![Nampeyo and Family, 1901, Adam Clark Vroman](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Nampeyo_and_Family%2C_1901%2C_Adam_Clark_Vroman.jpg)
Matriarchy is a
social system
In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. ...
in which
women
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...
hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to
moral authority Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the princi ...
,
social privilege
Social privilege is a theory of special advantage or entitlement, which benefits one person, often to the detriment of others. Privileged groups can be advantaged based on education, social class, caste, age, height, weight, nationality, geographi ...
and control of property.
While those definitions apply in general English, definitions specific to
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
and
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
differ in some respects.
Matriarchies may also be confused with
matrilineal
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...
,
matrilocal
In social anthropology, matrilocal residence or matrilocality (also uxorilocal residence or uxorilocality) is the societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents. Thus, the female offspring of a mother remain l ...
, and
matrifocal
A matrifocal family structure is one where mothers head families and fathers play a less important role in the home and in bringing up children.
Definition
The concept of the matrifocal family was introduced to the study of Caribbean societie ...
societies. While there are those who may consider any non-patriarchal system to be matriarchal, most academics exclude those systems from matriarchies as strictly defined.
Definitions, connotations, and etymology
According to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' (''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
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...
, 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."
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.] A matriarchy is a
society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...
in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership,
moral authority Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the princi ...
, and control of property, but does not include a society that occasionally is led by a female for nonmatriarchal reasons or an occupation in which females generally predominate without reference to matriarchy, such as
prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
or
women's auxiliaries of organizations run by men. 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 (...)
ndwere too vague to be scientifically useful".
Most academics exclude egalitarian nonpatriarchal systems from matriarchies more strictly defined. According to
Heide Göttner-Abendroth
Heide Göttner-Abendroth (born February 8, 1941 in Langewiesen, Nazi Germany, Germany) is a German feminist advocating ''matriarchy studies'' (also ''modern matriarchal studies''), focusing on the study of matriarchy, matriarchal or matrilineal soc ...
, 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
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...
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). while she believed that matriarchies are
egalitarian
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hum ...
.
![Margot-adler-2004](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Margot-adler-2004.jpg)
The word matriarchy, for a society politically led by females, especially mothers, who also control property, is often interpreted to mean the genderal opposite of patriarchy, but it is not an opposite. According to Peoples and Bailey, the view of anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday is that matriarchies are not a mirror form of patriarchies but rather that 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. Journalist
Margot Adler
Margot Susanna Adler (April 16, 1946 – July 28, 2014) was an American author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess, and New York correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR).
Early life
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Adler grew up mostly ...
wrote, "literally, ...
''matriarchy''"means government by mothers, or more broadly, government and power in the hands of women."
Barbara Love
Barbara Joan Love (February 27, 1937 – November 13, 2022) was an American feminist writer and the editor of ''Feminists who Changed America, 1963–1975''. With the National Organization for Women, Love organized and participated in demonstr ...
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." According to
Cynthia Eller
''The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future'' is a 2000 book by Cynthia Eller that seeks to deconstruct the theory of a prehistoric matriarchy. This hypothesis, she says, developed in 19th century schol ...
, "'matriarchy' can be thought of ... as a shorthand description for any society in which women's power is equal or superior to men's and in which the culture centers around values and life events described as 'feminine.'" Eller wrote that the idea of matriarchy mainly rests on two pillars, romanticism and modern social criticism. The notion of matriarchy was meant to describe something like a utopia placed in the past in order to legitimate contemporary social criticism. 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, in the Marxist tradition, it usually refers to a pre-class society "where women and men share equally in production and power."
According to Adler, "a number of feminists note that few definitions of the word
atriarchy 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, 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. She has also defined matriarchy as characterized by the sharing of power equally between the two genders. According to Diane LeBow, "matriarchal societies are often described as ... egalitarian ...", although anthropologist Ruby Rohrlich has written of "the centrality of women in an egalitarian society."
Matriarchy is also the public formation in which the woman occupies the ruling position in a family.
Some, including
Daniel Moynihan
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...
, claimed that there is a matriarchy among Black families in the United States, because a quarter of them were headed by single women; 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.
