ABSTRACT
Noblewoman Yangzom Tsering, born in 1876, and her niece Thon-pa Bsod-nam rdo-rje, born 50 years later in 1927, shared a husband; their story is an example of the intricate family relationships of the traditional Tibetan aristocracy. These relationships were dictated by the powerful stewards of noble families whose task it was to keep estates intact. Yangzom Tsering bore a son to an elder brother of the 13th Dalai Lama, was married to a nephew of the 12th Dalai Lama, entered into an ultimately unhappy uxorilocal marriage that ended in divorce, after which she was betrothed to a boy 37 years her junior whom she, and her niece, finally married.
