls and the marriages were purported to be more egalitarian than civilian unions (Reference VealeVeale, 2005). The TPLF’s “democratic marriages” could be seen as a reinterpretation of marriage to ensure that rebels’ marriages were bound up in their commitment to the rebels’ struggle and to ensure that the practice of marriage was in line with the rebels’ political project. Such reinterpretations seek to tie rebels’ intimate relationships to their commitment to the rebellion, rendering them as complementary rather than substitute goods. Of course, these relationships were also the site of profound affection and comfort for some of the couples, such as Mariam and Fikru, who dreamed of what their life together would be like after war.

Not all of the members of the TPLF were thrilled about these changes. Many female fighters in the TPLF protested the decision to repeal the ban on marriage, fearing that marriage and pregnancy would pull them away from their prestigious work as combatants and force them into less prestigious staff positions and motherhood.Footnote ³⁶ As one female veteran recalled, many of the women believed “we will be mothers, be pregnant – not be a fighter.”Footnote ³⁷ Some of the fighters resisted the change in order to remain dedicated to the fight; one female veteran recalled some taking the position that “I have buried my friends and I will not marry until the enemy is dismissed [defeated].”Footnote ³⁸ This attitude suggests that some women believed that being a wife would undermine their ability to be a fighter and detract from their ability to contribute to the struggle. A high-ranking male veteran recalled that there was a qualitative shift in attitudes following the change, not only changes in personnel policies. He recalled that “we male fighters started being like our fathers and the women were like their mothers,” though “before that we were comrades on equal footing.”Footnote ³⁹ Marriage, for some TPLF fighters, was incongruent with the rebels’ commitment to gender egalitarianism.

Though the reform was, at least partially, informed by the rebels’ need to maintain good relations with the peasantry in order to operate effectively, new logistical challenges emerged after the change. These challenges included socializing rebels into what a proper “democratic marriage” entailed (Reference TekluTeklu, 2015). One female veteran recalled that the TPLF released some guidance to its fighters about proper courtship, including the suggestion that partners date for six months before marriage, and how to celebrate their nuptials.Footnote ⁴⁰ Another female veteran recalled that a marriage for fighters meant maybe getting a new dress uniform or a slight increase in rations and noted that wedding nights were often spent in plastic tents because fighters did not have property.Footnote ⁴¹ Democratic marriages, it would appear, were modest ones but still demanded a degree of management by rebel leadership.

The Communist Party of Nepal – Maoists (CPN-M)

The CPN-M’s regulation of marriage reflected its revolutionary aspirations and political project. Hisila Yami, a high-ranking member of the CPN-M (who married another prominent figure in the movement) noted in her autobiography that “in a society where polygamous relationships existed despite legal penalizations, and men could easily get away with infidelity, it was natural that the Maoist movement in Nepal would be faced with concerns regarding marriage, love, and sexual relationships” (Reference YamiYami, 2021: 131). The rebels sought to eliminate gender and intercaste discrimination through many of their internal policies, including their regulations on marriage. The very language the rebels used to justify their model of marriage reflected the rebels’ broader progressive, modernizing revolutionary project. In Nepal, “janabadi” marriages that crossed caste and ethnicity were a part of the revolutionary project (Reference Sthapit, Doneys and KolåsSthapit and Doneys, 2017). Furthermore, reflecting the rebels’ political objectives, they also raised the minimum age of marriage and substituted traditional Hindu marriage rituals for a long engagement, party approval, and a pledge of fidelity to the party and the cause (Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer, 2013). For example, Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer (2013) noted that the CPN-M took a “scientific” approach to the issue, concluding that the rebels were better off not trying to prevent something as “natural” as marriage, while recognizing that the expectations placed upon wives and mothers were a threat to women’s participation in the rebellion (p. 348).

Though the rebels acknowledged love an important aspect of these unions, the party’s habit of posting married couples apart from one another also suggests a concern with preventing familial duties from overshadowing commitment to the party (Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer, 2013). Gayer notes that “love marriages” “came with certain caveats, the most significant of which being the pre-eminence of party concerns over romantic and family matters – a conscious attempt at preventing ‘libidinal withdrawal’ from the movement” (Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer, 2013: 348). The practice of posting partners far from one another allowed the rebels to undermine the gendered division of labor that often accompanies marriage, which was out of step with the rebels’ progressive ideology (Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer, 2013). Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer (2013) further notes that “The alleged objectives of the Maobadis’ ‘scientific’ approach towards ‘love–marriage–sex’ were to contain sexual anarchy within the movement, while protecting women against unwanted pregnancies and premature retirement” (p. 350). To that end, he observes that the party encouraged safe sex among married couples to prevent pregnancy from curtailing women’s political activities (Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer, 2013).

The CPN-M also reinterpreted marriage practices to tie marriage to the rebellion and to retain rebels, particularly women, in the movement. Retaining women was of particular interest, given that women in the CPN-M were regarded (at least according to some reports) as even more committed to the rebellion than their male counterparts. Furthermore, the inclusion of women “had a positive impact on cohesion within the CPN-M and the allegiance of men” (Reference Giri and HaerGiri and Haer, 2021: 12). Reference Giri and HaerGiri and Haer (2021) cite a high-ranking leader who asserted “in many cases, because of women, men stayed in the group. Whole families were devoted to the party” (p. 12). Giri notes that the rebels also worked to ensure that the death of a partner only drew members closer to the rebellion; he notes that “the loss of a partner in combat was used by the Maoists as an opportunity to engender a sense of vengeance and anger in the widow/widower against the government forces”.