Etymologically, it is from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''māter'' (genitive ''mātris''), "mother" and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
ἄρχειν ''arkhein'', "to rule". The notion of matriarchy was defined by
Joseph-François Lafitau (1681–1746), who first named it ''ginécocratie''. According to the ''
OED
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
'', the earliest known attestation of the word matriarchy is in 1885.
By contrast,
gynæcocracy, meaning 'rule of women', has been in use since the 17th century, building on the Greek word found in
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
and
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
.
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
Johann Jakob Bachofen (22 December 1815 – 25 November 1887) was a Swiss antiquarian, jurist, philologist, anthropologist, and professor for Roman law at the University of Basel from 1841 to 1845.
Bachofen is most often connected with h ...
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 females (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
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...
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 Leacock, Eleanor, ''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. 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', and ''gynocracy'' also means 'women as the ruling class'. ''Gyneocracy'' is rarely used in modern times. None of these definitions are limited to mothers.
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
ueenElizabeth's reign, gynecocracy was a ''fait accompli''", according to historian Paula Louise Scalingi. Gynecocracy is defined by Scalingi as "government by women", similar to dictionary definitions
(one dictionary adding 'women's social supremacy' to the governing role).
Scalingi reported arguments for and against the validity of gynocracy and said, "the humanists treated the question of female rule as part of the larger controversy over sexual equality."
Possibly, queenship, because of the power wielded by men in leadership and assisting a queen, leads to
queen bee syndrome Queen bee syndrome is a phenomenon first defined by C. Tavris, G.L. Staines, and T.E. Jayaratne in 1973. “Queen bee” is a derogatory term applied to women who have achieved success in traditionally male-dominated fields. These women often take ...
, contributing to the difficulty of other women in becoming heads of the government.
Some matriarchies have been described by historian
Helen Diner
Bertha Eckstein-Diener (18 March 1874, Vienna – 20 February 1948, Geneva), also known by her American pseudonym as Helen Diner, was an Austrian writer, travel journalist, feminist historian and intellectual. Her book ''Mothers and Amazons'' (1930 ...
as "a strong gynocracy"
and "women monopolizing government" and she described matriarchal
Amazons
In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, ...
as "an extreme, feminist wing" of humanity and that North African women "ruled the country politically,"
and, according to Adler, Diner "envision
da dominance matriarchy".
Gynocentrism
Gynocentrism is a dominant or exclusive focus on women in theory or practice. Anything can be gynocentric when it is considered exclusively with a female point of view in mind.
Etymology
The term ''gynocentrism'' is derived from ancient Greek, γ ...
is the 'dominant or exclusive focus on women', is opposed to
androcentrism
Androcentrism (Ancient Greek, ἀνήρ, "man, male") is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing a masculine point of view at the center of one's world view, culture, and history, thereby culturally marginalizing femininity. The related a ...
, and "invert
nbsp;... the privilege of the ...
ale/femalebinary ...
ome feminists
Ome may refer to:
Places
* Ome (Bora Bora), a public island in the lagoon of Bora Bora
* Ome, Lombardy, Italy, a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Brescia
* Ōme, Tokyo, a city in the Prefecture of Tokyo
* Ome (crater), a crater on Mars
Tran ...
arguing for 'the superiority of values embodied in traditionally female experience'".
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'.
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.
The term matricentric means 'having a mother as head of the family or household'.
![Venus von Willendorf 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Venus_von_Willendorf_01.jpg)
Matristic: Feminist scholars and archeologists such as
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis, ...
,
Gerda Lerner
Gerda Hedwig Lerner (née Kronstein; April 30, 1920 – January 2, 2013) was an Austrian-born American historian and woman's history author. In addition to her numerous scholarly publications, she wrote poetry, fiction, theatre pieces, screenpl ...
, and
Riane Eisler
Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born 22 July 1931) is an Austrian-born American systems scientist and author who writes about the effect of gender politics historically on society. She is most known for her 1987 book ''The Chalice and the Blade'', in ...
label their notion of a "woman-centered" society surrounding
Mother Goddess
A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or th ...
worship during prehistory (in
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
and
Neolithic Europe
The European Neolithic is the period when Neolithic (New Stone Age) technology was present in Europe, roughly between 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) and c.2000–1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age ...
