Matriarchy is a social system in which positions of power and Social privilege are held by women. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. While those definitions apply in general English, definitions specific to anthropology and feminism differ in some respects.
Matriarchies may also be confused with matrilineality, matrilocal, and matrifocal societies.[ Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy, Cornell University Press, 2002.] While some may consider any non-patriarchal system to be matriarchal, most academics exclude those systems from matriarchies as strictly defined. Many societies have had matriarchal elements, but unlike the Patriarchy, a complete exclusion of men in authority has not been recorded in history.
Definitions, connotations, and etymology
According to the
Oxford English Dictionary (
OED), matriarchy is a "form of social organization in which the mother or oldest female is the head of the family, and descent and relationship are reckoned through the female line; government or rule by a woman or women."
[ Oxford English Dictionary (online), entry matriarchy, as accessed November 3, 2013.] A popular definition, according to James Peoples and Garrick Bailey, is "female dominance".
Within the academic discipline of cultural anthropology, according to the
OED, matriarchy is a "culture or community in which such a system prevails"
or a "family, society, organization, etc., dominated by a woman or women" without reference to laws that require women to dominate.
In general anthropology, according to William A. Haviland, matriarchy is "rule by women".
[Haviland, William A., Anthropology (Ft. Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 8th ed. 1997 ()), p. 579.] According to Lawrence A. Kuzner in 1997, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown argued in 1924 that the definitions of matriarchy and patriarchy had "logical and empirical failings (...) and were too vague to be scientifically useful".
[Kuznar, Lawrence A., Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press (div. of Sage Publications), pbk. 1997 ()).]
Most academics exclude egalitarian nonpatriarchal systems from matriarchies more strictly defined. According to Heide Göttner-Abendroth, a reluctance to accept the existence of matriarchies might be based on a specific culturally biased notion of how to define matriarchy: because in a patriarchy men rule over women, a matriarchy has frequently been conceptualized as women ruling over men,
- : See also Sanday, Peggy Reeves, Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy (Cornell University Press, 2002) ("matriarchies are not a mirror form of patriarchies but rather ... a matriarchy "emphasizes maternal meanings where 'maternal symbols are linked to social practices influencing the lives of both sexes and where women play a central role in these practices).
[Lepowsky, M. A., Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society (U.S.: Columbia University Press, 1993).]
The word matriarchy, for a society politically led by women, especially mothers, who also control property, is often interpreted to mean the general opposite of patriarchy, but it is not an opposite.[Compare, in Oxford English Dictionary (online), entry patriarchy to entry matriarchy, both as accessed November 3, 2013.][ (p. 184 n. 84 probably citing Spretnak, Charlene, ed., Politics of Women's Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power Within the Feminist Movement (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1982), p. xiii (Spretnak, Charlene, Introduction)).][ (italics so in original)] Barbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin wrote, "by 'matriarchy,' we mean a non-alienated society: a society in which women, those who produce the next generation, define motherhood, determine the conditions of motherhood, and determine the environment in which the next generation is reared."[ ] With respect to a prehistoric matriarchal Golden Age, according to Barbara Epstein, "matriarchy ... means a social system organized around matriliny and goddess worship in which women have positions of power."
According to Adler, "a number of feminists note that few definitions of the word matriarchy, despite its literal meaning, include any concept of power, and they suggest that centuries of oppression have made it impossible for women to conceive of themselves with such power."
Matriarchy has often been presented as negative, in contrast to patriarchy as natural and inevitable for society, and thus that matriarchy is hopeless. Love and Shanklin wrote:
When we hear the word "matriarchy", we are conditioned to a number of responses: that matriarchy refers to the past and that matriarchies have never existed; that matriarchy is a hopeless fantasy of female domination, of mothers dominating children, of women being cruel to men. Conditioning us negatively to matriarchy is, of course, in the interests of patriarchs. We are made to feel that patriarchy is natural; we are less likely to question it, and less likely to direct our energies to ending it.
The Matriarchal Studies school led by Göttner-Abendroth calls for an even more inclusive redefinition of the term: Göttner-Abendroth defines Modern Matriarchal Studies as the "investigation and presentation of non-patriarchal societies", effectively defining matriarchy as non-patriarchy.[ Introduction, in Second World Congress on Matriarchal Studies.] She has also defined matriarchy as characterized by the sharing of power equally between the two genders.[ DeMott, Tom, The Investigator (review of Bennholdt-Thomsen, Veronika, Cornelia Giebeler, Brigitte Holzer, & Marina Meneses, Juchitán, City of Women (Mexico: Consejo Editorial, 1994)), as accessed Feb. 6, 2011.] According to Diane LeBow, "matriarchal societies are often described as ... egalitarian ...",
Matriarchy is also the public formation in which the woman occupies the ruling position in a family.[ Office of Policy Planning and Review (Daniel Patrick Moynihan, principal author), The Negro Family: The Case For National Action (U.S. Department of Labor, 1965) , esp. Chapter IV. The Tangle of Pathology, authorship per History at the Department of Labor: In-Depth Research, all as accessed November 2, 2013.] because a quarter of them were headed by single women;[, citing Moynihan, Daniel, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965) ("In this analysis Moynihan asserted that since a fourth of black families were headed by single women, black society was a matriarchy .... andhis situation undermined the confidence and 'manhood' of black men, and therefore prevented their competing successfully in the white work world.") and citing bell hooks, either Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Boston: South End, 1981) or Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End, 1984) (probably former), pp. 181–187 ("freedom came to be seen by some black militants as a liberation from the oppression caused by black women"), hooks, bell, pp. 180–181 ("many black men 'absorbed' the Moynihan ideology, and this misogyny itself became absorbed into the black freedom movement" and included this, "Moynihan's view", as a case of "American neo-Freudian revisionism where women who evidenced the slightest degree of independence were perceived as 'castrating' threats to the male identity"), and see hooks, bell, p. 79.] thus, families composing a substantial minority of a substantial minority could be enough for the latter to constitute a matriarchy within a larger non-matriarchal society with non-matriarchal political dynamics.
Etymologically, it is from Latin māter (genitive mātris), "mother" and Ancient Greek ἄρχειν arkhein, "to rule".[Edvard Westermarck (1921), The History of Human Marriage, Vol. 3, London: Macmillan, p. 108.] According to the OED, the earliest known attestation of the word matriarchy is in 1885.[ Liddell, Henry George, & Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, for γυναικοκρατία.][ Liddell, Henry George, & Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, for γυ^ναικο-κρα^τέομαι.]
Terms with similar etymology are also used in various social sciences and humanities to describe matriarchal or matriological aspects of social, cultural, and political processes. Adjective matriological is derived from the noun matriology that comes from Latin word māter (mother) and Greek word λογος ( logos, teaching about). The term matriology was used in theology and history of religion as a designation for the study of particular motherly aspects of various female deities. The term was subsequently borrowed by other social sciences and humanities and its meaning was widened in order to describe and define particular female-dominated and female-centered aspects of cultural and social life. The male alternative for matriology is patriology, with patriarchy being the male alternative to matriarchy
Related concepts
In their works, Johann Jakob Bachofen and Lewis Morgan used such terms and expressions as
mother-right,
female rule,
gyneocracy, and
female authority. All these terms meant the same: the rule by women (mother or wife). Although Bachofen and Lewis Morgan confined the "mother-right" inside households, it was the basis of female influence upon the whole society.
The authors of the classics did not think that
gyneocracy meant 'female government' in politics. They were aware of the fact that the sexual structure of government had no relation to domestic rule and to roles of both sexes.
Words beginning with gyn-
A matriarchy is also sometimes called a
gynarchy, a
gynocracy, a
gynecocracy, or a
gynocentric society, although these terms do not definitionally emphasize motherhood. Cultural anthropologist Jules de Leeuwe argued that some societies were "mainly
gynecocratic"
[Leeuwe, Jules de, untitled comment (November 18, 1977) (emphases so in original), as a response to and with Eleanor Leacock, Women's Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evolution, in Current Anthropology, vol. 33, no. 1, supp. Inquiry and Debate in the Human Sciences: Contributions from Current Anthropology, 1960–1990 (February, 1992 ( & E-ISSN 1537-5382)), p. 241.] (others being "mainly
androcratic").