The model of marriage practiced by the rebels may have also raised the cost of defection for women. Reference Giri and HaerGiri and Haer (2021) suggest that part of the reason for women’s acute commitment to the rebellion was not only because of the gender-egalitarian aspirations of the rebels but also because the costs of leaving the rebels were especially high for female rebels who “security forces could readily identify … as Maoists, and they could face torture, rape, and potential death” (p. 11). Beyond these immediate physical threats, would-be defectors also faced the possibility of social stigma, which may be especially severe for female ex-combatants given their gender-bending activities and participation in intercaste marriages (Reference Upreti and ShivakotiUpreti and Shivakoti, 2018). Pettigrew and Shneiderman go so far as to suggest that the CPN-M’s encouragement of marriage among young female members was a way of preventing female rebels from leaving and bringing these young women further under the control of the organization (Reference Pettigrew and ShneidermanPettigrew and Shneiderman, 2004). Certainly, the threat to women’s liberty that marriage presented did not stop CPN-M leadership from encouraging young female members to get married, reflecting a reality in which “unmarried women draw lots of suspicion from men as well as women for their unmarried status,” threatening cohesion and the actualization of the rebels’ objectives (Reference ParvatiParvati, 2003). Still, many marriages among combatants were also motivated by profound affection for one another; Yami’s autobiography speaks fondly of her husband, their courtship, and the ways in which their differing personalities but shared commitment to the cause made for an eventful life together (Reference YamiYami, 2021).

Marriages among CPN-M members also helped the rebels build their base of support among civilians. Yami recalls that “there was such a close relationship between the Indian Nepali community and our party” that high-ranking members of the CPN-M “even got their daughters married to students in Siliguri” (Reference YamiYami, 2021: 102). Furthermore, according to a female fighter, women’s participation in the group (which was facilitated by the rebels’ marriage policy), helped the rebels cultivate legitimacy among civilians; she told researchers, absent women, the rebels “would have been a roving guerrilla cut off from the people” (Reference Giri and HaerGiri and Haer, 2021: 13). Though the rebels’ marriages came with clear logistical benefits, the practice of regularly separating spouses suggests that no small degree of organization and effort went into managing married couples.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

As in the TPLF, marriage was initially banned for members of the LTTE. “Many eyebrows were raised” when the ban on marriage within the LTTE was lifted in response to an elite LTTE member falling in love; indeed, following the change “there was bitterness among some of the senior cadres who had renounced their romance for rebellion,” suggesting another way that removal of bans can sow discord within the ranks of non-state armed groups (Reference SwamySwamy, 2003: 114). Even after marriage was permitted within the groups ranks, it was reportedly a contentious subject – accounts differ about the extent to which rebels endorsed marriage and who in the organization was encouraged to wed. Balasingham’s autobiography recalls that the “most senior women’s commander” was often present at weddings she attended and that the woman’s “broad smile always indicated her pleasure at seeing the young female fighters under her command, getting married” (Reference BalasinghamBalasingham, 2001: 340). Another account recalls that debates over who could get married could threaten the cohesion within the leadership’s ranks; Reference RodrigoThamizhini (2020) writes that

Rebel leadership seems to have maintained a somewhat skeptical approach to marriage among the rank-and-file, alluding to a different cost-benefit analysis for marriage among different ranks of members.Footnote ⁴² According to Reference Gayer and Lecomte-TilouineGayer (2013), “not only did the LTTE try to discourage their fighters from getting married too early, they also gave them the opportunity – and possibly encouraged them – to leave their children in the hands of the organization by sending them to childcare centres in the Vanni” (p. 359), the rebels’ stronghold in the north.Footnote ⁴³ Others report that, following the rescinding of the ban on marriage in the LTTE, “members of the opposite sex are nonetheless strongly encouraged to marry while actively participating in the nationalist movement” and that LTTE leadership believed that marriage within the organization could “inspire a greater sense of commitment to the LTTE cause” (Reference Jordan and DenovJordan and Denov, 2013: 51). The rebels’ established minimum ages for marriage (twenty-three for women and twenty-nine for men) and “it was expected that at least one of the two had to have served for at least five years in the Movement” (Reference RodrigoThamizhini, 2020: 81). Similar to women in the TPLF, one account of women’s motivations for participating in the organization suggested that some women joined in order to avoid unwanted marriages (see Reference GowrinathanGowrinathan, 2021).

Part of the reason for the contentiousness of debates about marriage within the LTTE was the rebels’ conceptualization of where women fit into their political project and the gender norms of the Tamil community. The Tamil Tigers considered women’s liberation contingent on the success of their nationalist project. Reference BrunBrun (2008) notes that the “LTTE claims that women can only be liberated through joining the movement, and in this respect the LTTE empowers the women with the idea of militancy” (p. 409). Simultaneously, the Tamil Tigers also needed the support of the Tamil community to legitimize themselves as a valid representative of the community’s interests. Reference Stack-O’ConnorStack-O’Connor (2007) observes that women’s “inclusion allowed the LTTE to argue to its Tamil audience that it was fully representative of the Tamil nation and more enlightened than other Tamil forces” (p. 48). Such competition between Tamil armed groups not only prompted women’s inclusion but also encouraged the LTTE to take a stance against the dowry marriage tradition in order to attract more female support (Reference Stack-O’ConnorStack-O’Connor, 2007).Footnote ⁴⁴

Thus, marriage was a fraught issue for the rebels because of the need to incorporate women in a way that would not alienate the Tamil population. The LTTE’s marriage policies were designed with nationalist and respectability politics in mind. In this balancing act, gender equality and women’s interests within the organization could receive short shrift. Reference Stack-O’ConnorStack-O’Connor (2007) observes that the LTTE’s regulations made women “armed virgins,” who were expected to perform masculinity without being afforded the same liberties as men. This double standard was enforced through strict regulations on rebel sexual relations. Those who engaged in sex outside of marriage could face harsh punishments (Reference RodrigoThamizhini, 2020). Reference RodrigoThamizhini (2020) notes that the LTTE executed three women in 1994 for the crime of having slept with non-LTTE men.

