giant agapic axe wound

Most of the women who joined their husbands or sweethearts at sea knew before they went that life on board would be both tedious and perilous, and they realized that they might be away from home for years. Looking back at these women from a modern viewpoint, it is tempting to decide that they went to sea because they wished to find adventure. This was seldom their motivation. The evidence is that wives went to sea because they did not want to be separated from their spouses. Women who joined naval crews disguised as men were often seeking a broader experience than society allowed them on shore. Seagoing wives, on the other hand, did not set out to break social taboos. They were, in fact, behaving as a good wife was supposed to behave: cleaving to her husband and serving as his helpmate, no matter where that took her. 

Officially, the women living on the lower deck did not exist. Even when a woman died at sea, the fact was seldom recorded. Their names were not listed in ships’ muster books, and since only those people who were mustered had any official existence, women were not paid and not victualed. Wives had to share their husbands’ food ration, and so did any children with them. In contrast, soldiers’ wives who traveled with their husbands were victualed at two-thirds the men’s ration, and their children got half a ration. This meant that in a ship carrying both seamen’s and soldiers’ wives, the soldiers’ wives, who were merely passengers, were given food while the seamen’s wives, who were an integral part of the ship’s company, got nothing."

In 1932, she was interviewed and photographed for National Geographic, where she contrasted different ideas of progress:

“You are men of auto, railway, radio. You find this a backward land, without roads, speed, a free press, a balanced budget, sanitation, or familiar forms of justice. Hence you pity the Chinese. But they live in the Celestial Kingdom, the center of all the world that counts. Your progress is chaotic, at least in its impact on orientals, because its spiritual values are not realized. We Mongols are emancipated. ‘A good horse and a wide plain under God’s heaven’, that’s our desire. And we realize it.”

She met explorers, scholars, and missionaries, assisting them with translations. In addition, Nirgidma wrote articles for specialized publications about China, Asia, and Mongolian culture. She also expressed complex views on women’s rights. Using the example of Mongolian women, she argued that true equality with men meant hardship and the sharing of equal burdens.

The Mongolian woman is as free as the man; she saddles her horse and goes to visit her relatives and friends; she receives her guests and calls on whom she will; her sexual morals are the same as the morals of her roaming brother. She is equal to him before the law, is completely responsible for herself. Adultery is punishable by death, in the case of both men and women. She has the right of inheritance, of owning property and bringing up children, of seeking marriage or divorce, of serving in the army.

I do not know whether the Great Khan was honouring the woman or simply putting her in her rightful place at the man’s side… Because she is the comrade of the man, the Mongolian woman is an object of no particular regard. She shares all the man’s hardest tasks, watches the flocks in rain and snow, loads the beasts, cuts wood. She enjoys no kind of precedence; she rises when a man older than herself comes in and gives him up her place at the fireside or the softest cushions. Man and woman share equally the expenses of life. Flatteries, deferences, everything that in the West is called chivalry – are non-existent. The orphan is protected but not the woman. Having the same rights, she also has the same duties and responsibilities.

According to her, equal rights did not necessarily bring happiness but required giving up chivalry and certain forms of influence. Nevertheless, she considered feminist struggles “courageous and admirable” if the women involved were ready to accept the consequences.

A cosmopolitan life

In 1937, Nirgidma and Madame Humbert-Sauvageot published a French translation of eighteen Mongol songs and poems. The following year, she married Michel Bréal, the French consul-general in China, with whom she led a cosmopolitan life. Her husband later served as ambassador to Afghanistan, Laos, and Thailand, and Nirgidma travelled alongside him.

Nirgidma was an excellent hostess who radiated elegance and authority. She was respected as a cultural authority and enjoyed music and gardening. She preferred reading essays to novels. She also learned to speak Arabic and studied Persian during her stay in Kabul.

Nirgidma died in Paris in 1983 after a rich and adventurous life.

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Further reading: 

Barkman Carl, “Princess Nirgidma”

Dasque Isabelle,  Le pouvoir des femmes de diplomates, XIXe-XXIe siècles

De Torhout Nirgidma, “The disadvantages of women’s rights”

Le Fèvre George, La Croisière jaune, Expédition Citroën Centre-Asie

Lévy P., “Princesse Nirgidma de Torhout et Mme Humbert-Sauvageot : Dix-huit chants et poèmes mongols”