Genghis Khan adopted a policy of strategic marriages. He would marry off a daughter to the king of an allied nation. The king’s other wives were dismissed. Then he would assign his new son-in-law to military duty in the Mongol wars, while the daughter took over the rule of the kingdom. Most sons-in-law died in combat.
In this way Genghis Khan built a shield around the Mongol homelands, while expanding beyond them. In his marital instructions to his daughter Alaqai, “He left no doubt that this was a major military assignment. She was not there merely to administer, but to rule -- thereby beginning the expansion of the Mongols from a tribal nation into a global empire.”
By the time of Genghis Khan’s death, his daughters ruled from the Yellow Sea to the Caspian. Probably never before, or since, have women held so much power over so vast a region.
As the daughters aged and died, the sons (and grandsons) seized their kingdoms. A new generation of women gained power: the daughters-in-law of Genghis Khan, who took power while their husbands drank themselves to death.

成吉思汗采取了战略联姻的策略。他把女儿嫁给结盟国家的国王。国王的其他妻子都被除掉了。然后，他会让他的女婿们参加蒙古的征战，大多数女婿都战死沙场，而他的女儿则接管了王国的统治。
成吉思汗就这样在蒙古本土周围建立了一个屏障，并向外扩展。在他给女儿阿刺海別乞的婚姻指示中，他说“这是一项重大的军事任务。她在那里不仅仅是为了管理，而是为了统治。这将是蒙古从一个部落国家扩张成为一个全球帝国的开始。”
成吉思汗去世时，他的女儿们统治着从黄海到里海的所有地区。在此之前和之后，女性从未在如此广阔的地区拥有如此大的权力。
随着女儿们的衰老和死亡，儿子们(和孙子们)夺取了她们的王国。但新一代的女性仍然获得了权力:成吉思汗的儿媳们在从酗酒而死的丈夫们手里获得了权力。

The Mongol Empire began to fall apart into quarrelling provinces, but rulers always had to be of the Borijin family of Genghis Khan. Often they were mere children, installed by a locally powerful warlord and then killed when they grew old enough to be dangerous.
In 1464, the Great Khan Manduul took a teenage bride named Manduhai. But by the time Manduhai was 23, the Great Khan was dead, so was his heir apparent, and the last Borijin was a five-year-old boy in uncertain health.
Marriage to the Great Khan’s widow was the direct way to the throne (for what it was worth). But Manduhai turned down the likeliest suitor. Then she married five-year-old Batu Mongke and proclaimed him Dayan Khan.
In an anarchic society where family ties were everything, says Weatherford, “They were both totally alone in the world.... They had no parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews or even cousins.... The orphan and the widow could scarcely be expected to survive alone, but they were not alone. They had each other.”

其后虽然蒙古帝国四分五裂，各省纷争不断，但统治者总是来自成吉思汗的黄金家族。他们通常都是孩子，由当地强大的军阀当作傀儡，当他们长大到足以构成危险时就被杀害。
1464年，大汗满都鲁娶了一个名叫满都海的十几岁新娘。但在满都海23岁的时候，可汗和他的继承人都去世了，黄金家族只剩了一个5岁男孩。
在当时，与大汗的遗孀结婚是通往王位的直接途径。满都海拒绝了所有的追求者。然后嫁给了这个五岁的男孩巴图孟克，并宣布他为达延汗。（巴图孟克年幼之时，得到了满都海抚养。成化二十三年（1487年），正式亲政，先后征服卫拉特部、亦思马因、火筛、亦卜剌，统一漠南蒙古，成为右翼蒙古的“中兴之主””。明孝宗和明武宗时期，多次入侵明朝北部边境，但在明武宗时期多次被击败，《明史》称其为“小王子”）

The warrior queen
While raising her husband, Manduhai also went to war. She had to unite her people, control strategic grasslands, and break the power of local warlords . She went into battle alongside her soldiers, and steadily won.
Meanwhile, she was giving her boy-husband a good education in how to be an effective ruler.
She succeeded remarkably well. It took 30 years of war and diplomacy, but Manduhai united Mongolia without fighting China. (The Ming preferred to build the Great Wall instead.)
She also had eight children by Dayan Khan; the succession was assured. His descendants would rule Mongolia until the Soviets arrived in the 1920s.

在抚养丈夫的同时，满都海也参加了战争。她必须团结人民，控制草原，打破地方军阀势力。她和她的士兵并肩作战，并稳步取得胜利。
与此同时，她教育她的丈夫如何成为一个有为的统治者。
她非常成功。经过30年的战争和外交努力，满都海在没有与明朝开战的情况下统一了蒙古。(明朝人更喜欢建造长城。)
她还和达延汗生了八个孩子;汗位继承得到了保证。她的后代将一直统治蒙古，直到20世纪20年代苏联的到来。