If you sincerely aim at the prosperity of the people, you will keep your power.

Don’t behave as high as a mountain. Though a mountain is high, it will be climbed by animals.

–From the Great Yasa, the laws and guidelines of the Mongolian Empire

In the year 1170, eight-year old Temujin met nine-year old Borte. In 1177 they marry according to local custom and their parents’ agreement. Within five years of their betrothal, Borte is kidnapped by the Merkit tribe, and Temujin, borrowing from the Trojan War playbook, launches a successful military strike to get his woman back. By 1206 Temujin has conquered enough of Asia to be named Universal Ruler, better known as Genghis Khan.

Although Genghis Khan would bring back wives and concubines from each of his conquests, only his children with Borte were considered as possible future Khans of the Mongolian Empire. Very little is known of her, but she was rumored to have said of her husband after becoming empress: “He’s afraid of me – and of dogs, too.”

I believe her. Mongolian women, as the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science illustrates, were pretty bad ass. Apart from caring for children, cooking, and milking the animals for butter, cheese, and yogurt, Mongolian women were trained in warfare and would, after battle, collect the arrows and finish off the enemies when necessary. Now that’s thorough.

For all their arrow-collecting and clean-up killing, the women of the Mongolian empire still liked to dress up. The skeleton of a Mongolian noblewoman in the exhibit reminds us that women have, throughout history, known the importance of looking good. On display in the exhibit is traditional female garb, which included three layers of dress – two silk and one leather – and a fez-inspired hat made of birch bark and cotton, called a bogtag. She would have worn gold and jade earrings, shined her locks with a fine-toothed comb whittled out of a single piece of wood, and admired herself in a bronze mirror.

Jewelry in other parts of the exhibit included more earrings, usually in the shape of a snowman, with alternating balls of gold, jade, and pearls. Thick gold bracelets with intricate patterns would have peeked out of the silk and leather sleeves of a Mongolian noblewoman.

Lies, theft, treachery, and adultery are forbidden, and one ought to love of one’s neighbor as one’s self.

Adultery is apparently in the eye of the beholder, and although not much is known about how Borte felt about her husband’s extensive collection of wives and mistresses, we do know Genghis highly regarded her counsel and that even after his death she was consulted on affairs of the empire. She would die a very powerful woman both in her own right and as the grandmother of the great Kubla Khan.

One can just imagine Borte, adorned in silks, leather, jade, gold, and pearls, sitting in the royal house at Karakorum, the capital of the Mongolian empire, listening to the haunting music of the Mongolian two-stringed cello/violion/guitar, and waiting for news of her husband and his campaigns via the Mongolian version of the pony express.

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Thy shall conquer the whole world and shall live in peace with no people which has not freely submitted to them.

We can learn much from the Mongols, and not just what the women wore.

For more laws and guidelines from the Great Yasa, follow Genghis Khan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Genghis_K

Learn more about the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s Genghis Khan exhibit.

About the Author: Tracey's interests in history range from the ancient Greeks to the medieval monks to the women of the American West. She holds a B.A. in History, Math/Philosophy, and the Classics. When not writing, editing, or teaching, she's out exploring, via her mountain bike, the Anasazi ruins in and around her home state of Colorado.

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