The rebels dedicated significant efforts to tracking relationships, organizing celebrations, and issuing marriage certifications. Within the LTTE, once marriage was permitted there was reportedly a fairly well-institutionalized process by which members of the organization tied the knot. According to Reference Jordan and DenovJordan and Denov (2013), “an assembly of elders is responsible for arranging marriages between members. LTTE cadres who wish to get married go to the department and they organize a five-minute marriage ceremony. Once the couple is married, the movement provides them with their own private place to stay as husband and wife” (p. 51). Balasingham’s autobiography notes the leader of the political wing was also expected to coordinate the organization’s “functions, including the weddings” (Reference BalasinghamBalasingham, 2001: 341). The endorsement of marriage by the rebels thus required the establishment of a process as well as the creation of special housing accommodations for married couples and became a concern for the leadership’s top echelons. Though a potentially labor-intensive process, facilitating marriages may have led to greater acceptance of the rebels by the Tamil population as it placated widespread discomfort with unmarried women associating with men (Reference TambiahTambiah, 2005).

Al-Shabaab

For al-Shabaab “marriage is not just the God-ordained way of life but a tool for recruitment and advancing sociopolitical interests. The group promises male recruits enhanced access to wives and greater social mobility, including by abolishing customs that prevent men from minor clans from marrying women from larger or more prominent ones” (Crisis Group, 2019: n.p.). Al-Shabaab places a particular emphasis on women’s roles as wives and mothers within the organization; these identities are not apolitical but rather seen as an important way of supporting the rebels and contributing to their political project.

The rebels have taken a variety of approaches to promoting marriage within its ranks, including both forced and voluntary marriages.Footnote ⁴⁵ While some men affiliated with al-Shabaab have continued to marry the “normal” way (i.e., courting a girl and seeking her family’s approval to get married in line with prevalent customs), others have benefited greatly from al-Shabaab’s support overcoming the challenges of finding a partner or affording a wedding. As one former member noted, the group provided support “such as accommodation and furniture. Women who are in the group collect money so that men who want to marry can get support”; other defectors noted that al-Shabaab provided money and instructions to get married to members and that in some instances “al-Shabaab can bring a woman for you” (Reference SternStern, 2019: 21).Footnote ⁴⁶

While many women have been forced or coerced into marriage, the rebels’ marriage policy has also been used to attract and retain female members. “Khadija” and Harley observe that “Women who are married to Al-Shabaab fighters lead a privileged existence both in terms of the quality of life that is accorded to them by the Al-Shabaab’s Executive Council, especially in comparison to the civilian population living under Al-Shabaab’s control, and also the freedoms they are allowed” (Khadija and Harley, 2018: 252).Footnote ⁴⁷ Other studies underscore how women may join the group because of the affection they feel towards recruiters or partners (Reference BadurdeenBadurdeen, 2020). We should not overlook the political and ideological resonance of marriage for some of al-Shabaab’s voluntary female recruits; one study of female al-Shabaab returnees noted that “two women explained their motivations to be wives of martyrs and expressed their desire with regard to religious obligations of being true Muslims, and to provide their role as Muslim women to support the Muslim Ummah” (Reference BadurdeenBadurdeen, 2020: 623). Furthermore, the rebels’ interpretation of wife inheritance has also served to strengthen cohesion within the group: if a woman’s husband dies or defects, she is married to another member of the rebel group (Reference DonnellyDonnelly, 2019). Thus, marrying a member of al-Shabaab is, in many ways, a commitment to the organization, not just the individual.

Yet the importance of women within the organization is not merely symbolic; wives in al-Shabaab are responsible for a variety of tasks in service of the organization. Stern notes that women have been involved in tax collection, outreach to civilians, and the recruitment of women to serve as wives of rebel group members (Reference SternStern, 2020). Furthermore, in al-Shabaab, certain types of women are granted the authority to run their own businesses – which then become a source of economic support to the armed group (Reference SternStern, 2021). In particular, ‘Khadija’ and Harley note that women are imbued with the task of raising the next generation of al-Shabaab fighters, imbuing them with the group’s values (Reference Khadija, Harley, Keating and WaldmanKhadija and Harley, 2019). While the gendered division of labor also speaks to the rebels’ ideology and the process of social reproduction in the rebel group, it also has tangible implications for women’s experience during war and the logistical capabilities of the organization.

