The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

When Genghis Khan arranged each of these marriages, he proclaimed equality between bride and groom. He conveyed his concept of the state and its government, as well as the relationship of husband and wife, through an important Mongol metaphor: Through marriage, the couple would become two shafts of one cart. As Genghis Khan described it, “If a two-shaft cart breaks the second shaft, the ox cannot pull it…. If a two-wheeled cart breaks the second wheel, it cannot move.”

When moving, the cart transported a family’s possessions, but when stationary, the cart served as the family pantry, warehouse, and treasury. The nomads stored most of their possessions in the cart so that they would be already packed and ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. As an extension of a married woman’s ownership of the cart, the wife handled all issues related to money, barter, or commerce. From the first recorded observations, Mongol men showed an aversion to handling money and conducting commercial transactions. “The management of the man’s fortune,” according to Persian reports, “belongs to the women: They buy and sell as they think fit.”

Repeatedly, when Genghis Khan wished to make an alliance with another man, he used this same imagery of the couple pulling one cart. His nuptial decree at Altani’s marriage showed a creative innovation in the cart metaphor. Genghis Khan changed the system of dual leadership from two men, who called each other brother or father and son, into an image of man and woman, such as Boroghul and Altani. In this way, he sought to replicate the spiritual tradition of supernatural harmony through Father Sky and Mother Earth. Henceforth the husband would go to war, and the wife would be left in charge of running the home and, by extension, almost every aspect of civilian life. The system made perfect sense in the Mongol cultural tradition. Soon after making the nuptial speech to Altani and Boroghul, Genghis Khan sent the husband away on a military mission.

In describing his daughters and their husbands as two shafts of one cart, Genghis Khan made clear that an ancient division of labor applied to a new set of military and political goals. While the husband commanded the soldiers on defensive maneuvers or on military attack campaigns, the wife commanded the tribe at home. Genghis Khan had well-founded and unshakable faith in his daughters and the other women around him. “Whoever can keep a house in order,” he said, “can keep a territory in order.” As the military campaigns grew longer, the division of labor solidified into a division of command authority. At its heart, the dual-shaft system functioned quite simply. She ruled at home; he served abroad.

Even in matters of sexuality, the Mongol woman exhibited more control. Mongol men were considered sexually shy at marriage, and part of a wife’s duty was to coax her husband into his role. Unlike other men whom the Mongols encountered, such as the Turks and Persians, who had a reputation for sexual skill and boldness and were the source of much good humor, the Mongol man was deemed to have other interests and responsibilities. Yet, if his wife could not persuade him to perform his marital role adequately, she had every right to publicly seek redress. In one later episode of a marriage arranged for a famous wrestling champion, Genghis Khan’s son Ogodei asked the wife about her husband: “Have you had a full share of his pleasuring?”

She responded disappointedly that her husband had not touched her because he did not want to sap his strength and interfere with his athletic training. Ogodei summoned the wrestler and told him that fulfillment of his duties as a husband took priority over sporting activities. The champion had to give up wrestling and tend to his wife.

Sex within marriage was more easily regulated than love. Mongols recognized the importance of love, and they always hoped for it within marriage. One of the traditional nuptial speeches used in the twentieth century compared the marriage of Genghis Khan’s daughters to the union of dragons and peacocks: “The dragon who growls in the blue clouds, the peacock who dances chanting in the green yard … Even when they are far apart—their songs of desire are closely united.”

Duty outranked love, and the baatar always chose duty to family and country over love. Genghis Khan and Borte married for love, but none of their children had that opportunity. Each married for reasons of state, with the hope that love might develop from it. The emotional sacrifice demanded by Genghis Khan of his sons and daughters, however, was minor compared to that paid by the men who married his daughters.