Gynecocracy, gynaecocracy, gynocracy, gyneocracy, and gynarchy generally mean 'government by women over women and men'.[ Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam (Merriam-Webster), 1966), entries gynecocracy, gynocracy, & gynarchy.][ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 3d ed. 1992 ()), entries gynecocracy, gynocracy, & gynarchy.][ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (N.Y.: Random House, 2d ed. 2001 ()), entries gynecocracy & gynarchy.] All of these words are synonyms in their most important definitions, and while these words all share that principal meaning, they differ a little in their additional meanings, so that gynecocracy also means 'women's social supremacy',[ Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam (Merriam-Webster), 1966), entry gynecocracy.] gynaecocracy also means 'government by one woman', 'female dominance', and, derogatorily, 'petticoat government',
Some question whether a queen ruling without a king is sufficient to constitute female government, given the amount of participation of other men in most such governments. One view is that it is sufficient. "By the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, gynecocracy was a fait accompli", according to historian Paula Louise Scalingi.
Some matriarchies have been described by historian Helen Diner as "a strong gynocracy"
Gynocentrism is the 'dominant or exclusive focus on women', is opposed to androcentrism, and "inverts ... the privilege of the ... male/female binary ..., some arguing for 'the superiority of values embodied in traditionally female experience'".[Latter quotation: (brackets in title so in original) & quoting: ]
Intergenerational relationships
Some people who sought evidence for the existence of a matriarchy often mixed matriarchy with anthropological terms and concepts describing specific arrangements in the field of family relationships and the organization of family life, such as matrilineality and matrilocality. These terms refer to intergenerational relationships (as matriarchy may), but do not distinguish between males and females insofar as they apply to specific arrangements for sons as well as daughters from the perspective of their relatives on their mother's side. Accordingly, these concepts do not represent matriarchy as 'power of women over men' but instead familial dynamics.
[Ferraro, Gary, Wenda Trevathan, & Janet Levy, Anthropology: An Applied Perspective (Minneapolis: West Publishing Co., 1992), p. 360.]
Words beginning with matri-
Anthropologists have begun to use the term matrifocality. There is some debate concerning the terminological delineation between
matrifocality and
matriarchy. Matrifocal societies are those in which women, especially mothers, occupy a central position. Anthropologist R. T. Smith refers to
matrifocality as the kinship structure of a social system whereby the mothers assume structural prominence.
[Smith, R.T., Matrifocality, in Smelser & Baltes, eds., International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2002), vol. 14, p. 9416 ff.] The term does not necessarily imply domination by women or mothers.
In addition, some authors depart from the premise of a mother-child dyad as the core of a human group where the grandmother was the central ancestor with her children and grandchildren clustered around her in an extended family.
[ Ruether, Rosemary Radford, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History, p. 18.]
The term matricentric means 'having a mother as head of the family or household'.
Matristic: Feminist scholars and archeologists such as Marija Gimbutas, Gerda Lerner, and Riane Eisler[Eisler, Riane, The Chalice and the Blade, as cited at the author's website , as accessed Jan. 26, 2011.] label their notion of a "woman-centered" society surrounding Mother Goddess worship during prehistory (in Paleolithic and Neolithic Europe) and in ancient civilizations by using the term matristic rather than matriarchal. Marija Gimbutas states that she uses "the term matristic simply to avoid the term matriarchy with the understanding that it incorporates matriliny."
Matrilineality, in which descent is traced through the female line, is sometimes conflated with historical matriarchy.[Adovasio, J. M., Olga Soffer, & Jake Page, The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory (Smithsonian Books & Collins (HarperCollinsPublishers), 1st Smithsonian Books ed. 2007 ()), pp. 251–255, esp. p. 255.] Sanday favors redefining and reintroducing the word matriarchy, especially in reference to contemporary matrilineal societies such as the Minangkabau.[Sanday, Peggy Reeves, Woman at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy (Cornell University Press, 2004 ()).] The 19th-century belief that matriarchal societies existed was due to the transmission of "economic and social power ... through kinship lines"
A matrilocal society defines a society in which a couple resides close to the bride's family rather than the bridegroom's family.
History and distribution
Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal, at least no matriarchal society that have completely excluded the opposite
gender from roles of authority.
[Goldberg, Steven, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (William Morrow & Co., 1973).][ ][ Encyclopædia Britannica describes this view as "consensus", listing matriarchy as a hypothetical social system: Encyclopædia Britannica (2007), entry Matriarchy.] According to J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page, no matriarchy with the element of exclusion is known to have existed.
Anthropologist Donald Brown's list of human cultural universals (
viz., features shared by nearly all current human societies) includes men being the "dominant element" in public political affairs,
[Brown, Donald E., Human Universals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), p. 137.] which he asserts is the contemporary opinion of mainstream
anthropology,
["The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development now is generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed." Encyclopædia Britannica (2007), entry Matriarchy.] although there are some disagreements and exceptions.
A belief that women's rule preceded men's rule was, according to Haviland, "held by many nineteenth-century intellectuals".
Matriarchs, according to Peoples and Bailey, do exist; there are "individual matriarchs of families and kin groups."
By region and culture
Ancient Near East
The Cambridge Ancient History (1975)
[ The Cambridge Ancient History (reprinted 2000, © 1975), vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 400.] stated that "the predominance of a supreme goddess is probably a reflection from the practice of matriarchy which at all times characterized
civilization to a greater or lesser degree, before this practice was overthrown by the patriarchy".
Europe
Tacitus claimed in his book
Germania that in "the nations of the
Sitones woman is the ruling sex."
[ Tacitus, Cornelius, Germania (A.D. 98) , as accessed June 8, 2013, paragraph 45.]
Paragraph 45:6: Suionibus Sithonum gentes continuantur, cetera similes uno differunt, quod femina dominatur: in tantum non modo a libertate, sed etiam a servitute degenerant. Hic Suebiae finis.
Anne Helene Gjelstad describes the women on the islands Kihnu and Manilaid as "the last matriarchal society in Europe" because "the older women here take care of almost everything on land as their husbands travel the seas".[The Guardian, Where women rule: the last matriarchy in Europe – in pictures (2020-02-26)]
Asia
Shillong, Meghalaya
The Khasi people and the Garo people people residing in the North East regions of India are two of the top matriarchal societies of Meghalaya.
Burma
Possible matriarchies in Burma are, according to Jorgen Bisch, the Padaungs
[Bisch, Jorgen, Why Buddha Smiles, p. 71 (Ahu Ho Gong, Padaung chief: "no man can be chief over women. I am chief of the men. But women, well! Women only do what they themselves wish" & "it is the same with women all over the world", pp. 52–53, & "no man can rule over women. They just do what they themselves want").] and, according to Andrew Marshall, the
Bwe people.
[Marshall, Andrew, The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire (), p. 213 ("Kayaw societies are strictly matriarchal.").]
China
The
Mosuo culture, which is in China near
Tibet, is frequently described as matriarchal.
[ MacKinnon, Mark, In China, a Matriarchy Under Threat, in The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 15, 2011, 11:55p.] The term
Matrilineality is sometimes used, and, while more accurate, still does not reflect the full complexity of their social organization. In fact, it is not easy to categorize Mosuo culture within traditional Western definitions. They have aspects of a matriarchal culture: women are often the head of the house, inheritance is through the female line, and women make business decisions. However, unlike in a true matriarchy, political power tends to be in the hands of men, and the current culture of the Mosuo has been heavily shaped by their minority status.
[, retrieved July 10, 2011.]
India
In India, of communities recognized in the national Constitution as Scheduled Tribes, "some ... are matriarchal and matrilineal"
[, citing Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhachar, The Cohesive Role of Sanskritization and Other Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), & Agarwal, Bina, A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).] "and thus have been known to be more egalitarian".
According to interviewer Anuj Kumar,
Manipur, India, "has a matriarchal society",
[ Kumar, Anuj, Let's Anger Her! ( sic), in The Hindu, July 25, 2012, as accessed September 29, 2012 (whether statement was by Kumar or Kom is unknown).] but this may not be scholarly. In Kerala, Nairs, Thiyyas, Brahmins of Payyannoor village and Muslims of North Malabar and in Karnataka, Bunts and Billavas follow the matrilineal system.