The dynamics of conflict and the extent to which the rebels control territory also seem to exert an influence over al-Shabaab’s marriage policies. A defector explained to a researcher that “When al-Shabaab captures a town, they marry women. They encourage the men in the group to marry women. When they are in the bush, they discourage marriage, because they are not in town, so they will not access basic needs. Older men can continue their marriages. They stop young men marrying when they are in the bush” (Reference SternStern, 2020: 21). This may be explained by the robust infrastructure (and associated logistical burden) the rebels require to implement their vision of marriage. Reference SternStern (2020) observes that “great efforts are made to keep marriages within the al-Shabaab movement stable” (p. 21). Al-Shabaab reportedly gives scheduled leave to fighters so that they can visit their spouses (Reference SternStern, 2020). Across the territory it governs, al-Shabaab’s governors form committees made up of wives of high-ranking officers and other female supporters. According to Reference SternStern (2020), “Women in these committees are said to act as ‘marital counsellors of sorts’, working to keep unsettled marriages stable” (p. 21).Footnote ⁴⁸ When these attempts are unsuccessful, al-Shabaab’s courts can process divorces – which seem to be a fairly common occurrence within the group (Reference SternStern, 2020).

Part of the reason that the rebels are willing to incur these costs may also lie in the ways in which their system of marriage has bonded them to certain communities, facilitating their operations (Reference DonnellyDonnelly, 2019). One study notes that

Furthermore, while the rebels once used the prospect of marriage to attract foreign recruits, some Somali families objected to this practice – suggesting that this aspect of the rebels’ approach to marriage threatened their relationship with the community (Crisis Group, 2019). Thus, al-Shabaab’s marriage policies furthered its efforts to broker ties with influential clans and reinforced prevailing discriminatory systems.

The Islamic State

Similar to al-Shabaab, the Islamic State relies on marriage as a means of actualizing its ideologically ordained position for women, which emphasizes their roles in the domestic realm. A piece of Islamic State propaganda, titled “Women in the Islamic State: Manifesto and Case Study,” declares that “woman was created to populate the Earth just as man was. But, as God wanted it to be, she was made from Adam and for Adam. Beyond this, her creator ruled that there was no responsibility greater for her than that of being a wife to her husband” (Reference WinterWinter, 2015: 16). As Reference Speckhard and EllenbergSpeckhard and Ellenberg (2020) note,

Marriage and the maintenance of separate spheres for men and women are important parts of the rebels’ political project.

While the women enslaved by the Islamic State or forcibly married to members are obviously not integrated into the rebellion willingly, some women have been drawn to the Islamic State because of the rebels’ policies regarding marriage. Many of the portrayals of the women who join the Islamic State and marry fighters tout unhelpful and sensationalistic depictions of these women as dumb or demonic “jihadi brides.” Loken and Zelenz’s work underscores that such portrayals are off base; they assert that “this devotion appears ultimately rooted in a gendered religious and political ideology – not the want for romantic affection” (Reference Loken and ZelenzLoken and Zelenz, 2016: 58). The Islamic State has been able to recruit and retain both male and female members on the basis of allowing them the ability to actualize a specific vision of marriage – though some eventually become disillusioned with the organization and its practice of marriage. Underscoring the importance of marriage to the Islamic State’s cohesion and the centrality of it to its operations are reports that the widows of Islamic State fighters “were pressured to remarry immediately after their husbands’ death, contravening Islamic prescriptions for three months of celibacy for widows” (Reference AhramAhram, 2018: 188). Again, we see how reinterpretations of marriage practices are used to retain members of the organization.

Though the Islamic State articulates and enforces relatively traditional gender norms in its model of marriage, it has also endorsed “mixed-nationality and mixed-ethnicity marriages” (Reference Trisko Darden and HassanTrisko Darden and Hassan, 2023: 3). According to Reference Trisko Darden and HassanTrisko Darden and Hassan (2023) this reflects “the group’s transnational nature and supranational political agenda” (p. 3). Reference AhramAhram (2018) describes the Islamic State’s policies regarding sexual violence and forced marriage as a form of state-building that continues, in many ways, preexisting patterns in its areas of operations. He observes that “arranged and enforced marriages fleshed out ISIS as a familial state in a different way, creating intra-Sunni bonds” (Reference AhramAhram, 2018: 187), in addition to “augmenting its demographic base” (Reference AhramAhram, 2018: 188). Though novel in certain ways, he underscores that “ISIS’s practices of sexual violence carried forward the prior repertoires of state-building in Syria and Iraq,” noting, for example, that “Widows and families of martyrs received pensions, just as they had under Assad and Saddam” (Reference AhramAhram, 2018: 187–188).

Though the rebels expend considerable energy in managing marriages within their ranks, these unions bolster their logistical capacity. Women play important logistical roles in the Islamic State in their roles as wives. Reference AhramAhram (2018) notes that “in the same way that war-making stimulated the formation of the Syrian and Iraqi welfare system, the ISIS bureaucracy was attuned to the importance of marriage and family bonds to their state-building efforts” (p. 188). Furthermore, the Islamic State’s efforts to raise the next generation of fighters is a burden that rests heavily on the shoulders of their mothers, the wives of Islamic State’s fighters. As Reference SpencerSpencer (2016) notes, “in ISIS ideology, the home symbolizes a woman’s paradise … Women are directed to continue religious studies while nurturing, educating, and protecting children from the influences of infidels. Unquestionably, a woman’s greatest responsibility is to foster the next generation of jihad – a generation knowledgeable in Allah’s ultimate destiny” (p. 82). Not only does the Islamic State depend on women’s logistical contributions but the rebellion itself provides services and care to its members on the basis of their marital status and their dependents.Footnote ⁴⁹

While many of these unions are the site of abuse, coercion, and mistreatment, there are also some reports of genuine affection developing between husband and wife. Reference MoaveniMoaveni (2019) relays the account of Aws, whose Islamic State husband “Abu Mohammed liked to trace the two moles that made a constellation on her left cheek; he teased her about her accent when she tried to pronounced Turkish words” (p. 169); Moaveni notes that Aws “disliked his absences and would pout upon his return, and he would have to make silly jokes and cajole her into forgiving him” (p. 169). No such playfulness or care developed with her second husband after she was widowed by Abu Mohammed. Moaveni also recounts another woman, Dua, who cared deeply for her husband because he “had transformed her life completely” (p. 173) and who was “devastated” (p. 180) when he undertook a martyrdom operation.

