
Mosuo Women - trias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo_women
======
tlear
To me this was the most fascinating bit: “ Historically the Mosuo lived in a
feudal system where a larger peasant population was controlled by a small
nobility. The nobility was afraid of the peasant class gaining power. Since
leadership was hereditary, the peasant class was given a matriarchal system.
This prevented threats to nobility power by having the peasant class trace
lineage through the female line. This system has led to numerous distinct
traits among Mosuo society.“

But there is no reference.. if true this is some clever social engineering by
the nobility!

~~~
Footpost
It has been argued that the raise of the Catholic Church to power had a
similar reason: catholic priests don't have offspring (at least in theory)
hence priests cannot form dynasties and the advantages (for trust and
cooperation) of shared descent don't apply, thus priests and hence the
Catholic church were less of a threat to existing nobility than other
organisations that can form dynasties based on descent. (Note that the
Catholic Church is the oldest still existing organisation, and was at some
point in history arguably the most powerful organisation in the world.)

I have no opinion on the truth or otherwise of this theory, but find it
fascinating.

~~~
vram22
>Note that the Catholic Church is the oldest still existing organisation, and
was at some point in history arguably the most powerful organisation in the
world.

The book "The Shoes of the Fisherman" by Morris West is a good fiction novel,
sort of related to your comment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_West](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_West)

Excerpt:

[ In an unforseeable literary coup, the book was published on 3 June 1963, the
very day on which Pope John XXIII died.[2] The book reached No. 1 on The New
York Times Best Seller List for adult fiction on 30 June 1963, and became the
No. 1 best-selling novel in the United States for that year, according to
Publishers Weekly. ]

~~~
masonic
The 1968 film version starring Anthony Quinn is excellent as well.

~~~
vram22
Didn't know about it, thank you. Will check it out if I can. IIRC, Quinn is
the same actor who plays the Greek, Andrea, in the movie The Guns of Navarone,
based on the book of the same name by Alistair MacLean.

I just googled about Quinn, and it seems he has played a role in some other
famous movies too, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia and Lust for
Life:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Quinn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Quinn)

~~~
masonic
His performance in the scene after the final failed vote during the papal
conclave is one of my favorite film performances ever.

He also played the title role in Barabbas.

~~~
vram22
Ha ha, nice. I also have a few personal favorite scenes like that. If I think
of some soon, will post them here. Thanks for those tips.

~~~
vram22
Here is one:

The scene between (actors) Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in which Tom tells
Jack "I'm not your son, and you're under arrest, you $#%#%@^!" is a good one.
I forget the name of the film though.

Another one is the scene in the movie Julius Caesar (maybe based on some
classical novel about him, possibly by Shakespeare?), which occurs just before
his death. Powerful performances by both the actor playing Caesar and other
Roman officials of the time.

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rgblambda
A few years ago, a journalist reporting on how the Mosuo culture is being
affected by the modern world found that many Mosuo men and women were
abandoning their traditions in favour of modern Chinese social values. They
also had to leave their villages for the larger cities to do this. The senior
Mosuo women were apparently very concerned by this. I wonder what the rate of
this defection is now.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo#Modernity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo#Modernity)

~~~
forkLding
You can see it here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_l9D7tEixc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_l9D7tEixc)

To be truthful, most of them are leaving the villages because they see better
career and living opportunities in the cities which is why they are adopting
mainstream values.

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faitswulff
There's also a documentary on the Mosuo Women here, which is how I heard of
the culture:
[https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/07/introductio...](https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/07/introduction_to.html)

------
mkl
This culture comes up in the (excellent) BBC detective series _The Fall_ , in
the relatively negative context of Gillian Anderson's character using it to
try and justify her somewhat predatory behaviour towards younger men.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Do you have a youtube link for this?

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bubblewrap
How do the economics work, though? The article seems incomplete with respect
to that. It says children are the responsibility of the women's household.
Does it make a difference if a woman only has daughters (no men in the
household)? They just do the same jobs as the men?

------
mjfl
There is a tradeoff with these cultures - men contribute little to child
rearing as a result of having less parental certainty. This is very hard for
women, as they have to both subsistence farm and raise children. From that
perspective, "at least the sexual double standard isn't present", is a first
world problem. These women lead hard lives, directly as a result of losing the
efficiency of the single partner marriage.

~~~
asveikau
I don't know if or easy or hard for them, because if the culture is set up
that way to begin with maybe it's adapted for that in ways a western mind
would not anticipate.

I do, however, think it sounds like a huge bummer, speaking as a father who is
very involved in raising my kids and would not like to be shut out of the
role.