Indonesia
Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday has said that the Minangkabau society may be a matriarchy.
[Sanday, Peggy Reeves, Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy (Cornell University Press, 2002).]
Ancient Vietnam (before 43 CE)
According to William S. Turley, "the role of women in traditional Vietnamese culture was determined partly by ... indigenous customs bearing traces of matriarchy",
affecting "different social classes"
to "varying degrees".
Peter C. Phan explains that "the ancient Vietnamese family system was most likely matriarchal, with women ruling over the clan or tribe" until the Vietnamese "adopted ... the patriarchal system introduced by the Chinese."
[ (the "three persons" apparently being the sisters Trung Trac and Trung Nhi in A.D. 40, per p. 12, & Trieu Au in A.D. 248, per p. 13).] That being said, even after adopting the patriarchal Chinese system, Vietnamese women, especially peasant women, still held a higher position than women in most patriarchal societies.
According to Chiricosta, the legend of Âu Cơ is said to be evidence of "the presence of an original 'matriarchy' in North Vietnam and it led to the double kinship system, which developed there .... and combined matrilineal and patrilineal patterns of family structure and assigned equal importance to both lines."
[Chiricosta, Alessandra, Following the Trail of the Fairy-Bird: The Search For a Uniquely Vietnamese Women's Movement, in (single quotation marks so in original).] Chiricosta said that other scholars relied on "this 'matriarchal' aspect of the myth to differentiate Vietnamese society from the pervasive spread of Chinese Confucian patriarchy,"
[ (single quotation marks so in original).] and that "resistance to China's colonization of Vietnam ... combined the view that Vietnam was originally a matriarchy ... led women's struggles for liberation from (Chinese) patriarchy as a metaphor for the entire nation's struggle for Vietnamese independence," and therefore, a "metaphor for the struggle of the matriarchy to resist being overthrown by the patriarchy."
[ (parentheses so in original).] According to Keith Weller Taylor, "the matriarchal flavor of the time is ... attested by the fact that Trung Trac's mother's tomb and spirit temple have survived, although nothing remains of her father",
[ (n. 176 omitted).] and the "society of the Trung sisters" was "strongly matrilineal".
[Both quotations: ] According to Donald M. Seekins, an indication of "the strength of matriarchal values"
[Seekins, Donald M., Trung Sisters, Rebellion of (39–43), in Sandler, Stanley, ed., Ground Warfare: An International Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara California: ABC-Clio, hardcover 2002 ()), vol. 3, p. 898.] was that a woman, Trưng Trắc, with her younger sister Trưng Nhị, raised an army of "over 80,000 soldiers ... in many of her officers were women",
with which they defeated the Chinese.
According to Seekins, "in the 40, Trung Trac was proclaimed queen, and a capital was built for her"
and modern Vietnam considers the Trung sisters to be heroines.
According to Karen G. Turner, in the third century A.D., Lady Triệu to personify the matriarchal culture that mitigated Confucianized patriarchal norms .... although she is also painted as something of a freak ... with her ... savage, violent streak."
[Turner, Karen G., "Vietnam" as a Women's War, in Young, Marilyn B., & Robert Buzzanco, eds., A Companion to the Vietnam War (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, hardback 2002 ()), pp. 95–96 but see p. 107.]
Native Americans
The
Hopi people (in what is now the
Hopi Reservation in northeastern
Arizona), according to
Alice Schlegel, had as its "gender ideology ... one of female superiority, and it operated within a social actuality of sexual equality."
According to LeBow (based on Schlegel's work), in the Hopi, "gender roles ... are egalitarian .... and neither sex is inferior."
LeBow concluded that Hopi women "participate fully in ... political decision-making."
According to Schlegel, "the Hopi no longer live as they are described here"
and "the attitude of female superiority is fading".
Schlegel said the Hopi "were and still are matrilineal"
and "the household ... was matrilocal".
Schlegel explains why there was female superiority as that the Hopi believed in "life as the highest good ... with the female principle ... activated in women and in Mother Earth ... as its source"
and that the Hopi had no need for an army as they did not have rivalries with neighbors.
Women were central to institutions of clan and household and predominated "within the economic and social systems (in contrast to male predominance within the political and ceremonial systems)."
The Clan Mother, for example, was empowered to overturn land distribution by men if she felt it was unfair
since there was no "countervailing ... strongly centralized, male-centered political structure".
The Iroquois Confederacy or League, combining five to six Native American Haudenosaunee nations or tribes before the U.S. became a nation, operated by The Great Binding Law of Peace, a constitution by which women participated in the League's political decision-making, including deciding whether to proceed to war,[, quoting Carr, L., The Social and Political Position of Women Among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes, Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology, p. 223 (1884).] According to Doug George-Kanentiio, in this society, mothers exercise central moral and political roles.[George-Kanentiio, Doug, Iroquois Culture & Commentary (New Mexico: Clear Light Publishers, 2000), pp. 53–55.] The dates of this constitution's operation are unknown; the League was formed in approximately 1000–1450, but the constitution was oral until written in about 1880.
George-Kanentiio explains:
In our society, women are the center of all things. Nature, we believe, has given women the ability to create; therefore it is only natural that women be in positions of power to protect this function....We traced our clans through women; a child born into the world assumed the clan membership of its mother. Our young women were expected to be physically strong....The young women received formal instruction in traditional planting....Since the Iroquois were absolutely dependent upon the crops they grew, whoever controlled this vital activity wielded great power within our communities. It was our belief that since women were the givers of life they naturally regulated the feeding of our people....In all countries, real wealth stems from the control of land and its resources. Our Iroquois philosophers knew this as well as we knew natural law. To us it made sense for women to control the land since they were far more sensitive to the rhythms of the Mother Earth. We did not own the land but were custodians of it. Our women decided any and all issues involving territory, including where a community was to be built and how land was to be used....In our political system, we mandated full equality. Our leaders were selected by a caucus of women before the appointments were subject to popular review....Our traditional governments are composed of an equal number of men and women. The men are chiefs and the women clan-mothers....As leaders, the women closely monitor the actions of the men and retain the right to veto any law they deem inappropriate....Our women not only hold the reins of political and economic power, they also have the right to determine all issues involving the taking of human life. Declarations of war had to be approved by the women, while treaties of peace were subject to their deliberations.
By chronology
Earliest prehistory and undated
The controversy surrounding prehistoric or "primal" matriarchy began in reaction to the 1861 book by Bachofen,
Mother Right: An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the Ancient World. Several generations of ethnologists were inspired by his pseudo-evolutionary theory of archaic matriarchy. Following him and Jane Ellen Harrison, several generations of scholars, usually arguing from known myths or oral traditions and examination of Neolithic female cult-figures, suggested that many ancient societies might have been matriarchal, or even that there existed a wide-ranging matriarchal society prior to the ancient cultures of which we are aware. After Bachofen's three-volume
Myth, Religion, and Mother Right, classicists such as Harrison,
Arthur Evans,
Walter Burkert, and
James Mellaart[ Ruether, Rosemary Radford, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History, p. 15.] looked at the evidence of matriarchal religion in pre-Hellenic societies.
[ Bachofen, Johann Jakob, Myth, Religion, and Mother Right.] The concept was further investigated by Lewis Morgan.
[ Morgan, L., Ancient Society Or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization.] According to Uwe Wesel, Bachofen's myth interpretations have proved to be untenable.
[Wesel, Uwe, Der Mythos vom Matriarchat. Über Bachofens Mutterrecht und die Stellung von Frauen in frühen Gesellschaften (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1980).] According to historian Susan Mann, as of 2000, "few scholars these days find ... a persuasive."
Kurt Derungs is a recent non-academic author advocating an "anthropology of landscape" based on allegedly matriarchal traces in toponymy and folklore.
Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages
Friedrich Engels, in 1884, claimed that, in the earliest stages of human social development, there was group marriage and that therefore paternity was disputable, whereas maternity was not, so that a family could be traced only through the female line. This was a materialist interpretation of Bachofen's
Mutterrecht.
[ ][Bachofen, Johann Jakob, Das Mutterrecht. Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur. Eine Auswahl herausgegeben von Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1975 1861).] Engels speculated that the domestication of animals increased material wealth, which was claimed by men. Engels said that men wanted to control women to use as laborers and to pass on wealth to their children, requiring monogamy; as patriarchy rose, women's status declined until they became mere objects in the exchange trade between men, causing the global defeat of the female sex
and the rise of individualism and competition.