Conclusions

The cozy conversation with Mariam and Fikru in their lovely home, both so familiar in tone and so new in context to me, encouraged me to consider the relevance of and variation within rebels’ approaches to marriage. This section has, through available qualitative information on five non-state armed groups, revealed that the systems of rebel marriage reflect not only rebels’ political project but also how rebel leadership weights the manner in which marriage may bolster or undermine internal cohesion and the logistical operations of the non-state armed group. When deciding how to approach marriage (and whether to change their current approach), rebels balance the relative costs and benefits of marriage as they relate to their logistical capabilities. Neither permitting nor banning marriage is costless; the emotional and romantic lives of rebels are yet another feature of member life that rebel leaders must provide for. More research is needed to understand if and when certain considerations outweigh others or if there are certain universal preconditions for rebels to allow marriage. This analysis has not uncovered any necessary conditions for rebels to allow marriage, though it has described a possible relationship between territorial control, logistical capabilities, and permitting marriage.

Ultimately, this section aims to catalyze greater and more systematic research into marriage in rebel groups as part of the literature’s broader turn towards understanding the quotidian processes and experiences within rebel groups. It is not a comprehensive treatment of rebel marriage policies. The section introduces a framework for understanding how rebel groups approach the issue of marriage and discusses how these regulations affect women’s lives during war, with the hope of spurring further comparative research on the subject. Marriages that take place among rebels during war do not necessarily end once the guns are silenced; furthermore, whether these unions persist into the post-conflict period or dissolve, the characteristics of wartime marriage systems can shape women’s prospects for post-conflict reintegration. The following section considers the post-conflict legacies of rebel marriages, paying particular attention to how these wartime unions affect women’s lives after war.

Depoliticization

Depoliticization of rebel wives involves subsuming their other roles in the organization to their identity as a wife, which is then rendered a marginal player in political violence. Narratives of depoliticization may suggest that women were duped into their position in the group, depriving them of their agency during war. Such a dynamic can manifest through disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs that require a weapon to qualify or which provide benefits only to male members of the organization. In relegating such women’s work to that of being ‘just a wife’, this approach fails to appreciate the myriad contributions that married female rebels provide. One report hypothesized that

Prioritizing an ex-rebel’s identity as a ‘wife’ to the extent that it overrides their other identities can contribute to depoliticization.

Community members in conflict-affected countries can also depoliticize former rebel wives; one report noted that research in Jubaland, Somalia found that many “were pragmatic and sympathetic around returning women” who left al-Shabaab, “noting that they presented little threat as most were wives” (Reference Stern and PetersonStern and Peterson, 2022: 22; emphasis added). Depoliticization ignores or brushes off the ways in which marriage – even while maintaining traditional gendered divisions of labor – can take on an especially resonant political salience during war.

Depoliticization can also occur when policies designed to enable women’s reintegration as wives and mothers end up excluding them from benefits or prestige that other ex-rebels receive. In Nepal, for example, efforts to ensure that female combatants affiliated with the Maoists were included in DDR programming stumbled over the issues of marriage, childbirth, and childcare. This program was marked by a particularly long period of demobilization in cantonments and camps (Reference KhadkaKhadka, 2012). At least during the initial period of demobilization, wartime practices related to gender norms and the division of labor were continued; Reference BleieBleie (2012) notes that “not only both sexes do the same demanding daily exercises; they shared similar duties in the canteens and living quarters. Even football matches were played together” (p. 12). As more members got married and became pregnant, however, the movement’s revolutionary gender egalitarianism began to fray at the seams. As Reference HaugeHauge (2019) notes,

Thus, an ostensibly woman-friendly maternal leave policy, adopted by a leftist rebel group with a significant number of female members, backfired and resulted in women’s marginalization.Footnote ⁵² The rebels’ wartime efforts to make sure that being a wife or mother did not overrun women’s identities as rebels were undermined after war.

Distrust

Distrust can manifest in many ways and to various degrees. For example, this narrative is employed when the wartime marriages are understood only through the lens of marriage as a potential human rights abuse, when those who are married within a rebel group are rendered as monstrous and undeserving of the state’s or community’s support because of their identity as a rebel wife,Footnote ⁵³ and when the models of wartime marriage become suspect or undesirable in the postwar period.Footnote ⁵⁴

Stern and Peterson note that women formerly affiliated with al-Shabaab often face profound marginalization and ostracization from their communities. They note that once women defect from the group,

They further note that their marriages to al-Shabaab members can place them at risk for retaliation from the group, observing that “this is particularly the case when women flee with children, whom the group wishes to recruit” (Reference Stern and PetersonStern and Peterson, 2022: 14). Other reports note that it is not only the wives of al-Shabaab members that are subject to stigma from members of the community but also widows and children of fighters (Reference Salifu, Ndung’u and SigsworthSalifu, Ndung’u, and Sigsworth, 2017).

