| |
 |
Old ways live on
|
Wu Yan
AT 28, Pu Ning works at Mosuo Village, one of the hottest attractions inside the China Folk Culture Villages. He is a dancer and storyteller there.
The Mosuo people have stirred up curiosity in many people, because they have retained the only matriarchal society in China.
One of the routine programmes for guests visiting the Mosuo Village is being invited into the Main House where, supposedly, the grandmother lives. Sitting around an artificial stove, the audience starts to listen to Pu Ning talking.
"We are Mosuo people coming from the picturesque Lugu Lake in Lijiang, Yunnan Province. We have a population of more than 50, 000, and we still have matriarchal families," Pu Ning tells the visitors. He continues by explaining that a usual Mosuo family has about twenty members, all down the maternal line. For the male members, the family includes uncles--mother's brothers--but excludes fathers. Then where does a father go? He lives with his mother and sisters. "For Mosuo people, a husband and a wife don't organize a separate family. Everyone lives in a mother's family," Pu Ning added.
With questions and answers following, a visitor discovers that the Mosuo use a "walking marriage" -- no marriage licence is required, couples just spend the night together, and in the daytime they return to their mother's families. A father is a father, but he takes more care of his sisters' children. His children, in return, are taken care by their mother and the mother's brothers and other relatives.
Pu Ning's description and question-and-answer sessions often leave people thinking that the Mosuo are promiscuous. "No, absolutely not," Pu Ning retorts. "Mosuo share a common soul as with any other human being. It is simply their custom that people don't marry for a family. Apart from that, everything is the same in terms of emotions, bondage and requirement for fidelity."
So, according to Pu Ning, the Mosuo court one another in ways we'd understand. And their unions have to be approved by the family members on both sides.
Interestingly, though during the Cultural Revolution the Mosuo were forced to adopt the marriage system practiced by the outside world, they relapsed into their old ways as the crackdown faded. With urbanization and increasing contact with that outside world, however, Pu Ning has noticed that the "walking marriage" is being attenuated. "In the rural areas, we still have 'walking marriage', but in towns and when dealing with a partner from a different ethnic group, some Mosuo people are getting married in the normal way," Pu Ning concludes.
|
|
|
|
