The Women Who Ruled the Mongol Empire

The Women Who Ruled the Mongol Empire
The Globalist (USA)

The Western world still trembles at the sound of two words — Genghis Khan — and his powerful Mongol hordes. While the male successors of Genghis Khan have received extensive attention, it is unknown to many that women dominated the world's largest empire for considerable periods of time.

Jack Weatherford
20.06.2005

Traditionally among the Mongols, women managed the affairs at home, while men went off to herd, hunt or fight. As the war campaigns extended farther away and grew ever longer during the 13th century, women expanded their control and assumed public office as rulers. This is especially true for most of the years between the reign of Genghis Khan, which ended in 1227, and that of his grandson Khubilai, which commenced in 1260.

Genghis Khan's son Ogodei became Great Khan in 1229. However, he increasingly spent his time in drunken binges. As a result, power gradually conveyed to Toregene, the most capable, although not the senior, wife. The oldest surviving evidence of Toregene's authority in the Mongol court appears in an order to print Taoist texts issued by her as Yeke Khatun, Great Empress, under her own name, but still under the seal of Ogodei on April 10, 1240. The document shows clearly that she already controlled part of the civilian administration of the empire. While the men fought, she pursued an entirely different line of activities supporting religion, education and construction projects on an imperial scale. Soon thereafter Ogodei died, probably in an alcoholic stupor — and in 1241, Toregene assumed complete power as regent.

>>