The wives of Islamic State fighters have also been subject to profound distrust and marginalization by members of the communities they are attempting to return to. A randomized study that asked about willingness to accept individuals formerly affiliated with the Islamic State found that

Part of the reason for such high rates of rejection may be that 84 percent of respondents believed that being the wife of an Islamic State fighter was ‘voluntary’ (Reference Revkin and KaoRevkin and Kao, 2020).Footnote ⁵⁵

Recently, distrust of wartime marriages among rebels has manifested as states stripping the citizenship rights of women on the basis of their marriage to Islamic State militants. Though it is a mistake to depoliticize marriage within non-state armed groups and women can play an important role in supporting rebel objectives and activities in their roles as wives, stripping women of their citizenship rather than using existing domestic legal institutions to hold them accountable is a troubling development (Reference Benton and Banulescu-BogdanBenton and Banulescu-Bogdan, 2019). Citizenship revocation renders women and children stateless (Reference DiazDiaz, 2021).Footnote ⁵⁶ This approach to rebel marriages implies that wives are irredeemable by dint of their relationships and thus they are owed nothing by the state. Further complicating the lives of women married to Islamic State fighters, according to Darden and Hassan, “The lack of clear marriage, divorce, and birth records for Islamic State affiliates and their children complicates efforts to establish the paternity of children and raises questions about whether these marriages are considered formal or informal by states” (Reference Trisko Darden and HassanTrisko Darden, and Hassan, 2023: 8). These deliberations have implications for the citizenship of any children born of these marriages and who bears legal responsibility for caring for these children (Reference Trisko Darden and HassanTrisko Darden, and Hassan, 2023). Distrust of rebel wives thus has tangible ramifications for women once they leave the group, including abandonment by their countries of origin and residence.

Distrust may also be likely to manifest when wartime marriages were reinterpreted by rebel groups to be in line with their revolutionary political project. Consider, for example, women in the CPN-M, who were encouraged to marry outside of their ethnicity and cast as members of the rebel group and who were socialized into the group’s gender-egalitarian ideology. At the close of the conflict, their marriages to fellow rebels were double-edged swords. A number of women married to fellow ex-combatants “felt empowerment through their marriages, forming life alliances with men who support changed gender roles and hence are more appropriate partners for them” (Reference Van Der HaarK. C. and Van Der Haar, 2018: 448). The reinterpretation of marriage during war can become an important feature of women’s identities. As Reference Upreti and ShivakotiUpreti and Shivakoti (2018) noted, “society did not easily (and wholeheartedly) accept [intercaste and interethnic marriages]” and that “in many cases even their parents and relatives did not accept such marriages” (p. 84). However encouraged these unions were during war, they were not widely accepted among the broader civilian population at the close of the conflict. Furthermore, the reassertion of prewar norms made it even more difficult to maintain the egalitarian and revolutionary character of wartime marriages; Reference YamiYami (2021) notes that during war “a combined kitchen mess freed women from domestic duties,” whereas “during the peace period, women leaders had to again take on the burden of the kitchen and other household tasks besides their political work” (p. 247). This is not a dynamic unique to Nepal. Mariam, the TPLF veteran whose story opened this Element, told me that fighters’ families were often confused by the dynamics of their wartime marriages as they persisted into the post-conflict period; with her typical candor, she told me that, back then, “our mothers really wonder about our marriages – we were running here and there for meetings”.Footnote ⁵⁷

Distrust of wartime unions can also manifest within the marriage, prompting one or both partners to seek a separation. There is evidence across a number of cases that many female rebels become divorcees after war. One female veteran of the TPLF noted that, with the end of the war, male veterans had more “opportunities” relative to their time in the largely male rebellion, prompting many of them to leave their wartime spouse.Footnote ⁵⁸ One study suggested that 60 percent of these “bush marriages” ended in divorce (Reference AbabeAbabe, 2006). Similarly, in Nepal, the All Nepal Women’s Union recorded 700 cases in which men left their wives after the war (Reference Sthapit, Doneys and KolåsSthapit and Doneys, 2017: 45). According to Reference Upreti and ShivakotiUpreti and Shivakoti (2018), “many” of the unions between members of different castes “end up broken, and the female ex-combatants have to raise children alone, managing livelihoods as single mothers” (p. 83).

Thus, the distrust of wartime marriages and rebel wives can have profound implications for women’s lives after war. Distrust can affect women’s citizenship, economic and political status, well-being in the home, and their acceptance in the community. In post-conflict contexts, there is contestation and disagreement over what the economic, political, and social dynamics of society should look like. For many female ex-combatants who were married or romantically partnered during war, their home lives can become the front line in the fight over the proper roles for men and women. The models of wartime marriage that were present in the rebel group can become distrusted after war.

