Jessica Wynn

China's legal and economic systems are built around nuclear families and formal marriage.

And the Mosuo system doesn't fit neatly into that.

They don't have any kind of contract when they get these walking marriages put in place.

So there's a constant push towards standardizing their practices.

Plus, the Mesua are heavily marketed as the last matriarchy, which causes this huge influx of tourists expecting to see something exotic going on.

Yeah, right.

And that can start to reshape how the system is practiced.

But even with that, the core structure holds.

So women anchor the household and the economy.

I mean, the men aren't powerless, but their roles are more specific.

They tend to have authority in areas like ritual and funerals and the killing of animals, like certain community decisions.

But the domestic and economic center of gravity is unmistakably female.

Women run it.

And that's the part that's hard to wrap your head around if you come from a system where

where marriage is the foundation of everything.

That's the misunderstanding.

So it's not no responsibility.

It's just a different responsibility.

So men are still deeply involved in family life, but just in their own household as brothers and uncles, not as husbands and nuclear fathers.

Yeah.