According to Eller, Engels may have been influenced with respect to women's status by
August Bebel,
according to whom matriarchy naturally resulted in
communism, while patriarchy was characterized by exploitation.
[Bebel, August, Die Frau und der Sozialismus. Als Beitrag zur Emanzipation unserer Gesellschaft, bearbeitet und kommentiert von Monika Seifert (Stuttgart: Dietz, 1974 (1st published 1879)), p. 63.]
Austrian writer Bertha Diener (or Helen Diner), wrote Mothers and Amazons (1930), the first work to focus on women's cultural history, a classic of feminist matriarchal study.[ Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Helen Diner (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Museum, last updated March 27, 2007), as accessed March, 2008, & November 15, 2013.] Her view is that all past human societies were originally matriarchal, while most later shifted to patriarchy and degenerated. The controversy intensified with The White Goddess by Robert Graves (1948) and his later analysis of classical Greek mythology, focusing on the reconstruction of earlier myths that had conjecturally been rewritten after a transition from matriarchal to patriarchal religion in very early historical times.
From the 1950s, Marija Gimbutas developed a theory of an Old European culture in Neolithic Europe with matriarchal traits, which had been replaced by the patriarchal system of the Proto-Indo-Europeans in the Bronze Age. However, other anthropologists warned that "the goddess worship or matrilocality that evidently existed in many paleolithic societies was not necessarily associated with matriarchy in the sense of women's power over men. Many societies can be found that exhibit those qualities along with female subordination."
From the 1970s, ideas of matriarchy were taken up by popular writers of second-wave feminism such as Riane Eisler, Elizabeth Gould Davis, and Merlin Stone, and expanded with the speculations of Margaret Murray on witchcraft, by the Goddess movement, and in feminist Wicca. "A Golden Age of matriarchy" was prominently presented by Charlene Spretnak and "encouraged" by Stone and Eisler,[Davis, Philip G., Goddess Unmasked (N.Y.: Spence Publishing, 1998 ()); Sheaffer, R., Skeptical Inquirer (1999) (review).] and The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. The idea is not emphasized in third-wave feminism.
J.F. del Giorgio insists on a matrifocal, matrilocal, matrilineal Paleolithic society.[del Giorgio, J.F., The Oldest Europeans (A.J.Place, 2006 ()).]
Bronze Age
According to Rohrlich, "many scholars are convinced that Crete was a matriarchy, ruled by a queen-priestess"
[ and see p. 37 ("Minoan matriarchate" (subquoting, at p. 37 n. 7, Thomson, George, The Prehistoric Aegean (N.Y.: Citadel Press, 1965), p. 450)), Baruch, Elaine Hoffman, Introduction, in Pt. Four ( Visions of Utopia), in ("matriarchal societies, particularly Minoan Crete"), and ("the Minoan matriarchy" & "Minoan Crete").] and the "Cretan civilization" was "matriarchal" before "1500 BC," when it was overrun and colonized by the patriarchy.
[Three quotations: ]
Also according to Rohrlich, "in the early Sumerian city-states 'matriarchy seems to have left something more than a trace.[, quoting Thomson, George, The Prehistoric Aegean (N.Y.: Citadel Press, 1965), p. 160.]
One common misconception among historians of the Bronze Age such as Stone and Eisler is the notion that the Semites were matriarchal while the Indo-Europeans practiced a patriarchal system. An example of this view is found in Stone's When God Was a Woman, wherein she makes the case that the worship of Yahweh was an Indo-European invention superimposed on an ancient matriarchal Semitic nation. Evidence from the Amorites and pre-Islamic Arabs, however, indicates that the primitive Semitic family was in fact patriarchal and patrilineal.
However, not all scholars agree. Anthropologist and Biblical scholar Raphael Patai writes in The Hebrew Goddess that the Jewish religion, far from being pure monotheism, contained from earliest times strong polytheistic elements, chief of which was the cult of Asherah, the mother goddess. A story in the Biblical Book of Judges places the worship of Asherah in the 12th century BC. Originally a goddess, her worship was adopted by Hebrews who intermarried with Canaanites. She was worshipped in public and was represented by carved wooden poles. Numerous small nude female figurines of clay were found all over ancient Palestine and a seventh-century Hebrew text invokes her aid for a woman giving birth.
Shekinah is the name of the feminine holy spirit who embodies both divine radiance and compassion. Exemplifying various traits associated with mothers, she comforts the sick and dejected, accompanies the Jews whenever they are exiled, and intercedes with God to exercise mercy rather than to inflict retribution on sinners. While not a creation of the Hebrew Bible, Shekinah appears in a slightly later Aramaic translation of the Bible in the first or second century C.E., according to Patai. Initially portrayed as the presence of God, she later becomes distinct from God, taking on more physical attributes.
Meanwhile, the Indo-Europeans were known to have practiced multiple succession systems, and there is much better evidence of matrilineal customs among the Indo-European Celts and Germanics than among any ancient Semitic peoples.
Women ruled Sparta while the men were often away fighting, or when both kings were incapacitated or too young to rule. Gorgo, Queen of Sparta, was asked by a woman in Attica "You Spartan women are the only women that lord it over your men", to which Gorgo replied: "Yes, for we are the only women that are mothers of men!"
Iron Age to Middle Ages
Arising in the period ranging from the
Iron Age to the
Middle Ages, several northwestern European mythologies from the
Irish mythology (e.g.
Macha and Scáthach), the Brittonic (e.g.
Rhiannon), and the Germanic (e.g. Grendel's mother and
Nerthus) contain ambiguous episodes of primal female power which have been interpreted as folk evidence of matriarchal attitudes in
Iron Age European Iron Age societies. Often transcribed from a retrospective, patriarchal, Romanised, and
Catholic perspective, they hint at a possible earlier era when female power predominated. The first-century historical British figure of
Boudicca indicates that Brittonnic society permitted explicit female autocracy or a form of gender equality which contrasted strongly with the patriarchal Mediterranean civilisation that later overthrew it.
20th–21st centuries
The
Mosuo people are an ethnic group in southwest China. They are considered one of the most well-known matriarchal societies, although many scholars assert that they are rather
Matrilineality. , the sole heirs in the family are still daughters.
["Mosuo People Maintain Rare Matriarchal Society (2)." Xinhua News Agency – CEIS, Jun 11 2000, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 18 Apr. 2021.] Since 1990, when foreign tourism became permitted, tourists started visiting the Mosuo people.
As pointed out by the Xinhua News Agency, "tourism has become so profitable that many Mosuo families in the area who have opened their homes have become wealthy."
Although this revived their economy and lifted many out of poverty, it also altered the fabric of their society to have outsiders present who often look down on the Mosuo's cultural practices.
In 1995, in Kenya, according to Emily Wax, Umoja, a village only for women from one tribe with about 36 residents, was established under a matriarch.[ Wax, Emily, A Place Where Women Rule, in The Washington Post, July 9, 2005, p. 1 (online), as accessed October 13, 2013.] It was founded on an empty piece of land by women who fled their homes after being raped by British soldiers.[ Wax, Emily, A Place Where Women Rule, in The Washington Post, July 9, 2005, p. 2 (online), as accessed October 13, 2013.] and men suing to close the women's village.
The Khasi people people live in Northeast India in the state of Meghalaya.
Spokespersons for various indigenous peoples at the United Nations and elsewhere have highlighted the central role of women in their societies, referring to them as matriarchies, in danger of being overthrown by the patriarchy, or as matriarchal in character.[Tamang, Stella, Indigenous Affairs, vols. 1–2, no. 4, p. 46.][ Six Nations Women's Traditional Council Fire Report to CEDAW, p. 2.]
Mythology
Amazons
A legendary matriarchy related by several writers was
Amazons society. According to
Phyllis Chesler, "in Amazon societies, women were ... mothers and their society's only political and religious leaders",
[ (italics omitted).] as well as the only warriors and hunters;
"queens were elected"
and apparently "any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression."
