The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, Jack Weatherford

Woah, long title.  But the book is easy and interesting reading.  

Here's the deal.  You know Genghis (that's actually his last name), don't you?  He's the dude who started off in the steppes of Asia and took over local clans, then went for empires.  He claimed more land than anyone thought possible.

How did he do this?

The book starts out by explaining his family and his history and then goes in to his thought on this subject.  The guy was genius.

Here's what he did.  When he would conquer some land, he would leave his daughters or his wives (he had 4 at a time) there to rule it.  Then he would take the leading men with him to fight and campaign.  The bonus in this is that the women have their own power and do not generally seek to usurp more for themselves as they are inherently tied to Genghis himself (and thus intricately tied to the power anyway), which would be a danger in having headstrong and energetic men in charge.   

The daughters married tribe leaders so that there would be peace between groups and then those groups would be brought under the ruling power of Genghis.  He would then take his new son-in-law (who had no ruling power of his own, he was known more as the prince consort) to battle with him.  Won't the group left behind be more likely to adapt into his empire when their own prince's neck is on the line?  He quite thought so, too.

The women of the empire (his daughters) didn't sit around in fluffy robes and pick their noses all day.  They were in charge, under their father, and at times also took up their bow and arrows to fight.  They were not wussy little maidens.  Their father charged them to be true to their three "husbands" - their reputation, the land they ruled and finally, the human man he wed them to.  He said that they were intertwined and would all be mutually beneficial to them if they were faithful to all three.

I look forward to hearing more about their secret history (apparently someone thought it was needed to cut out a section of the Mongol history - literally - within their records that spoke of women being in a place of power).

Berry eenteresting, no?
Ms. Daisy