The king her father wished to give her a husband. But she steadfastly refused,
declaring that she would never take a husband till she found some nobleman who
could get the better of her in a trial of strength. And the king her father had given
her the privilege of marrying whom she would....
She made it known in many parts of the world that any youth of gentle birth
might come and try his strength with her and if he could vanquish her she would
take him as her husband....
This was the bargain: if the youth could so far vanquish her as to force her to the
ground, he should have her to wife; if she vanquished him, he must forfeit a
hundred horses to her. In this way she had gained more than 10 , 000 horses.
Aiyaruk later defeated another visiting prince, who forfeited a thousand
horses to her. At least as far as Marco Polo’s account goes, she was never
defeated and did not get married, though she did accompany her father
into battle where she acquitted herself very well.^15
Elite Chinese women did not, to our knowledge, practice martial arts of
any kind. The growing influence of Neo-Confucianism in the late thirteenth
century severely circumscribed the activities of women, though this would
have impacted the lives of elite Chinese women far more than poor women.
Just as literati men had given up archery and martial arts practice in the
Song, literati women also lost much of their freedom of movement outside
the house. At the same time, however, female martial artists performed
in shows, and steppe women of all ranks maintained varying degrees of
martial arts skill.
Boxing and wrestling appear to have had a more tenuous relationship
to the standing military during the Yuan period, if for no other reason
than the more limited formal training of the Yuan army and navy. Where
Song soldiers had been recruited and then trained, Yuan soldiers, drawn
from many groups, were drafted into the army because of the skills they
already had. Unarmed combat was of no particular battlefield use, and
the Yuan government would not have seen much value in drafting men
skilled in boxing and wrestling for a military campaign. At the same time,
boxing and wrestling were widely represented infiction, both storytelling
and theater. Some government officials were even concerned enough
about martial arts practice among the populace to advocate establishing
formal military study and exams to recruit those with military talents into
the army.^16
Wrestling was popular for performances and was imperially patron-
ized. Some merchants seem to have taken to it as a self-defense skill, though
not, it seems, boxing. If anything, boxing appears to have been the more
esoteric skill. On two separate occasions, Yuan emperors were so curious
152 The Yuan Dynasty