[ (italics omitted)] Herodotus reported that the
Sarmatians were descendants of Amazons and
Scythians, and that their women observed their ancient maternal customs, "frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands; in war taking the field; and wearing the very same dress as the men". Moreover, said Herodotus, "no girl shall wed till she has killed a man in battle".
Amazons came to play a role in Roman historiography.
Julius Caesar spoke of the conquest of large parts of Asia by
Semiramis and the Amazons. Although Strabo was sceptical about their historicity, the Amazons were taken as historical throughout
late Antiquity.
[Strabo, 5.504.] Several
Church Fathers spoke of the Amazons as a real people. Medieval authors continued a tradition of locating the Amazons in the North, Adam of Bremen placing them at the
Baltic Sea and
Paulus Diaconus in the heart of Germania.
[Ukert, F. A., Die Amazonen (Abhandlungen der philosophisch-philologischen Classe der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1849), 63.]
Greece
Robert Graves suggested that a myth displaced earlier myths that had to change when a major cultural change brought patriarchy to replace a matriarchy. According to this myth, in
Greek mythology,
Zeus is said to have swallowed his pregnant lover, the titan goddess Metis, who was carrying their daughter,
Athena. The mother and child created havoc inside Zeus. Either
Hermes or
Hephaestus split Zeus's head, allowing Athena, in full battle armor, to burst forth from his forehead. Athena was thus described as being "born" from Zeus. The outcome pleased Zeus as it didn't fulfill the prophecy of Themis which (according to Aeschylus) predicted that Zeus will one day bear a son that would overthrow him.
Celtic myth and society
According to Adler, "there
is plenty of evidence of ancient societies where women held greater power than in many societies today. For example,
Jean Markale's studies of Celtic societies show that the power of women was reflected not only in myth and legend but in legal codes pertaining to marriage, divorce, property ownership, and the right to rule...although this was overthrown by the patriarchy."
[ (italics so in original; p. 196 n. 20 citing Markale, Jean, Women of the Celts (London: Gordon Cremonesi, 1975)).]
Basque myth and society
The hypothesis of Basque matriarchism or theory of Basque matriarchism is a theoretical proposal launched by Andrés Ortiz-Osés that maintains that the existence of a psychosocial structure centered or focused on the matriarchal-feminine archetype (mother / woman, which finds in the archetype of the great Basque mother Mari, her precipitate as a projection of Mother Earth / nature) that "permeates, coagulates and unites the traditional Basque social group in a way that is different from the patriarchal Indo-European peoples".
This mythical matriarchal conception corresponds to the conception of the Basques, clearly reflected in their mythology. The Earth is the mother of the Sun and the Moon, compared to Indo-European patriarchal conceptions, where the sun is reflected as a God, numen or male spirit. Prayers and greetings were dedicated to these two sisters at dawn and dusk, when they returned to the bosom of Mother Earth.
Franz-Karl Mayr, this philosopher argued that the archetypal background of Basque mythology had to be inscribed in the context of a Paleolithic dominated by the Great Mother, in which the cycle of Mari (goddess) and her metamorphoses offers all a typical symbolism of the matriarchal-naturalistic context. According to the archetype of the Great Mother, this is usually related to fertility cults, as in the case of Mari, who is the determinant of fertility-fecundity, the maker of rain or hail, that on whose telluric forces depend the crops, in space and time, life and death, luck (grace) and misfortune.
South America
Bamberger (1974) examines several matriarchal myths from South American cultures and concludes that portraying the women from this matriarchal period as immoral often serves to restrain contemporary women in these societies, providing reason for the overthrow by the patriarchy.
[Bamberger, Joan, The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society, in M. Rosaldo & L. Lamphere, Women, Culture, and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 279.]
In feminist thought
While
matriarchy has mostly fallen out of use for the anthropological description of existing societies, it remains current as a concept in
feminism.
[Weisberg, D. Kelly, ed., Applications of Feminist Legal Theory to Women's Lives: Sex, Violence, Work, and Reproduction (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996 ()), p. 9 ("women must organize against patriarchy as a class") but see p. 11 ("some radical feminists ... opt ... for anarchistic, violent methods").][Dale, Jennifer, & Peggy Foster, Feminists and State Welfare (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986 ()), p. 52 ("radical feminist theory .... could, indeed, be said to point in the direction of 'matriarchy) and see pp. 52–53 (political separatism).]
In first-wave feminist discourse, either Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Margaret Fuller (it is unclear who was first) introduced the concept of matriarchy[, citing Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Address (Washington Woman's Rights Convention, 1869), in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 2, pp. 351–353.] and the discourse was joined in by Matilda Joslyn Gage.[, citing Gage, Matilda Joslyn, Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Women through the Christian Ages; with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate (Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1980 (1893)), p. 21.] Victoria Woodhull, in 1871, called for men to open the U.S. government to women or a new constitution and government would be formed in a year;[ A Lecture on Constitutional Equality, also known as The Great Secession Speech, speech to Woman's Suffrage Convention, New York, May 11, 1871, excerpt quoted in .] and, on a basis of equality, she ran to be elected president in 1872.[Underhill, Lois Beachy, The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Bridge Works, 1st ed. 1995 (), passim, esp. ch. 8.] Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in 1911 and 1914,[The dates are those of two original editions of the same work, both cited herein.] argued for "a woman-centered, or better mother-centered, world"[, citing ] and described "government by women".[, citing ] She argued that a government led by either sex must be assisted by the other,[ and see p. 153.] both genders being "useful ... and should in our governments be alike used",
Cultural feminism includes "matriarchal worship", according to Prof. James Penner.[Penner, James, Pinks, Pansies, and Punks: The Rhetoric of Masculinity in American Literary Culture (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2011 ()), p. 235.]
In feminist literature, matriarchy and patriarchy are not conceived as simple mirrors of each other.[ (quoting also Mary Daly ("matriarchy 'was not patriarchy spelled with an "m., probably – per – in Daly, Mary, Beyond God the Father, p. 94)).] Patriarchy is held to be about power over others while matriarchy is held to be about power from within,[Starhawk, (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 15th Anniversary ed. 1997 (original 1982) ()), ch. 1 (original 1982 ed. cited in ).] and Adler having argued that matriarchal power is not possessive and not controlling, but is harmonious with nature, arguing that women are uniquely capable of using power without exploitative purposes.
For radical feminists, the importance of matriarchy is that "veneration for the female principle ... somewhat lightens an oppressive system."
are a form of advocacy. According to Tineke Willemsen, "a feminist utopia would ... be the description of a place where at least women would like to live."[. See also ("Tineke Willemsen distinghuishes in her article three large classes of utopias: ... 2) feminists who emphasize the difference between; in these utopias women have a better position than men or feminine qualities are more valued than masculine ones").]
A minority of feminists, generally radical feminism,
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In her book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation, Andrea Dworkin stated that she wanted women to have their own country, "Womenland,"
[Quotation: Take No Prisoners, in The Guardian, May 13, 2000, as accessed Sep. 6, 2010.] which, comparable to Israel, would serve as a "place of potential refuge".[Other than quotation: Dworkin, Andrea, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (N.Y.: Free Press, 2000 ()), p. 246 and see pp. 248 & 336.] In the Palestine Solidarity Review, Veronica A. Ouma reviewed the book and argued her view that while Dworkin "pays lip service to the egalitarian nature of ... stateless societies without, she envisions a state whereby women either impose gender equality or a state where women rule supreme above men."[, as accessed Oct. 21, 2010 ( PSR was challenged on its reliability, in Frantzman, Seth J., Do Arabs and Jews Realize How Much They Look Alike?, in The Jerusalem Post, Jun. 10, 2009, 11:43 p.m. (op-ed opinion), as accessed May 15, 2011.)]
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Starhawk, in The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993), fiction, wrote of "a utopia where women are leading societies but are doing so with the consent of men."
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Phyllis Chesler wrote in Women and Madness (2005 and 1972) that feminist women must " dominate public and social institutions".
[ (italics so in original) and see pp. 296, 335–336, 337–338, 340, 341, 345, 346, 347, & 348–349 and see also pp. 294–295] She also wrote that women fare better when controlling the means of production[ and see p. 340] and that equality with men should not be supported,[Chesler, Phyllis, in (reply from Phyllis Chesler to Dale Spender).] Between Chesler's 1972 and 2005 editions, Dale Spender wrote that Chesler "takes as a ... stand that .... equality is a spurious goal, and of no use to women: the only way women can protect themselves is if they dominate particular institutions and can use them to serve women's interests. Reproduction is a case in point."[ (emphasis in original).] Spender wrote Chesler "remarks ... women will be superior".
