Separate Worlds of Men and Women

The movement began as the God Worshipping Society, a religious community Hong founded in the hills of Guangxi years before the first shots were fired.

In its early years, the Taiping enforced a strict separation of the sexes. Men and women lived in separate camps, and even married couples were kept apart, with intimacy treated as a serious offense. Women were organized into their own work units and, remarkably, into all-female battalions that fought in the field.