And since Mongol men in the time of GK went really far away to conquer distant nations and did not return for years, the wives and daughters were the real boss at home (and also at the various Mongol courts, when many of GK’s male descendants turned out to be drunken incompetents). In Mongol culture, when the men went off to war, the women ruled the roost. Through marital alliances, he installed his daughters as de facto rulers over conquered nations. He made it law that women are not to be kidnapped, sold or traded. GK was a proto-feminist - well, he was sort of pro-woman, in the context of his era. And they might have hired an Italian guy called Marco Polo to govern the city of Hangzhou - who knows? But there’s no independent proof of it whatsoever.ģ. The Mongols hired European artisans to decorate their HQ in Xanadu, Chinese engineers to man their siege engines, and Muslim astronomers to chart their horoscopes. This egalitarian society was also incredibly diverse, comprising of people of different religions and nations. GK created a hitherto unprecedented egalitarian society where men and some women (more on this later) advanced through “individual merit, loyalty and achievement”, instead through birth and aristocratic privilege. Free trade as human right is still a pretty iffy concept, anyway.Ģ. As for the free trade thing, it was more of a byproduct of the commercial opportunities that developed along the Silk Road (“history’s largest free-trade zone”), once the interior of the Eurasian landmass became safe enough to travel under the Pax Mongolica.
His own immediate family was religiously diverse: besides those who were Shamanists or Buddhists, a significant number were Monophysite Christians - and later also Muslim converts. He also granted religious freedom within his realm, though he demanded total loyalty from conquered subjects of all religions. GK forbade the use of torture in trials and as punishment. Genghis Khan was an advocate of human rights, specifically freedom of religion, freedom from torture and free trade (he got two of the Four Freedoms right, which is pretty impressive by medieval standards, especially when they still, like, burned heretics and unbelievers in Europe and elsewhere). Genghis Khan and his Mongol Horde were good news for the world.
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