) and in ancient civilizations by using the term ''matristic'' rather than ''matriarchal.''
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis, ...
states that she uses "the term matristic simply to avoid the term matriarchy with the understanding that it incorporates matriliny."
Matrilineality
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance of ...
, 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 Minangkabau may refer to:
* Minangkabau culture, culture of the Minangkabau people
* Minangkabau Culture Documentation and Information Center
* Minangkabau Express, an airport rail link service serving Minangkabau International Airport (''see belo ...
. The 19th-century belief that matriarchal societies existed was due to the transmission of "economic and social power ... through kinship lines"
so that "in a matrilineal society all power would be channeled through women. Women may not have retained all power and authority in such societies ..., but they would have been in a position to control and dispense power."
A
matrilocal
In social anthropology, matrilocal residence or matrilocality (also uxorilocal residence or uxorilocality) is the societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents. Thus, the female offspring of a mother remain l ...
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. According to J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page, no true matriarchy is known actually to have existed.
Anthropologist Joan Bamberger argued that the historical record contains no primary sources on any society in which women dominated. 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, which he asserts is the contemporary opinion of mainstream
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
.
There are some disagreements and possible exceptions. A belief that women's rule preceded men's rule was, according to Haviland, "held by many nineteenth-century intellectuals".
The hypothesis survived into the 20th century and was notably advanced in the context of feminism and especially
second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains.
Wh ...
, but the hypothesis is mostly discredited today, most experts saying that it was never true.
["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''.]
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) stated that "the predominance of a supreme goddess is probably a reflection from the practice of matriarchy which at all times characterized
Elam
Elam (; Linear Elamite: ''hatamti''; Cuneiform Elamite: ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ; he, עֵילָם ''ʿēlām''; peo, 𐎢𐎺𐎩 ''hūja'') was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretc ...
ite civilization to a greater or lesser degree".
Europe
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
claimed in his book ''
Germania
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north- ...
'' that in "the nations of the
Sitones
The Sitones were a Germanic people living somewhere in Northern Europe in the first century CE. They are mentioned only by Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in Germania. Tacitus considered them similar to Suiones (ancestors of modern Swedes) apart from ...
a woman is the ruling sex."
Cucuteni–Trypillia culture
The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, also known as the Tripolye culture, is a Neolithic–Chalcolithic archaeological culture ( 5500 to 2750 BCE) of Eastern Europe.
It extended from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, cent ...
has been frequently discussed as a matriarchal society, including its goddess art, connecting the moon,
menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle is a series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system that make pregnancy possible. The ovarian cycle controls the production and release of eggs a ...
s, agricultural seasons, and life and death.
Anne Helene Gjelstad describes the women on the
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
n islands
Kihnu
Kihnu is an island in the Baltic Sea. With an area of it is the largest island in the Gulf of Riga and the seventh largest island of Estonia. The length of the island is and width , the highest point is at above sea level.
The island belongs ...
and
Manija 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"
via.
Asia
= Burma
=
Possible matriarchies in Burma are, according to Jorgen Bisch, the
Padaungs and, according to Andrew Marshall, the
Kayaw.
= China
=
![Mosuo woman near Lugu Lake](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Mosuo_woman_near_Lugu_Lake.jpg)
The
Mosuo
The Mosuo (; also spelled Moso, Mosso or Musuo), often called the Naxi among themselves, are a small ethnic group living in China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, close to the border with Tibet. Consisting of a population of approximately 40,000, ...
culture, which is in China near
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
, is frequently described as matriarchal. The Mosuo themselves often use this description and they believe it increases interest in their culture and thus attracts tourism. The term
matrilineal
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...
is sometimes used, and, while more accurate, still doesn't reflect the full complexity of their
social organization
In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and social groups.
Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, s ...
. 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 males.
