ABSTRACT
The medieval Mongols, like their contemporary Chinese, Islamic or Christian counterparts, were organized through a patriarchal and patrilineal social system. In comparison with their sedentary counterparts, nomadic Mongol women were more outspoken in politics, had larger degrees of economic autonomy and were able to freely decide their religious affiliation. The presence of women in the public scene is also widely documented by travel accounts written by foreigners visiting the Mongol Empire, and biographies of prominent female individuals were included in chronicles and biographical dictionaries from China to the Islamic world. Mongol khans and princes had several wives and concubines. It was customary among the Mongols, in order for the man to devote time to all of them, that he would spend alternative nights in the tent of each of his main wives.