Reclamation

Reclaiming rebel wives involves rationalizing, legalizing, or otherwise accepting rebel wives for (or in spite of) their wartime marriage. Formalizing and recognizing wartime marriages is a formal manner by which the state can reassert its role as the arbiter of marriage and other social institutions in the aftermath of political violence, reclaiming female rebels as members of the community that they govern. For example, the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation during the reintegration of LTTE combatants told journalists “it’s only fair we legalise their marriages as part of their rehabilitation process,” since many of the couples had children and had been in relationships (Hindustan Times, 2010). In her memoir, Thamizhini (a high-ranking woman in the LTTE) recalls a marriage arranged in her rehabilitation camp between two former fighters; she suggests that the wedding ceremony was necessary because “it was custom to release someone into the care of their families or close relatives after their rehabilitation was over” and the bride had no such family to claim her. By getting married, she could be released into the care of her in-laws. While this is presented to some degree as a heartwarming example of post-conflict reintegration, it also suggests that the postwar period was one in which former female fighters were not trusted to be their own keepers (Reference RodrigoThamizhini, 2020: 187). This represents the reassertion of different authorities over women’s lives. Furthermore, because the wedding was organized within a state-affiliated venue, it imbued the state with a degree of responsibility for allowing this young woman to return to normalcy. Reinstating state control over ‘legitimate’ marriage may represent an important part of returning ‘to normal’ after war, a manner of wresting social control away from armed groups, and a way of repudiating wartime reinterpretations of marriage.

Reclamation can also occur through efforts to teach former rebel women (and wives) how to perform appropriate femininity. In Sri Lanka, for example, “the rehabilitation programmes are re-feminising and re-domesticating ex-combatant women” (Reference McFeeters, Brewer and WahidinMcFeeters, 2021: 297). Reference Hills, MacKenzie, Woodward and DuncansonHills and MacKenzie (2017) observe that this is not an isolated case, writing that

Such a project design reflects an implicit assumption that women will not be breadwinners and reifies a traditional gendered division of labor. These skill-development programs can be in contravention of or in line with the gendered division of labor in wartime marriages; gender-normative job training may take on heightened importance, however, when women engaged in gender-transgressive activities during the war or when rebel marriage systems employ new gendered divisions of labor.

In some instances, the continuation and legitimization of wartime marriages can offer female ex-combatants social prestige and economic security. In Ethiopia, Azeb Mesfin’s marriage to Meles Zenawi (an ideological pillar of the TPLF as both a rebel group and a political party, who served as Prime Minister from 1995 until his death in 2012) facilitated her rise to influential positions in the nation’s economy and election to the country’s legislature; the two met while rebels within the TPLF. Similarly, Hisila Yami’s marriage to Baburam Bhattarai and the continuation of their relationship through the CPN-M’s struggle and postwar period affected her influence within the party and, ultimately, put her in a position of power as the country’s first lady during Bhattarai’s tenure as prime minister (Reference YamiYami, 2021). Without undermining the agency and capabilities of these women, it is important to consider how the legitimization of wartime marriages can secure certain women’s positions in elite circles. Notably, both the TPLF and the CPN-M went on to be influential political parties, suggesting that this form of reclamation may not be available to rebel wives in groups that did not undergo such a transition.

Reclamation may also take the form of institutionalizing some of the wartime marriage practices of the rebels. Consider, for example, that postwar Tigray regional state passed the Family Law, which reflected some of the TPLF’s wartime marriage regulations like prohibitions on child marriage; this state-level reform served as a template for national family law reform, which followed several years later.Footnote ⁵⁹ As one women’s rights activist told me, female Tigrayan activists were influential in pushing this postwar reform; she characterized these activists as asserting “we will not have less than in the bush.”Footnote ⁶⁰ Again, this sort of reclamation may be predicated on the outcome of the conflict and rate of the rebellion.

Conclusions

This section introduces a three-pronged framework for understanding how rebel wives are received after war; I suggest that former rebel wives and rebel marriages face depoliticization, distrust, and reclamation (DDR) after war. I highlight how the STORM framework introduced previously can help us understand which of these frames may be most prevalent after war, based on how rebels practiced marriage during war. Furthermore, this section unpacks how the durability or dissolution of wartime marriages affects women’s lives after war. This discussion emphasizes that the politics of marriage do not remain within the confines of the home.

Summary and Conclusions

I still keep in touch with Mariam, the TPLF veteran who met and married Fikru during their time fighting the Ethiopian government, periodically. When her husband passed away, I called to offer my condolences. It felt impossible to me that a love that had been so remarkable – almost mythological in my mind – could end in something as mundane as widowhood. That is perhaps one of the most intoxicating parts of thinking about marriage during war: it is a way of observing exceptional events through the lens of a common experience. By comparing rebel marriage with civilian practices, we can gain a clearer understanding of how rebel groups operate and the quotidian experiences of rebels themselves.

A burgeoning literature suggests that the quotidian experiences of rebels – who they love, the clothes they wear (Reference ParkinsonParkinson, 2020), the food they eat, and even where they relieve themselves (Reference Gutiérrez DGutiérrez D, 2021) – should be taken as seriously as matters like rebel ideology, troop numbers, and rebel leadership. Given that rebel groups are often seeking to overturn the prevailing social and political order, it is perhaps unsurprising that they would exercise control over marriages of their members. As a part of taking a more holistic approach to understanding rebellion, we must also take seriously the ‘feminine’ or soft dynamics of rebel life that have been marginalized from traditional security studies. As this Element underscores, doing so will both provide a better understanding of women’s lives within and after rebellion and imbue us with a deeper understanding of how rebel groups operate.

To further this line of research, this Element introduces the STORM framework. This framework sheds light on why rebel groups take different approaches to rebel marriage – and why rebel groups may change their approach to marriage over the course of the conflict. I suggest that rebels weigh the threats posed and opportunities presented by marriage, paying careful attention to how marriage relates to the rebels’ political project, the anticipated effect on cohesion and retention, and the rebels’ logistical capabilities. Applying this framework demonstrates that rebels often have to balance costs and benefits across these three categories; moreover, the framework highlights how rebels often allocate scarce resources and attention from high-ranking officials in managing rebel marriages. The STORM framework helps us understand the sometimes puzzling degree of consideration that rebels afford marriage and the group-specific reinterpretations of marriage practices. It is a valuable tool for those interested in rebel groups’ internal practices and the experiences of female rebels during war.