= India
=
In India, of communities recognized in the
national Constitution as Scheduled Tribes, "some ...
rematriarchal and matrilineal" "and thus have been known to be more egalitarian". According to interviewer Anuj Kumar,
Manipur
Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...
, India, "has a matriarchal society", 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 used to be matrilineal but are now patriarchal.
= Indonesia
=
Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday said the
Minangkabau Minangkabau may refer to:
* Minangkabau culture, culture of the Minangkabau people
* Minangkabau Culture Documentation and Information Center
* Minangkabau Express, an airport rail link service serving Minangkabau International Airport (''see belo ...
society may be a matriarchy.
= Vietnam
=
According to William S. Turley, "the role of women in traditional Vietnamese culture was determined
artlyby ... 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 "adopt
d... the patriarchal system introduced by the Chinese."
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
Âu Cơ ( Chữ Hán: ; ) was, according to the creation myth of the Vietnamese people, an immortal mountain snow fairy who married Lạc Long Quân (), and bore an egg sac that hatched a hundred children known collectively as Bách Việt, a ...
is said to be evidence of "the presence of an original 'matriarchy' in North Vietnam and
tled to the double kinship system, which developed there ....
nd whichcombined matrilineal and patrilineal patterns of family structure and assigned equal importance to both lines." 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" and that "resistance to China's colonization of Vietnam ...
ombined withthe view that Vietnam was originally a matriarchy ...
ed to viewingwomen's struggles for liberation from (Chinese) patriarchy as a metaphor for the entire nation's struggle for Vietnamese independence." 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", and the "society of the Trung sisters" was "strongly matrilineal". 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 ...
n which
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
many of her officers were women",
with which they defeated the Chinese.
According to Seekins, "in
he year40, 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
Lady Triệu ( vi, Bà Triệu, , Chữ Nôm: 226 - 248) or Triệu Ẩu (, Chữ Hán: ); was a warrior in 3rd century Vietnam who managed, for a time, to resist the rule of the Chinese Eastern Wu dynasty. She is also called , although her ac ...
to personify the matriarchal culture that mitigated Confucianized patriarchal norms ....
lthoughshe is also painted as something of a freak ... with her ... savage, violent streak."
Native Americans
![Girl in the Hopi Reservation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Girl_in_the_Hopi_Reservation.JPG)
The
Hopi
The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the Unite ...
(in what is now the
Hopi Reservation
The Hopi Reservation ( Hopi: Hopituskwa) is a Native American reservation for the Hopi and Arizona Tewa people, surrounded entirely by the Navajo Nation, in Navajo and Coconino counties in north-eastern Arizona, United States. The site has ...
in northeastern
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
), according to
Alice Schlegel
Alice Schlegel is an anthropologist known for her work on adolescence. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972.
Education and career
Schlegel attended Smith College from 1952 until 1954, and t ...
, 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 ....
nd ither 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 ...
ith
The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany.
Geography
Location
The Ith is immediatel ...
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
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...
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, through what may have been a matriarchy or gyneocracy. 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.
The League still exists.
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 reigns 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 book by Bachofen, ''Mother Right: An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the Ancient World'', in 1861. Several generations of ethnologists were inspired by his pseudo-evolutionary theory of archaic matriarchy. Following him and
Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classics, classical scholar and linguistics, linguist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Ancient Greek religio ...
, 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. According to Uwe Wesel, Bachofen's myth interpretations have proved to be untenable. The concept was further investigated by Lewis Morgan. Many researchers studied the phenomenon of matriarchy afterward, but the basis was laid by the classics of sociology. The notion of a "woman-centered" society was developed by Bachofen, whose three-volume ''Myth, Religion, and Mother Right'' (1861) impacted the way classicists such as Harrison,
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...
,
Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.
A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of studen ...
, and
James Mellaart
James Mellaart FBA (14 November 1925 – 29 July 2012) was an English archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was expelled from Turkey when he was suspected of involvem ...
looked at the evidence of
matriarchal religion
A matriarchal religion is a religion that focuses on a goddess or goddesses. The term is most often used to refer to theories of prehistoric matriarchal religions that were proposed by scholars such as Johann Jakob Bachofen, Jane Ellen Harrison, ...
in pre-Hellenic societies. According to historian
Susan Mann, as of 2000, "few scholars these days find ...
