Inside the ‘kingdom of women’ where marriage doesn’t exist & mothers raise ‘fatherless’ kids 

WOMEN in a remote tribe in China view men as “non-essential” and “dispensable” as their children are raised without dads.

The Mosuo people, dubbed the “Kingdom of Women”, have kids who do not know their biological fathers – and women are deemed the “head of the household”.

Mosuo children are raised without dads in the traditional way of life Credit: Alamy

The Mosuo tribe lives near the beautiful Lugu Lake in China Credit: Alamy

Men almost function as bonus extras, “useful only for sex and fishing for food”, according to an academic who has studied the Mosuo.

The 40,000-strong tribe lives in a lush valley at the foothills of the Himalayas, between China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

The closest Chinese city is a six-hour drive away along dirt tracks through the mountains.

Women hold power over all assets and control the family finances, dispensing food and money at will.

Dr Jose Yong of James Cook University in Singapore said: “Men rely on the female household to get the things that they need.

“The women control all the resources, the men don’t really get to decide how or when to use it.”

The Mosuo tribe is one of the few matrilineal societies in the world where the family inheritance is passed down through the female lineage.

“Women are almost exalted. It is understood that the mother is the most important person and females are really important to society”, Dr Yong said.

Dancing is an integral way to celebrate festivals – and possibly take home a partner Credit: Alamy

Bonfire parties provide fertile grounds for Mosuo teens to find a lover Credit: Yunnan Exploration

The Mosuo also practice a tradition called “walking marriages” in which men almost function as glorified sperm donors, experts say.

Boys as young as 13 visit the homes of girls to have sex, and possibly father a child, before leaving the next morning.

The arrangement is often coyly negotiated during a Jiacuo – a term which means “good and beautiful dance”.

Mosuo lovers may join hands and dance together before the woman reveals the location of her home for the man to consummate their relationship.

In Mosuo culture, men have no responsibility or duty towards their offspring and men and women are free to have as many partners as they wish.

There is therefore “no stigma attached to not knowing who your father is”, Dr Yong said.

Mosuo children live with their grandmother until they come of age at 13 years old and move into their own “flower house”.

Thirteen is the age at which children are thought by the tribe to become fertile and able to bear children.

At the age of 13 Mosuo children come of age in a mass ceremony of dancing and celebration Credit: Yunnan Exploration

Women often have children in their teenage years – meaning households often hold three or four generations of women living inside.

Mosuo young are then raised all together by the women of the household.

Some in mainland China condemn how the tribe lives – but Mosuo people say that the large households alleviate pressure on the individual to take sole responsibility for their child.

Domestic violence is also markedly low compared to other societies.

For the Mosuo, men and women are equal and merely fulfil different roles in society based on biology.

The strength of men lends itself to building houses and going hunting whilst a woman’s ability to bring life into the world confines her to child-rearing and resource allocation.

Dr Jose Yong said: “Men can go out there and put themselves at more risk.

“You can afford to lose a few men and it’s okay, but women are the bedrock of this society”.

The remote tribe have lived in the region since at least the time of the Roman Empire Credit: Alamy

In traditional Mosuo culture, men are ‘dispensable’ because they are not needed to provide resources and have no duty to raise their children Credit: Alamy

Mosuo people also account for what they see as the “unreliability” of men.

A man is able to sire a child and abandon the mother before it has been born, siphoning off resources for himself or even another woman, Dr Yong added.

The tradition of “walking marriages” makes it even more likely that men will shun their offspring because they cannot be certain that the child is theirs, and not that of another man.

The Mosuo workaround to this problem is cutting men out of the picture entirely.

Mosuo women, following the traditional way of life, hold no expectations of their sexual partners, and instead lean on their female lineage to provide food, shelter and support.

According to their way of thinking, if men cannot be trusted, it is safer not to rely on them at all.

Dr Yong explained: “Men are usually more dispensable in such a society. In matrilineal society men tend to be not so essential, not so important”.

They will instead help raise their sisters’ children, “because they are more sure that their sisters are related to them”, according to Dr Yong.

The grandmother is the boss of the household amongst the Mosuo people Credit: Alamy

Daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers all live together under one roof in Mosuo tradition Credit: Alamy

“If men do take care of the children in the household that’s a plus,” he added.

As men have no responsibility for their children, women do not choose partners based on financial status or ability to provide, but rather purely on appearance and personality.

It is said the Mosuo people are therefore very goodlooking.

Commitment to one partner is not valued highly, and women ignore markers like money and high-status jobs because they do not need the man to provide security for their children.

Instead couples look for compatibility, and when this fades, simply end the relationship.

Surveys amongst the Mosuo people found that they have very low levels of sexual jealousy and feel that the tradition of walking marriages keeps their relationships “fresh”. 

When Dr Yong spoke to the tribes people, they explained that “each time you meet them, you see if you have an appetite for them”.

“You’re not coming together out of responsibility, you are coming together because you want to be together”, he added.

About half of the Musuo tribe live off fishing and farming, whilst those who are modernising have turned to tourism Credit: Alamy

Musuo women run businesses such as textile shops whilst men undertake more life-endangering activities Credit: Alamy

Dr Jose Yong says that “nobody really knows” how long the tribe have lived around the Lugu Lake.

But it is believed the Mosuo descended from Tibetans who migrated southwards to the Minjiang River and branched into several different ethnic groups. 

Somewhere between the 1st and 8th century AD – at the time of the Roman Empire – geneticists believe the Mosuo transformed into a matrilineal society.

Anthropologists are unsure why the Mosuo became a women-led population.

One theory is that men were too often absent from the home or putting their lives at risk doing dangerous tasks like hunting or fighting neighbouring peoples.

Another idea posits that scarce resources lead to lower levels of competition, meaning men were not forced to fight for status to win over women.

Though life amongst the Mosuo is “very safe, very peaceful”, increasing contact with tourists and other ways of life is eroding the traditional Mosuo matriarchy.

Today, the split between people pursuing monogamy and jobs in tourism and those following the traditional way of life through farming and walking marriages, is “about half and half, or maybe slightly more rural” says Dr Yong.

Dr Jose Yong said the tribe believes that the closer one is to the lake, the further one is from the true Mosuo way of life.

The lake is the “front-facing” side of the Mosuo people, but deeper inland, traditional villages of Mosuo people still flourish.

Despite what some may see as an “idyllic” way of life, some Mosuo  “fantasise about a life that is beyond what they have”, Dr Yong said.

Some women do not want to have children in their teens, but rather pursue careers and travel the world.

But others are keen to preserve their historic way of life, including walking marriages.

Dr Yong said: “Based on what I’ve seen, usually older children would feel like they are more responsible for maintaining the traditions”