Furthermore, the STORM framework can shed light on some of the challenges that female rebels often face after the war ends and they leave the rebel group. I introduce the concept of ‘the other DDR’, or the depoliticization, distrust, and reclamation that rebel wives and rebel marriages face after war. The STORM framework can help us anticipate which narrative may be more prevalent and what aspects of rebel marriage practices may provoke the employment of these frames – though there are no set trajectories based solely on wartime marriage practices. For example, when rebel marriage practices are distinctly out of line with civilian practices, distrust may be rife. When rebel marriages are in line with existing practices or gender relations, rebel marriages and rebel wives may be subject to depoliticization and reclamation. Rebel marriages and the frames through which they are understood after war shape the trajectory of former rebel women’s lives and condition the dynamics of their reintegration.

By providing a comparative account of rebels’ regulation of marriage during wartime and the post-conflict implications of these relationships, this Element is intended to spur further comparative research into rebel marriage systems and their implications for women’s experiences during and after war.

Limitations of the Element and Future Research

While this Element contributes to our understanding of how non-state armed groups operate and the implications, the conditions of women’s contribution to rebellion, and former rebel women’s lives after war, it has several important limitations that offer compelling subjects for future study. Among the most obvious areas where additional research is needed are the issues of how pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare are managed in rebel groups. Much like marriage, these activities also reflect rebels’ logistics, recruitment, and sociopolitical agenda – and exert an important influence over women’s experiences during and after war. There is compelling evidence, from a variety of sources, that some rebel leaders devote considerable attention to childcare. For example, a number of accounts emphasize the amount of effort that the Islamic State places on raising the next generation of fighters (see Reference ValeVale, 2019). It is well-known that the FARC made contraception mandatory and instituted policies that encouraged that encouraged female fighters who became pregnant to abort or to give their child to family members or civilians (Reference Sanín and Carranza FrancoSanín and Carranza Franco, 2017). Those I spoke to about the TPLF’s policies suggested that reforms related to marriage followed a degree of territorial control, enabling them to provide a safe place for mothers and children before allowing pregnancy and childbirth among members.Footnote ⁶² Reference HaugeHauge (2020) suggests that rebel policies requiring that rebels give up their children during war have “strong negative psychological consequences for both of the parents, although particularly for the mother”; her study also underlines the difficulties that parents face after war when trying to reunite with their children. She relays the account of a woman who became pregnant while serving with the FARC who followed rebel regulations and left her child with civilians; “after the peace agreement, she could not find her child, as no record had been kept and nobody now knew where her child was” (Reference HaugeHauge, 2020: 3). Other recent work underscores the ways in which fatherhood and marriage can affect men’s commitment to rebellion and their postwar lives (Reference Aijazi and BainesAijazi and Baines, 2017; Reference Matarazzo and BainesMatarazzo and Baines, 2019). Future work can unpack the variation in these rebel group policies and the post-conflict implications of these practices.

Relatedly, this Element has not addressed how rebel groups obtain birth control and instruct members on the proper use of whatever contraceptives they procure. Both of these processes can provide invaluable insights into how rebel groups manage logistical supply chains and rebel socialization processes. Furthermore, discussions about how rebels manage contraception may also shed light on gendered power dynamics within rebel groups. One female veteran of the TPLF recalled that men resisted using condoms, even though that was the simplest form of birth control.Footnote ⁶³

Additionally, the Element has not discussed queer relationships in non-state armed groups and how non-state armed groups manage the issue of homosexuality. Rebel groups’ approaches to homosexual relationships are not only important for the well-being of LGBTQIA+ communities in war zones but also can provide insights into the ideology and social objectives of the armed group (see Reference Loken and HagenLoken and Hagen, 2022).

Additional research is also needed to articulate men’s experiences with wartime marriage and the post-conflict implications of these unions for men’s economic, political, and social well-being. An emergent strand in the literature underscores that a forced marriage is a crime against the husband as well as the wife; future research can investigate how men relate to their wartime identities as husbands during and after conflict (see Reference Matarazzo and BainesMatarazzo and Baines, 2019; Reference Denov and DrumblDenov and Drumbl, 2020; Reference Suarez and BainesSuarez and Baines, 2021). As this Element identified in the Introduction, marriage is a dyadic process – how marriage shapes men’s experiences during war, how it intersects with wartime masculinities, and how it conditions men’s post-conflict opportunities are all worthy areas of future study.

Further research should be conducted to understand gaps that may exist between rebel groups’ formal policies regarding marriage and their actual practices of marriage (Reference WoodWood, 2018). Relatedly, this Element has not interrogated in any great detail differences among different ranks or units within the same rebel group. In especially decentralized rebel groups, for example, one might expect a greater degree of heterogeneity with respect to marriage regulations and experiences. Furthermore, a rebel's ability to marry and the characteristics of that marriage may depend on their position in the rebel hierarchy.

In taking marriage seriously in the study of war and rebel operations, we have the opportunity to understand a new set of bonds and regulations that hold sway over rebels’ lives during and after war. It is my profound hope that this Element inspires further interrogation of the nature of being in love and at war.