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chapter 2 Mothers, Daughters, and Wives I n March of 1988 I attended a wedding in Flower Village. Many villagers had gathered in the bride’s parents’ house, not only for the ceremony itself, but for the long and noisy negotiations (in this case, three days) that precede Hmong weddings. The festivities ended when the young groom and bride left to go live in his parents’ household in another village. Even then, the rest of us, men and women together, continued to sit and talk. The bride’s mother was melancholy. “I remember my daughter,” she said. “Who will cook the rice for me now?” I had been asking many questions about the events of the last few days; now I asked, “Why does a girl always have to go to live in the home of her husband? Wouldn’t it be good if she could stay at her mother’s home?” One of the older men turned and said to me, “When a Hmong daughter obtains a husband, she must go to live in his house. She must be a good Hmong wife and obey her husband. She must live there because that is the way we Hmong do it. It is our way [kev cai].” He then told the following story, called “Why Men Rule the World”: Long, long ago there was a Hmong queen who had seven husbands. There was also a Hmong king who had seven wives. There was a struggle between 36 these two groups of people as to who should rule the world. The queen and the king decided to go to Yawm Saub and ask him who should rule the world. Yawm Saub said, “Each one of you will be given a test, and when it is completed , I will give you an answer to your question. You come back tomorrow ,” he said to the king, “and you, Queen, come back in a few days.” The next day the king went back to see Yawm Saub. “This is your test. I want you to go back to your wives, cut oª their heads, and bring them to me,” said Saub. The king went back to his home. He saw his wives all sitting together in the house, breastfeeding his children. He thought about the test, and he knew he could not do as he had been told. He went back to Yawm Saub and said, “Saub, I cannot do as you ask. My wives are feeding our children milk. If I kill them and bring their heads to you, my children will have no food, and they will die.” Saub nodded his head and told him to come back in a few days. After two days, the queen arrived at the place of Yawm Saub. “This is your test. I want you to go back to your husbands, cut oª their heads, and bring them to me,” said Saub. The queen went back to her husbands, cut oª their heads and carried them back to Yawm Saub. Saub called the king and queen together and said to them, “The king shall rule the world, for he knows the meaning of life.” Here, in legendary form, gender asymmetry is attributed to the superior judgment of men, who understand that the true meaning of life is its perpetuation through one’s descendants. Men have the moral agency and the skills to analyze a situation carefully and then use their own judgment; they have the independence of thought and the courage to stand up to Yawm Saub. The queen’s lack of judgment reveals her penchant for following instructions, even those that are counterproductive to the perpetuation of the species, and shows that women are more suited to be followers than to be leaders. The tale was told by a man, by way of oªering an explanation for patrilocal residence patterns. When I asked women about this story, most of them said they were not sure what it meant, and suggested I ask their husbands or fathers. One woman did give her interpretation: that men and women cannot live without each other, but women must do what they are told, and that was why the queen killed her husbands. An important subtext to this 37 Mothers, Daughters, and Wives story is its implication that women are essential to the continuity of life, since although the queen did not hesitate to kill her husbands, the king could not kill his wives without also killing his o...

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