Chinggis Khan

Mongolian Women Under the Rule of Chinggis Khan Women in Mongolia were treated fairly under the rule of Chinggis Khan, especially compared to other cultures in this era. Women were crucial to the survival of Mongolian society; they had jobs, they were warriors, they were leaders, and they had to raise their children. Women were liberated in Mongolia. They had many more rights than women of other empires, such as Persia and China, and their opinions were far more respected. Since the Mongols were Nomads, women’s labor was necessary in moving along the countryside. Whenever the Mongolians had to pick up and move, women moved the yurts and gers, the tent-like huts that the Mongolians lived in. Women made everything for the Mongols: clothes, shoes, rugs, flags, everything made of leather, and covering for horses. Mongolian women could drive their own carts as well as repair them, and they loaded camels. They processed the milk, cheese and meat, which were the staples of Mongolian diet. Most adult Mongolian women even owned their own herd of sheep to tend to.

Under Chinggis Khan’s rule, all men and women were trained to fight. Mongol women used bow and arrows, rode horses, and were trained in hand-to-hand combat. John of Plano Carpini, a Franciscan emissary of Pope Innocent IV, traveled to Karakorum between 1245 and 1247, and reported this, “Girls and women ride and gallop as skillfully as men. We even saw them carrying quivers and bows, and the women can ride horses for as long as the men; they have shorter stirrups, handle horses very well, and mind all the property.” (Document G Cardinal Hayes Mongol