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Monique Wittig authored, as fiction (not as fact), Les Guérillères,
[Both quotations: .] Scholarly interpretations of the fictional work include that women win a war against men,[Moi, Toril, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London: Routledge, 2d ed., 2002 ()), p. 78.][Auerbach, Nina, Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978 ()), p. 186.] "reconcile"[, quoting ] The women confronting men[ and see Baruch, Elaine Hoffman, Introduction, in Pt. Four ( Visions of Utopia), in .] and, continued Farley, permit a "few ... men, who are willing to accept a feminist society of primitive communism, ... to live."[, purportedly quoting within the quotation .]
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Mary Daly wrote of hag-ocracy, "the place we "women govern",
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Rasa von Werder has also long advocated for a return to matriarchy, a restoration of its status before its overthrow by patriarchy, along with associated author William Bond as well.
Some such advocacies are informed by work on the matriarchies of the past:
-
According to Prof. , "an ancient matriarchy ... was the lost object of women's freedom."
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Jill Johnston envisioned a "return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies"
[Johnston, Jill, (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1973 (SBN (not ISBN) 671-21433-0)), p. 248 and see pp. 248–249.] in the future[, as accessed (at a prior URL) October 21, 2010 (citing in n. 45 Lesbian Nation, p. 15).] Her work inspired efforts at implementation by the Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT) in 1976–1980[, citing ]
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Elizabeth Gould Davis believed that a "matriarchal counterrevolution replacing patriarchal revolution"] ... is the only hope for the survival of the human race."
[ and see pp. 26, 27, 32–36, & 42.] and proposed a discourse "rooted in the purest female chauvinism"
-
One organization that was named The Feminists was interested in matriarchy
[Tong, Rosemarie Putnam, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2d ed. 1998 ()), p. 23.] Two members wanted "the restoration of female rule",[, quoting Barbara Mehrhof and Pam Kearon. Full names per & memberships per . See also p. 253 ("moved toward ... matriarchalism").] but the organization's founder, Ti-Grace Atkinson, would have objected had she remained in the organization, because, according to a historian, "she had always doubted that women would wield power differently from men."[; foundership per ]
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Robin Morgan wrote of women fighting for and creating a "gynocratic world".
[Morgan, Robin, Going Too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist (N.Y.: Random House, 1st ed. 1977 ()), p. 187 (italics so in original).]
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Adler reported, "if feminists have diverse views on the matriarchies of the past, they also are of several minds on the goals for the future. A woman in the coven of Ursa Maior told me, 'right now I am pushing for women's power in any way I can, but I don't know whether my ultimate aim is a society where all human beings are equal, regardless of the bodies they were born into, or whether I would rather see a society where women had institutional authority.
[ ("Maior" so in original)]
Some fiction caricatured the current gender hierarchy by describing an inverted matriarchal alternative without necessarily advocating for it. According to Karin Schönpflug, "Gerd Brantenberg's Egalia's Daughters is a caricature of powered gender relations which have been completely reversed, with the female sex on the top and the male sex a degraded, oppressed group";[, citing Gerd Brantenberg, Egalia's Daughters (Norwegian original published in 1977).] "gender inequality is expressed through power inversion"[ Egalia's Daughters as fiction: WorldCat entry, as accessed August 29, 2012.]
On egalitarian matriarchy,[ Matriarchal Studies (International Academy HAGIA) , as accessed January 30, 2011.] Heide Göttner-Abendroth's International Academy for Modern Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality (HAGIA) organized conferences in Luxembourg in 2003[ 1st World Congress on Matriarchal Studies, also known as Societies in Balance , both as accessed January 29, 2011.] and Texas in 2005,[ Societies of Peace: 2nd World Congress on Matriarchal Studies (home page) , as accessed January 29, 2011.][For a review of the conferences, esp. that of 2005, by a participant, see Mukhim, Patricia, Khasi Matriliny Has Many Parallels, October 15, 2005, as accessed February 6, 2011 (also published in The Statesman (India), October 15, 2005).] with papers published.[ and, in ] and that "matriarchies are not abstract utopias, constructed according to philosophical concepts that could never be implemented."[ (emphasis so in original).]
According to Eller, "a deep distrust of men's ability to adhere to"
"Demographically",[ (whether author's data global unspecified)] "feminist matriarchalists run the gamut"
Biology as a ground for holding either males or females superior over the other has been criticized as invalid, such as by Andrea Dworkin[ Dworkin, Andrea, Biological Superiority: The World's Most Dangerous and Deadly Idea (1977), from Dworkin, Andrea, Letters From a War Zone: Writings 1976–1989, Pt. III, Take Back the Day, as accessed December 25, 2010 (first published in Heresies No. 6 on Women and Violence, vol. 2, no. 2 (Summer 1978)).] and by Robin Morgan.[Morgan, Robin, The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism (N.Y.: Norton, 1989 () (rev. ed. 2000 ())), p. 27 (pagination per edition at Amazon.com).] A claim that women have unique characteristics that prevent women's assimilation with men has been apparently rejected by Ti-Grace Atkinson.[Badinter, Elisabeth, trans. Julia Borossa, Dead End Feminism (Polity, 2006 ( & )), p. 32, in Google Books, as accessed December 4, 2010 (no source cited for Ti-Grace Atkinson's statement); Amazon Continues Odyssey, in off our backs, December, 1979 (interview) (mentioning "female nationalism" (relevant herein insofar as the female nationalism is matriarchal) & women as nation); Atkinson, Ti-Grace, Amazon Odyssey (N.Y.: Links, 1974 (SBN (not ISBN) 0-8256-3023-1)) (may preclude female nationalism (relevant herein insofar as female nationalism is matriarchal)); also there exists (not read by this Wikipedia editor) Atkinson, Ti-Grace, Le Nationalisme Feminin, in Nouvelle Questions Feministes 6–7, Spring 1984, pp. 35–54 (French) (Eng. trans., Female Nationalism (unpublished), was held by author) (relevant herein insofar as female nationalism is matriarchal) (cited by (§ Viewpoint) (also in Rittner, Carol, & John K. Roth, eds., Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust (N.Y.: Paragon House, 1993), pp. 373–418) & by Weiss, Penny A., & Marilyn Friedman, Feminism & Community (Temple University Press, 1995 ( & ))), p. 330.] On the other hand, not all advocates based their arguments on biology or essentialism.
A criticism by Mansfield of choosing who governs according to gender or sex is that the best qualified people should be chosen, regardless of gender or sex.[, citing Plato, Republic.] On the other hand, Mansfield considered merit insufficient for office, because a legal right granted by a sovereign ( e.g., a king), was more important than merit.[, citing Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 10, 14–15, & 21, Tuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), ch. 6, & Tarcov, Nathan, Locke's Education for Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 38.]
Diversity within a proposed community can, according to Becki L. Ross, make it especially challenging to complete forming the community.[ (respecting Wittig, Monique, Les Guérillères).]
Prof. Christine Stansell, a feminist, wrote that, for feminists to achieve state power, women must democratically cooperate with men. "Women must take their place with a new generation of brothers in a struggle for the world's fortunes. Herland, whether of virtuous matrons or daring sisters, is not an option... The well-being and liberty of women cannot be separated from democracy's survival."[Bartkowski, Frances, Feminist Utopias (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989 ()), ch. 1.] strong women in a matriarchal utopia[ and see p. 20–21.] demonstrated a marked era of peace and personal satisfaction, although Charlotte Perkins Gilman was herself a feminist advocate of society being gender-integrated and of women's freedom.)[Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, What is "Feminism"?, in The Sunday Herald, vol. CXL, no. 65, September 3, 1916 (Extra ed.), § Magazine, p. 7 of, of The Boston Herald (Boston, Mass.) (on genderal integration: "essential duty of the female is ... in choosing a father for her children" & "women will always love men", both per col. 2, & "closer union, deeper attachment between men and women", per col. 3; on freedom: "women's full economic independence.... and freedom now allowed our girls", per col. 1, "freedom" (several references), per col. 2, & "feminism .... will set free four-fifths of its labor" & "comparative freedom of action possible to women today 1916", both per col. 3) (microfilm (Bell & Howell)).]
