Marriage Customs and Social Operation Guided by Virtue Ethics: A Case Study of the Walking Marriage Custom Among the Mosuo of Niqiu Village, Yongning Township, Ninglang County, Yunnan Province
This article examines the "walking marriage" (zouhun) custom among the Mosuo people of Niqiu Village, Yongning Township, Ninglang County, Yunnan, based on field interviews with 13 Mosuo people conducted in January 2013. It argues that this matrilineal marriage system—where men and women never cohabit but maintain lifelong "ashe" (sese) partnerships based on nightly visits—embodies a virtue-ethics-guided social order rather than institutional coercion. The paper analyzes three stages: (1) partner selection, dominated by women's emotional judgment and constrained by matrilineal bloodline taboos; (2) relationship establishment through festival courtship rituals and the formal "zuozuoga" matchmaking ceremony; and (3) relationship maintenance governed by social rules and cultural customs, including the "flower chamber" tradition. The author concludes that walking marriage represents a relatively humane, emotion-based family arrangement sustained by ethnic customs, social taboos, and genuine affection, enabling stable matrilineal family continuity and normal social functioning.
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