Society and Culture Atlas

How People Live Together
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Kinship and Family Systems

Walking Marriage

Marriage Systems

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Walking marriage (Chinese: zou hun) is the Mosuo people's marriage-like partnership in which each partner keeps a separate residence in their own mother's household; the man visits the woman's home at night by her invitation and returns to his own home by morning. Children born of the arrangement stay with the mother's family, and the father carries no legal or cultural obligation to support them financially, though he may choose to give gifts.

Facts
Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own account
Documented among the Mosuo people of southwestern China. 1
Sources
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.