走婚桥

This guide to the boardwalk bridge over Lugu Lake's Grass Sea, on the border of Lijiang's Mosuo territory, explains zouhun, or walking marriage, a system with no vows, no shared house, and no husband or wife. It follows how a Mosuo woman keeps her own home under her mother's roof, invites a man to visit her at night, and how children, property and name all pass down the female line headed by the grandmother of the household. This three-hundred-meter bridge, rebuilt in steel after a fire in twenty thirteen, was the daytime stage where young Mosuo men and women once met to sing, dance and size each other up before any night visit was arranged. Cross it in the early evening, when locals still gather along its red railings.