"notion of a stage of primal matriarchy"persuasive."
Kurt Derungs is a non-academic author advocating an "anthropology of landscape" based on allegedly matriarchal traces in
toponymy
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
and
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
.
Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...
, according to whom this matriarchy resulted in
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
while patriarchy did not.
Austrian writer Bertha Diener, also known as Helen Diner, wrote ''Mothers and Amazons'' (1930), which was the first work to focus on women's cultural history. Hers is regarded as 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)](_blank)
as accessed March, 2008, & November 15, 2013. Her view is that in the past all human societies were matriarchal; then, at some point, most shifted to patriarchal and degenerated. The controversy was reinforced further by the publication of ''
The White Goddess
''The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, the book is based on earlier articles published in ''Wales'' magazi ...
'' by Robert Graves (1948) and his later analysis of classical Greek mythology and the vestiges of earlier myths that had been rewritten after a profound change in the religion of Greek civilization that occurred within its very early historical times. From the 1950s, Marija Gimbutas developed a theory of an ''
Old European culture
Old Europe is a term coined by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Copper Age cultural horizon or civilisation in Southeastern Europe and part ...
'' in Neolithic Europe which had matriarchal traits, replaced by the patriarchal system of the
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction.
Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...
with the spread of
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
beginning in the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
. According to Epstein, anthropologists in the 20th century said 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, these ideas were taken up by popular writers of second-wave feminism and expanded with the speculations of
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptology, Egyptologist, archaeology, archaeologist, anthropology, anthropologist, historian, and folkloristics, folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a l ...
on
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
, by the
Goddess movement
The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices (chiefly Modern Paganism, Neopagan) which emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions ...
, and in
feminist Wicca, as well as in works by Eisler,
Elizabeth Gould Davis
Elizabeth Gould Davis (June 23, 1910 – July 30, 1974) was an American librarian who wrote a feminist book called '' The First Sex''.
Early life and education
Davis was born in Leavenworth, Kansas to Colonel Robert Davis and Edwina Bailey McCa ...
, and
Merlin Stone
Merlin Stone (born Marilyn Jacobson, September 27, 1931 – February 23, 2011) was an American author, artist and academic. She was an important thinker of the feminist theology and Goddess movements and is known for her book ''When God Was a ...
.
"A Golden Age of matriarchy" was, according to Epstein, prominently presented by
Charlene Spretnak
Charlene Spretnak (born January 30, 1946) is an American author who has written nine books on cultural history, social criticism (including feminism and Green politics), religion and spirituality, and art.
Biography
Spretnak was born in Pittsb ...
and "encouraged" by Stone and Eisler, but, at least for the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
Age, has been denounced as feminist wishful thinking in ''
The Inevitability of Patriarchy
''The Inevitability of Patriarchy: Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination'' is a book by Steven Goldberg published by William Morrow and Company in 1973. The theory proposed by Goldberg is that socia ...
'', ''
Why Men Rule
''The Inevitability of Patriarchy: Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination'' is a book by Steven Goldberg published by William Morrow and Company in 1973. The theory proposed by Goldberg is that Socia ...
'', ''Goddess Unmasked'', and ''
The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
''The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future'' is a 2000 book by Cynthia Eller that seeks to deconstruct the theory of a prehistoric matriarchy. This hypothesis, she says, developed in 19th century schol ...
'' and is not emphasized in
third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, Gen X and early Gen Y generations third-wav ...
. According to Eller, Gimbutas had a large part in constructing a myth of historical matriarchy by examining
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
an cultures that she asserts, by and large, never really bore any resemblance in character to the alleged universal matriarchy suggested by Gimbutas and Graves. She asserts that in "actually documented primitive societies" of recent (historical) times, paternity is never ignored and that the sacred status of goddesses does not automatically increase female social status, and believes that this affirms that utopian matriarchy is simply an inversion of
antifeminism
Antifeminism, also spelled anti-feminism, is opposition to some or all forms of feminism. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, antifeminists opposed particular policy proposals for women's rights, such as the right to vote, educat ...
