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11 J.L. & Fam. Stud. 239 (2008-2009)
Unhitching the Horse from the Carriage: Love and Marriage Among the Mosuo

handle is hein.journals/jlfst11 and id is 249 raw text is: UNHITCHING THE HORSE FROM THE CARRIAGE: LOVE AND MARRIAGE AMONG THE MOSUO Judith Stacey* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................239 II. T HE Mosuo......................................................................................................240 A. A Society Without Fathers or Fatherlessness ..............................................246 B. Three Contemporary Mosuo Families..........................................................250 C. Conquerors, Communists and Marriage Politics.........................................254 D. Performing Kinship for Extramarital Tourism ............................................259 E. Marriage Markets.........................................................................................262 III. ENDANGERED KINSHIP....................................................................................268 IV . C ONCLU SION ...................................................................................................272 I. INTRODUCTION If there were an international endangered species status for vanishing family forms, I would nominate the Mosuo' people of Southwest China without delay. The contemporary world stands to lose a great deal, I believe, if we allow the unique, ancient Mosuo family system to expire. We would lose a species of happy family life that Tolstoy never contemplated, one that offers creative solutions to inherent contradictions between individual eros and family security that seem particularly pertinent today. The resilient premodern Mosuo family system anticipated by millennia core principles of what sociologist Anthony Giddens * © 2009 Judith Stacey, is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Professor of Sociology at New York University. Her research examines changes in family, sexuality and society, with a current focus on the comparative politics of family diversity in the U.S. and South Africa. Her publications include In the Name of The Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age; Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America; and the influential, (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter? co-authored with Timothy Biblarz. She served as an expert witness in the Canadian same-sex marriage case and in lesbian adoption and gay family rights cases in the U.S. Scholars use diverse terms and spellings to designate this culture. Most prefer Mosuo, some spell it Moso, while a minority use neither term, but refer to them as the Na people. 239-JLFS 287-ULR

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