China’s one-child policy led to millions of female infanticides except in a lush valley known as the

“Land Where Women Rule.” Located in the foothills of the Himalayas, Lugu Lake is home to China’s
Mosuo matriarchy. The region’s 40,000 denizens have come up with a unique family structure that
puts women in charge.

Traditional monogamy is replaced by the Mosuo's "walking marriages," in which women can have as
many boyfriends as they desire throughout their lives, and inheritance is passed down from mother
to daughter. But are women truly in charge, and how do males fare under their authority? Milène
Larsson, a Broadly correspondent, spends a week in Lugu Lake with three generations of Mosuo
women to learn about their lives.

Aside from the obvious rarity of a place where women are in charge, inherit, and have as many lovers as
they want, what piqued our interest in China's Mosuo matriarchy was how their centuries of isolation in
the Himalayan foothills has allowed them to develop their own and unique family structure and
relationship model. We wanted to know how traditional life outside of the monogamous norm works
and how it impacts the social standing of women, men, the old, and children.