Secret of a Walking Marriage Custom
Updated: 2007-06-13 08:50
If the woman does not like the man any more, she won't open the door when the man comes next time, and the two will find their new lovers again. The man does not take any family responsibilities. The woman will raise the child and control the family properties.
If the woman has found a new boyfriend and her old boyfriend happens to knock at her door, the woman will tell him to come next time. The man will not feel upset by the woman's refusal. To Mosuo people, men and women have the freedom to choose their lover and their relations are not subject to power or money.
They never formalize the arrangement to create a new family group, although (contrary to stereotypes of a free love Shangri-la) some couples remain committed to each other their entire lives and often have many children together. In fact, the two never share common property - all property is inherited by women. A child will grow up in the mother's family home, alongside siblings and maternal uncles. Male influences in childhood come from maternal male relatives, rather than the child's father. From birth to death, the offspring remains in the home of his/her mother. Neither males nor females of Mosuo culture enjoy sexual privileges nor total power in household economic affairs.
Anthropologists have noted Lugu Lake as an oddity in the study of human
society. According to many scholars, the Mosuo have done away with the problem
of sexual harassment, burglary, murder, rape, and the majority of criminal
offenses, domestic disputes between mother in laws and daughter in laws, the
suffering of the aging, and individual desires for economic gain. Hence their
language has no words for war, rape, or murder.
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