What are the motifs in The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo?

Gender is a recurring idea in the book. Marco Polo's travels through the Mideast and Far East expose a variety of habits and attitudes men and women show towards each other. Those expressions reveal deeper cultural values about authority, wealth, pleasure, duty and afterlife. Cultural groups follow a larger dynastic structure of an emperor-based society. Succession to rule an empire is the driving force. Relatives are everywhere in the empire of the Great Kubilai Khan with royal lineage to the original Chinghiz Khan.