Other criticisms of matriarchy are that it could result in reverse sexism or discrimination against men, that it is opposed by most people including most feminists, or that many women do not want leadership positions. governing takes women away from family responsibilities, women are too likely to be unable to serve politically because of menstruation and pregnancy,[, citing Grimké, Sarah M., Letters on Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (N.Y.: Burt Franklin, 1970 (1838)), p. 81 (objecting to women "participating in government", "reflecting perhaps the Victorian notion that public affairs were too sordid for women").] and would cost women their respect[, but see pp. 120–121.] superiority is not traditional,[ ("the evidence is ... of males ruling over all societies at almost all times" & "males ... have dominated all politics we know of") & 58 ("every previous society, including our democracy up to now, has been some kind of patriarchy, permeated by stubborn, self-insistent manliness" (italics omitted)) and see p. 66 (patriarchy as "based on manliness, not merely those governments staffed by males", applicability depending on the antecedent for "here").] women lack the political capacity and authority men have, it is impractical because of a shortage of women with the ability to govern at that level of difficulty[Not absolutely but relatively so: ("successful ambition in women i.e., makes them more womanish in the sense of representing women's views").] or would serve only petty interests,[ ("our science rather clumsily confirms the stereotype about manliness, the stereotype that stands stubbornly in the way of the gender-neutral society") and see pp. 43–49.] it is unnatural,[Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, The Praxis of Coequal Discipleship, in Horsley, Richard A., ed., Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press Intntl., 1997 ()), pp. 238–239 (probably from Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, In Memory of Her (Crossroad Publishing, 1983) & edited), quoting Aristotle ( Politics I.1254b) ("the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject").][, citing Oscar Wilde (playwright, per p. 126), and Henry James (novelist, per p. 127).] On the other hand, another view is that "women have 'empire' over men"[, citing Jean-Jacques Rousseau, per pp. 194–195.] because of nature and "men ... are actually obeying" women.
Pursuing a future matriarchy would tend to risk sacrificing feminists' position in present social arrangements, and many feminists are not willing to take that chance, according to Eller.
"Matriarchists", as typified by male-conceived comic book character Wonder Woman, were criticized by Kathie Sarachild, Carol Hanisch, and some others.[Siegel, Deborah, Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild (N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 ()), p. 65.]
In religious thought
Exclusionary
Some theologies and theocracies limit or forbid women from being in civil government or public leadership or forbid them from voting,
["Holy Scripture inculcates for women a sphere higher than and apart from that of public life; because as women they find a full measure of duties, cares and responsibilities and are unwilling to bear additional burdens unsuited to their physical organization.", a "signed ... petition against female suffrage" (January, 1871), in , citing The Press—Philadelphia, January 14, 1871, p. 8.] effectively criticizing and forbidding matriarchy. Within none of the following religions is the respective view necessarily universally held:
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In Islam, some Muslim scholars hold a view that female political leadership should be restricted, according to .
[ Ikhwan web, Muslim Brotherhood on Muslim women in Islamic Society (October 29, 2005) (trans.), as accessed March 5, 2011, § The Woman's Right to Vote, Be Elected and Occupy Public and Governmental Posts., sub§ Thirdly, Women's Holding of Public Office.] In a study of 82 Islamists in Europe, according to Roald, 80% said women could not be state leaders but 75% said women could hold other high positions.[ (for study details, see , e.g., quantity of 82 per p. 64).] In 1994, the Muslim Brotherhood said that "social circumstances and traditions" may justify gradualism in the exercise of women's right to hold office (below head of state).[, quoting The Muslim Brotherhood, The Role of Women in Islamic Society According to the Muslim Brotherhood (London: International Islamic Forum, 1994), 14.] Whether the Muslim Brothers still support that statement is unclear.[The document stating it was not available at its official English-language website advanced search page, as accessed March 5, 2011 (search for "Role of Women in Islamic Society" without quotation marks yielding no results), but a document with similar relevant effect is Ikhwan web, Muslim Brotherhood on Muslim women in Islamic Society (October 29, 2005) (trans.), as accessed March 5, 2011 ("social circumstances and traditions" as justifying gradualism, per § A General Remark).] As reported in 1953, Roald reported later, "Islamic organizations held a conference in the office of the Muslim Brothers .... and claimed ... that it had been proven that political rights for women were contrary to religion".[, citing Shafiq, Duriyya, al-Kitab al-abiyad lil-huquq al-mar'a al-misriyya ( The White Paper on the Rights of the Egyptian Woman) (Cairo: n.p., 1953) (bibliographic information partly per )] Some nations have specific bans. In Iran at times, according to Elaheh Rostami Povey, women have been forbidden to fill some political office roles because of law or because of judgments made under the Islamic religion.[Rostami Povey, Elaheh, Feminist Contestations of Institutional Domains in Iran, in Feminist Review, no. 69, pp. 49 & 53 (Winter, 2001).][ Al-Mohamed, Asmaa, Saudi Women's Rights: Stuck at a Red Light (Arab Insight (World Security Institute), January 8, 2008) , p. 46, as accessed December 28, 2010.] According to Steven Pinker, in a 2001–2007 Gallup poll of 35 nations having 90% of the world's Muslims, "substantial majorities of both sexes in all the major Muslim countries say that women should be allowed to vote without influence from men ... and to serve in the highest levels of government."[Pinker, Steven, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (N.Y.: Viking, hardback 2011 ()), pp. 366–367 and see pp. 414–415.]
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In Rabbinical Judaism, among Orthodox Judaism leaders, a position, beginning before Israel became a modern state, has been that for women to hold public office in Israel would threaten the state's existence, according to educator Tova Hartman,
[, attributing the argument to Rav Kook, or Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook; "a significant spiritual leader of the "early", , citing, at , Kook, Rav, Open Letter to the Honorable Committee of the "Mizrahi" Association (1919) ("In the Torah, in the Prophets and in the Writings, in the Halacha and in the Aggadah, we hear ... that the duty of fixed public service falls upon men.").] who reports the view has "wide consensus".[ (the tribunals are discussed in the context of "the marital law regime in each religion", including Judaism)] Men's superiority' is a fundamental tenet in Judaism", according to Irit Umanit.
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In Buddhism, according to Karma Lekshe Tsomo, some hold that "the Buddha allegedly hesitated to admit women to the Saṅgha ...."
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Among in India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, "India's most extensive all-male Hindu nationalist organization,"
[ (the 2 being Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara, both associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)), all according to Bacchetta.] but considers women only as exceptions,[, citing Kelkar, Kakshmibai, Stri-Ek Urja Kendra: Strivishayak Vicharon Ka Sankalan (Nagpur: Sevika Prakashan, n.d.), ch. 2.] the norm for such leadership being men.
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In Protestantism, considered only historically, in 1558, John Knox (Maria Stuart's subject) wrote The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.
[Ridley, Jasper, John Knox (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 267, as cited in ] itself a point disputed by W. Stanford Reid.[Reid, W. Stanford, Trumpeter of God: A Biography of John Knox (N.Y.: Scribner, 1974), p. 145, as cited in ] On the popularity of Knox's views, Patricia-Ann Lee said Knox's "fierce attack on the legitimacy of female rule ... was he said ... little that was unacceptable ... to most of his contemporaries",[Laing, David, Preface (from extract), in ] Writing in agreement with Knox was Christopher Goodman, who, according to Lee, "considered the woman ruler to be a monster in nature, and used ... scriptural argument to prove that females were barred ... from any political power",[, citing Goodman, Christopher, How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyd (N.Y.: reprint, 1931, originally 1558) (chap. on gynecocracy).] even if, according to Richards, the woman was "virtuous".["There were occasionally women so endowed, that the singular good qualities which shone forth in them made it evident that they were raised up by Divine authority". Calvin, letter to William Cecil (on or after January 29, 1559 (probably 1560)), in (citing, at Preface, n. 1, for letter, Zurich Letters (2d ser.), p. 35) (Calvin reviser, Commentaries on Isaiah (sometime in 1551–1559) (approximate title)).] Knox's view was much debated in Europe at the time,[, e.g., citing Aylmer (AElmer), John, An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subiects agaynst the late blowne Blast, concerninge the Gouernment of Wemen wherin be confuted all such reasons as a straunger of late made in that behalfe, with a briefe exhortation to obedience (1559).] the issue considered complicated by laws such as on inheritance
Inclusionary
According to Eller, feminist
thealogy conceptualized humanity as beginning with "female-ruled or equalitarian societies",
until displaced by patriarchies,
and that in the millennial future gynocentric,' life-loving values"
will return to prominence.