~~~
mjfl
Farming sucks, even moreso when a single parent. It doesn't matter whether
your mind is "western" or not.

~~~
asveikau
But the article says they live in a multi generational household with the
mother's blood relatives. Doesn't sound like single parenting to me, itself a
term with a very loaded meaning in our culture.

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dmos62
Fascinating. There's more information on the Mosuo wiki article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo)

The wiki articles are not especially well written. I'd love to read a book
about this.

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leemailll
If anyone has been to Li Jiang, yunnan of china, one may see some Mosuo women.
When I was a backpacker almost 20 years ago, the reception of the hostel was a
Mosuo girl. But I never been to Mosuo’s village near lugu lake, landslides in
summer blocked the road.

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forkLding
Vice youtube video from 3 years ago on Mosuo women, a bit out-dated but good
explanation of their lives:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_l9D7tEixc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_l9D7tEixc)

------
wayoutthere
The further we get from religious orthodoxy, the more diversity in human
behavior we see arise naturally. Just like many people are wired for monogamy,
at least some of us are wired for polyamory.

I can absolutely see how this behavior could be a more reliable way of passing
along diverse genetic material in hunter gatherer societies. Raising children
was more or less communal anyway, so the identity of the father mattered way
less (plus I assume many of the fathers died young).

It actually carries a lot of benefits over pair bonding in these scenarios:
less conflict for romantic rivals given the expectations, addresses the fact
that men were far more likely to die young, and children without fathers were
simply raised by the women of the village by default until the boys were old
enough to hunt. Some level of genetic diversity would be provided by mixing
pairs, which was likely augmented by exchanging or abducting women with other
tribes.

Again, monogamy is _also_ evolutionary useful once we organize into bigger
societies — if land / property ownership becomes a thing, knowing the identity
of the father presents a way to ensure resources are consolidated in eldest
sons to ensure there is a line of descendants with a much better chance of
passing on their genes — with less conflict due to the social norms. The
levers that ensure genetic material is passed on changed, and I also believe
monogamy is innate for a lot of humans. There is probably also a middle group
who, in the absence of social norms either way, would be okay with a
polyamorous situation to various degrees.

In modern society, patrilineal inheritance is no longer the norm, so the
advantages of monogamy are reduced. In fact, monogamy carries some
disadvantages relative to polyamory that I think aren’t obvious at first.

My family are TINKs (triple income, no kids). This enables a massive jump in
standard of living without having to sacrifice our passions — my husband and I
have high-paying tech jobs while my wife is a social worker. Once we’re ready
for kids, we have an extra parent to pitch in on household chores and child
rearing. I’m genetically infertile anyway, so if my husband were monogamous
with me he wouldn’t be passing along his genetic material. If he were
monogamous with my wife, their earning power would be severely reduced. Bonus
if you’re “50/50” bisexual — there’s no need to have to choose which half of
your identity gets erased to avoid “cheating” on your partner. When one of us
just isn’t in the mood for sex or is traveling for work, it’s way less of a
problem. I’ve noticed a huge influx of well-off, “socially mainstream” people
into the poly community in recent years, which tells me this idea is getting
more popular as taboo around sex start to subside (tho most of us are closeted
at work to avoid judgment).

That said, it takes some pretty evolved emotional intelligence and
communication skills to balance 3 sets of interpersonal relationships. It’s
taught me to be able to be radically open about very personal things that
initially seem difficult, but I also have to compartmentalize my life at work
— we agreed my husband would be my “official” spouse at work as my wife has
zero interest in networking with a bunch of techbros anyway.

TLDR: evolutionary diversity is amazing in how it has provided the basis for
the survival of the species across many varied types of society over a long
period of human development. Polyamory is one of those where the taboo is
starting to disappear.

~~~
bubblewrap
"less conflict for romantic rivals given the expectations"

This assumes all men would be equally likely to get to have sex with the
women. Otherwise, if the whole society has to take care of the children, but
only a few men get to procreate, it just means many men working for free (like
drones) to support other men's children.

Of course that would be a good scenario for some members of society - the
women who can choose to mate only with the most attractive men, and the few
lucky men. I doubt it would automatically create a happier society, though.

~~~
YUMad
It already is like that to an extent. 80% of all women that ever lived had
offspring, while only 40% of all men who ever lived did.

~~~
ionised
Where are you getting those numbers from?

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
DNA analysis [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/24/women-men-
dn...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/24/women-men-dna-human-
gene-pool)

~~~
ionised
That says it was true historically, not any longer.

------
j_m_b
It's interesting that this society is matriarchal and non-monogamous. Bonobos,
our closest animal relatives, are also matriarchal and non-monogamous. Chimps,
on the other hand, are patriarchal and live in what are essentially harems. Is
patriarchy is associated with monogamy whereas matriarchy is associated with
non-monogamy?

~~~
solidsnack9000
Chimps actually do not live in harems. That is a more accurate description of
orangutangs and gorillas.

Chimps live in what could fairly be called a polyamorous society.

Matriarchy is very rare in the animal kingdom. Thus it is hard to say what it
is associated with. Even when species have a female dominance hierarchy, it
may not be the dominant one, if you take my meaning. Observationally, female
dominance hierarchies are characterized by inter-generational immobility:
dominance is for the most part inherited.

~~~
stcredzero
_Chimps live in what could fairly be called a polyamorous society._

What about Bonobos? If Chimps are already polyamorous, maybe we need a
different term for Bonobos?

~~~
solidsnack9000
Polyamorous isn't a specific enough term. Perhaps for the sake of our
discussion it's enough to say that neither animal demonstrates monogamy or the
kind of harem / central-female-group characteristic of sultans or lions.

There's a lot of good material online about what chimp mating behaviour is
actually like.

Monogamy is rare in the animal kingdom, more characteristic of birds than of
any other creatures.

