There is no word in their language to describe father or husband, a man lives in his mother's house until his death and has no property of his own.
"If women ruled the world, there would be no wars" is just one of many proverbs that point to the virtues of women as rulers. However, an example from China, where he still lives the Mosuo tribe, known as the kingdom of women, which is considered to be perhaps the last matriarchy in the world, testifies that this is not an empty platitude.
The Mosuo are a small ethnic group living in the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces of China, near the border with Tibet. It has a population of about 40,000, many of whom live in the Yongning region, around Lake Lugu, high in the Himalayas.
The Mosuo tribe has a fairly long history dating back 2,000 years. The special feature of this tribe is that they have always cultivated the tradition and culture of matriarchy. They are in this tribe women are the ones who always make decisions and are at the head of the family.
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Each family usually consists of 10 or more members, but all property is in the hands of women. It is characteristic of this tribe that they practice a kind of open, liberal law, where women are allowed as many lovers as they want. A man whom a Mosuo woman desires comes to her at night, spends the night with her, and has to leave the house before dawn. When women want to show a man that they are interested in him, they will leave the door open for him to visit at night. If a woman no longer wants a relationship with her lover, she symbolically places a man's shoes in front of her door and lets him know that someone else has taken his place.
If a child is born from such a union, it is raised by the mother's family and the child receives the mother's surname. Children born in such a relationship belong exclusively to the mother's family, and fathers have minimal contact with the children. The greatest male role model for these children is the uncle, who has a better position in this society than the child's biological father. Unlike the rest of China, where female children are mostly unwanted, having a daughter is desirable here, as they are the ones who are more valued than men. Furthermore, mothers leave all their possessions after death to their daughters, never to their sons, although they may live in their mother's house.
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Men in this tribe have no special responsibilities: they have no job, they rest all day, all in order to be rested for the nightly visits of their wives. Generally, their only job is to take care of livestock and fishing.
By the way, for this tribe it should be pointed out that the women of the tribe are not reported, ie. they don't have any classic wedding ceremony. In fact, it is in their culture and tradition having only one partner is disrespectful to their ancestorsin and is also not appropriate. That is why there is no word for father or husband in their language.
