Gender Issues in Buryat Society

The Buryats are a patrilineal society, as Lawrence Krader (1954:322) discusses in his article "Buryat Religion and Society." Society is "centered around joint principles of patrilineal descent and agnatic [related or descended through the male side] relationship." Kin is very important in Buryat society,and serves as the basis for social organization, so fathers and relationships through male relatives play a prominent role: the "nomadic kin village ulas" are based on male relations.

However, gender norms and relations in Buryat society are not necessarily analogous to our own. Krader also discusses the shamans so integral to Buryat culture, and that the shaman is frequently a "transvestite who may be of either sex."

Caroline Humphrey (1994:70) relates the historical role of women in Buryat society. Up into the 1970's, rural Buryat society centered around an "exogamous patrilineage." Wives were "brought in," and daughters were "sent out" to their new husbands' families. There was a belief that "the woman injects life or vivacity into the strength of the patrilineage."

The patrilineal and largely patriarchal nature of Buryat society has created a division between man and woman in the past. In Darima Nikolaeva's article "Archaic Mythoritual Ideas about Women in Traditional Buryat Family and Daily Culture," the author asserts that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "the position of women was characterized by patriarchal relationships that dictated the immense taboo space based on a misogynic...standard" (2009:43). The "taboo space" was codified via the Buryat "Codes," "Judgments," and "Laws" in different jurisdictions.

 According to Nikolaeva, "women enjoyed fewer rights" than men. The tradition of kalym, or bride price, worked like a reverse dowry, and was important to any woman who had the prospect of marrying. However, marriage was not generally left up to the woman: "her father gave her in marriage at his own discretion and set the amount of kalym." Women were also "extremely limited in [their] rights of inheritance" and could not often receive the same amount of land or property as their brothers did, in another example of codified practices that limited women. Women also had less legal ability to leave the marriage than their husbands did and as a whole were not permitted to participate in public meeting or suglaan.

Buryat Women in holiday attire (photo form China-Pictorial)

However, it would be near-sighted to claim the experience of Buryat women has always been one of oppression. There is an "identification of women with mastery of language and intelligence" in Buryat society. In Buryat stories and songs, father-in-laws would test the new wives with games and riddles, setting the foundation for this stereotype. Women are also under much more pressure than men to keep up tradition, and are discouraged from marrying non-Buryats (the same is not true for Buryat men) (1994:70-71).

Furthermore, women "sometimes held a high position," usually due to her social success represented by marriage, or her reproductive prowess (2009:44). Just because they did "women's work" did not mean their efforts were completely disregarded (although women were often forced to perform domestic duties at night because the day was reserved for the ostensibly more important work of farming): "the role of the homemaker was significant...the mother's position in the family was at least as high as that of her husband." The woman of the house was responsible for organization, maintaining the household, rearing child, instilling traditional ideologies, and more. The mother's voice "was sometimes decisive" in the all important tasks of arranged marriage of her children and dividing up family property.

The most revered of the Buryat women is the one who receives the title "Fortunate." She has "children, grandchildren, prosperity, and health" and essentially becomes the clan matriarch. Her prominent role in society is represented in a special ceremony that involves her taking on a new style of braiding her hair, which will demonstrate to all her status.

Women have played a vital role in Buryat social life. They interact with house guests of either gender and all social statuses and receive all guests when their husbands are away. They are also "important in public calendar rituals and rites of passage," noteworthy since rituals are so integral to the traditional and spiritual Buryat culture (2009:45).

The Buryat people have a complex understanding of gender that cannot be reduced to American ideas of "progressive" or "regressive." Their beliefs and customs associated with gender shed light not only on women's lives, but on the depth of their culture as a whole.

Humphrey, Caroline.
  1994 Casual Chat and Ethnic Identity: Women's Second Language Use among Buryats in the
      USSR. In Bilingual Women: Anthropological Approaches to Second Language Use. Shirley 
      Ardener, Pauline Burton, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, eds. Pp. 65-76. Berg Publishers.

Krader, Lawrence.
  1954 Buryat Religion and Society. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 10(3):322-351.

Nikolaeva, DarimaA.
  2009 Archaic Mythoritual Ideas about Women in Traditional Buryat Family and Daily Culture.
      Russian Social Science Review 50(3):42-45.