In the village called Mulitun
located deep in the mountains in Leye County, Guangxi,
men take chare of domestic work, playing the role of housewives,
while their women work in the fields and handle everything outside
the house.
Here, women villagers smoke, drink and take part in various social
activities. On major ceremonial occasions, the husbands are present
only for accompanying their wives. In the house, of course, it is
the woman who has the decision power.
Specialists said the existing lifestyle of a matriarchate clan is
very rare today, especially among people of the Han ethnic
group.
Mulitun, which has 50 villagers in 13 families, is situated beside
the famous Tiankeng (Heavenly Pit), a huge natural pit where large
groups of karst dolines have been found, in Leye County. All the
families are of the Han ethnic group.
According to some old villagers, their ancestors moved here from Jiangxi
Province in eastern China. It has been the custom since their
ancestors' time that women play the leading role in the family.
Even women from other villages followed the local custom as soon as
they are married to this village. The wife is not only put in
charge of the family's finance, but has to do farm work and go to
the market for shopping as well. Amazingly, all the couples in the
village get along well with each other. What's more interesting is
when the family has visitors, the hostess would order her husband
and kids to do housework while she herself accompanying the guests
in singing, drinking, smoking and even playing finger-guessing
games.
A young villager said, "This is the traditional way of living,
since women are more capable than men. When they say something,
they are always right." Nowadays, though villagers can watch TV at
home, there is only one road linking the village to the outside
world. This might be the reason why the matriarch clan could have
survived.
Specialists from the Tourism Study Institute of the Guangxi Normal
University investigated the daily habits and marriage customs of
the villagers and concluded that a matriarchate village like
Mulitun is of great importance to sociology researches and
tourism.
(China.org.cn by Chen Lin May 4, 2004)