the Walking Marriage of Mosuo People,Lijiang, Yunnan

The Lugu Lake is situated in a place where Southwest China's Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province meet. Living around the Lugu Lake, the people from the Naxi ethnic group have a special marital tradition- "A Xiao." "A Xiao" means friends and includes two different forms. In the early part of the 20th century, about 70 percent of the people lived abiding by "A Xiao" marital customs. 民俗节庆网

In the first kind of "A Xiao" marriage the men don't marry a woman, and the women don't marry a man. The male adults secretly go to a woman's house and spend the night with the woman but leave for his mother's home in the next morning. The two don't call each other husband or wife but "A Xiao." They don't have a family together so their relationship is not stable. The longest lasts several years, the shortest is only about one or two nights. Most people have several "A Xiao" relationships. Some even have more than 100. Generally speaking, the "A Xiao" relationship becomes increasingly stable among middle-aged people. http://www.jieri.biz/