This, according to Eller, produces "a virtually infinite number of years of female equality or superiority coming both at the beginning and end of historical time".
Among criticisms is that a future matriarchy, according to Eller, as a reflection of spirituality, is conceived as ahistorical,
In popular culture
Ancient theatre
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As criticism in 390 BC, Aristophanes wrote a play, Ecclesiazusae, about women gaining legislative power and governing Athens, Greece, on a limited principle of equality. In the play, according to Mansfield, Praxagora, a character, argues that women should rule because they are superior to men, not equal, and yet she declines to assert publicly her right to rule, although elected and although acting in office.
[, citing Strauss, Leo, Socrates and Aristophanes (N.Y.: Basic Books, 1966), ch. 9, and Saxonhouse, Arlene W., Fear of Diversity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), ch. 1.] The play, Mansfield wrote, also suggests that women would rule by not allowing politics, in order to prevent disappointment, and that affirmative action would be applied to heterosexual relationships.
Literature
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Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett's is an early feminist utopian novel (published 1889), which is matriarchal in that all political leadership roles in New Amazonia are required to be held by women, according to Duangrudi Suksang.
[Suksang, Duangrudi, Overtaking Patriarchy: Corbett's and Dixie's Visions of Women, in Utopian Studies, vol. 4, no. 2 (1993), pp. 74–93.]
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Roquia Sakhawat Hussain's Sultana's Dream is an early feminist utopia (published 1905) based on advanced science and technology developed by women, set in a society, Ladyland, run by women, where "the power of males is taken away and given to females," and men are secluded and primarily attend to domestic duties, according to Seemin Hasan.
[Hasan, Seemin, Feminism and Feminist Utopia in Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's Sultana's Dream, in Kidwai, A.R., ed., Behind the Veil: Representation of Muslim Woman in Indian Writings in English 1950–2000 (APH Publishing Corp., 2007). Sultana's Dream (Digital.library.upenn.edu).]
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Marion Zimmer Bradley's book, The Ruins of Isis (1978), is, according to Batya Weinbaum, set within a "female supremacist world".
[Weinbaum, Batya, Sex-Role Reversal in the Thirties: Leslie F. Stone's 'The Conquest of Gola, in Science Fiction Studies, vol. 24, no. 3 (November, 1997), pp. 471–482. ( www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/73/weinbaum73.htm alternative availability).]
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In Marion Zimmer Bradley's book, The Mists of Avalon (1983), Avalon is an island with a matriarchal culture, according to Ruben Valdes-Miyares.
[Valdes-Miyares, Ruben, Morgan's Queendom: The Other Arthurian Myth, in Alvarez Faedo, Maria Jose, ed., Avalon Revisited: Reworkings of the Arthurian Myth (Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2007).]
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In Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead (1986) and its sequels, the alien pequenino species in every forest are matriarchal.
[ Bright Hub Education (book summary).]
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In Sheri S. Tepper's book, The Gate to Women's Country (1988), the only men who live in Women's Country are the "servitors," who are servants to the women, according to Peter Fitting.
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Élisabeth Vonarburg's book, Chroniques du Pays des Mères (1992) (translated into English as In the Mothers' Land) is set in a matriarchal society where, due to a genetic mutation, women outnumber men by 70 to 1.
[Vonarburg (1992)]
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N. Lee Wood's book Master of None (2004) is set in a "closed matriarchal world where men have no legal rights", according to Publishers Weekly.
[ Publishers Weekly (book review (reviewed September 27, 2004)).]
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Wen Spencer's book A Brother's Price (2005) is set in a world where, according to Page Traynor, "women are in charge", "boys are rare and valued but not free", and "boys are kept at home to do the cooking and child caring until the time they marry".
[ Traynor, Page, A Brother's Price, in RT Book Reviews (review).]
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Elizabeth Bear's Carnival (2006) introduces New Amazonia, a colony planet with a matriarchal and largely lesbian population who eschew the strict and ruthless population control and environmentalism instituted on Earth. The Amazonians are aggressive, warlike, and subjugate the few men they tolerate for reproduction and service, but they are also pragmatic and defensive of their freedom from the male-dominated Coalition that seeks to conquer them.
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In Naomi Alderman's book, The Power (2016), women develop the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers, thus leading them to become the dominant gender.
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Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children (1980–2011).
-
In the SCP Foundation, which is a collaborative online horror fiction website, the Daevites are an ancient society in which women took the roles of both religious and political leaders, and men often take the place of slaves
Film
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In the 2011 Disney animated film Mars Needs Moms'', Mars is ruled by a female Martian known only as The Supervisor, who long ago deemed all male Martians to the trash underground and kept all women in functioning society. The film reveals The Supervisor, for an unexplained reason, changed how Martian society was being run (from children being raised by parents) to Martian children being raised by "Nannybots". The Supervisor sacrifices one Earth mother every twenty-five years for that mother's knowledge of order, discipline and control, which is transferred to the Nannybots who raise the female Martians.
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The 2023 film Barbie depicts a world (Barbieland) ruled entirely by Barbies in positions such as doctors, scientists, lawyers, and politicians while the Kens spend their time at the beach.
Television
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In the special The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!!, Blossom wanted society to based on the African elephant; in which only women vote & "Stinky & Dumb" men are relegated to house tasks.
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In the Futurama episode Amazon Women in the Mood, the crew land on a planet ruled by giant muscular women.
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Fumi Yoshinaga's manga , published between 2004 and 2020, follows an alternate history of Japan in which most of the male population is killed by a disease, resulting in a matriarchal society. It is best known in the United States by its 2023 Netflix adaptation of the same name.
Other animals
Matriarchy may also refer to non-human animal species in which females hold higher status and hierarchical positions, such as among
spotted hyenas,
,
,
Naked mole-rat,
and
.
Such animal hierarchies have not been replaced by patriarchy. The social structure of
European bison herds has also been described by specialists as a matriarchy – the cows of the group lead it as the entire herd follows them to grazing areas.
Though heavier and larger than the females, the older and more powerful males of the European bison usually fulfill the role of satellites that hang around the edges of the herd.
Apart from the mating season when they begin to compete with each other, European bison bulls serve a more active role in the herd only once a danger to the group's safety appears.
In bonobos, even the highest ranking male will sometimes face aggression from females and is occasionally injured by them. Female bonobos secure feeding privileges and exude social confidence while the males generally cower on the sidelines. The only exceptions are males with influential mothers, so even the rank between the males is influenced strongly by females. Females also initiate group travels.
See also
Notes
Bibliography
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– translated from Radioscopie du féminisme américain (Paris, France: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1984)
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Further reading
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Czaplicka, Marie Antoinette, Aboriginal Siberia, a Study in Social Anthropology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914)
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Finley, M.I., The World of Odysseus (London: Pelican Books, 1962)
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Gimbutas, Marija, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames & Hudson, 1991)
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Steven Goldberg, Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance (rev. ed. 1993 ())
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Hutton, Ronald, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993 ())
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Lapatin, Kenneth, Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History (2002 ())
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Lerner, Gerda, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993 ())
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Lerner, Gerda, The Creation of Patriarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986 ())
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Sanday, Peggy Reeves, Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy (Cornell University Press, 2002)
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Schiavoni, Giulio, Bachofen in-attuale? (chapter), in Il matriarcato. Ricerca sulla ginecocrazia del mondo antico nei suoi aspetti religiosi e giuridici (Turin, Italy: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2016) (Johann Jakob Bachofen, editor) ()
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Shorrocks, Bryan, The Biology of African Savannahs (Oxford University Press, 2007 ())
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Stearns, Peter N., Gender in World History (N.Y.: Routledge, 2000 ())
External links
