Love Without Boundaries

Traditional Mosuo Relationships.

- Jocelyn Lau

They sound like customs that belong to a forgotten culture of an ancient community. The people do not traditionally marry, but engage uninhibitedly in consensual relationships with different and often multiple partners, as desired by each party, from the age of 13. The concept of love fidelity, in the sense that we might be accustomed to in modern-day society, does not exist. Little value is attached to the notion of possession or exclusivity, and even less to the idea of shared finances, property and responsibilities, as each partner normally remains socially and economically a part of his or her own maternal family. In addition, the concepts of ‘husband’ and ‘father’ are traditionally not a part of the Mosuo social structure. As such, children who are born of these relationships are fully accepted as members of their maternal family and brought up collectively by its members.

But these are traditions that still exist, albeit somewhat precariously and incongruously, in a rare polyandrous matrilineal Tibeto-Burman community, called the Mosuo. Having a population of about 40,000, the group lives mainly in the remote high-altitude wetland basin area in the southwestern Yongning region, and in the surrounding mountainous areas.