.
J.F. del Giorgio insists on a matrifocal, matrilocal, matrilineal Paleolithic society.
Bronze Age
According to Rohrlich, "many scholars are convinced that Crete was a matriarchy, ruled by a queen-priestess" and the "Cretan civilization" was "matriarchal" before "1500 BC," when it was overrun and colonized.
Also according to Rohrlich, "in the early Sumerian city-states 'matriarchy seems to have left something more than a trace.
One common misconception among historians of the Bronze Age such as Stone and Eisler is the notion that the
Semites
Semites, Semitic peoples or Semitic cultures is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group.[When God Was a Woman
''When God Was a Woman'' is the U.S. title of a 1976 book by sculptor and art historian Merlin Stone. It was published earlier in the United Kingdom as ''The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women's Rites''. It has been translated into Frenc ...]
'', wherein she makes the case that the worship of
Yahweh
Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he posse ...
was an Indo-European invention superimposed on an ancient matriarchal Semitic nation. Evidence from the
Amorites
The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian language, Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic-speaking people ...
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
Raphael Patai (Hebrew רפאל פטאי; November 22, 1910 − July 20, 1996), born Ervin György Patai, was a Hungarian-Jewish ethnographer, historian, Orientalist and anthropologist.
Family background
Patai was born in Budapest, Austria-Hu ...
writes in ''
The Hebrew Goddess
''The Hebrew Goddess'' is a 1967 book by Jewish historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai, in which the author argues that historically, the Jewish religion had elements of polytheism, especially the worship of goddesses and a cult of the mothe ...
'' 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 Canaanite 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. 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
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
and
Germanics
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...
than among any ancient Semitic peoples.
Women were running
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...
while the men were often away fighting.
Gorgo, Queen of Sparta
Gorgo (; el, Γοργώ ; fl. 480 BC) was a Spartan woman and wife to King Leonidas I (r. 489–480 BC). She was the daughter and the only known child of Cleomenes I, Leonidas' half-brother and King of Sparta (r. 520–490 BC). Gorgo was also the ...
, was asked by a woman in
Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...
something along the lines of, "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
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
to the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, several early
northwestern Europe
Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is a loosely defined subregion of Europe, overlapping Northern and Western Europe. The region can be defined both geographically and ethnographically.
Geographic definitions
Geographically, Northw ...
an mythologies from the
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
(''e.g.'',
Macha
Macha () was a sovereignty goddess of ancient Ireland associated with the province of Ulster, particularly the sites of Navan Fort (''Eamhain Mhacha'') and Armagh (''Ard Mhacha''), which are named after her.Koch, John T. ''Celtic Culture: A His ...
and
Scáthach
Scáthach () or Sgàthach ( gd, Sgàthach an Eilean Sgitheanach) is a figure in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. She is a legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trains the legendary Ulster hero Cú Chulainn in the a ...
), the
Brittonic
Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to:
*Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain
*Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic
*Britons (Celtic people)
The Br ...
(''e.g.'',
Rhiannon
Rhiannon is a major figure in the Mabinogi, the medieval Welsh story collection. She appears mainly in the First Branch of the Mabinogi, and again in the Third Branch. She is a strong-minded Otherworld woman, who chooses Pwyll, prince of Dyfe ...
), and the Germanic (''e.g.'',
Grendel's mother
Grendel's mother ( ang, Grendles mōdor) is one of three antagonists in the anonymous Old English poem ''Beowulf'' (c. 700-1000 AD), the other two being Grendel and the dragon. Each antagonist reflects different negative aspects of both the hero ...
and
Nerthus
In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with a ceremonial wagon procession. Nerthus is attested by first century AD Roman historian Tacitus in his ethnographic work ''Germania''.
In ''Germania'', Tacitus records that a group of Germ ...
) contain ambiguous episodes of primal female power which have been interpreted as folk evidence of a real potential for matriarchal attitudes in
pre-Christian European Iron Age societies. Often transcribed from a retrospective, patriarchal, Romanised, and
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
perspective, they hint at an earlier, culturally disturbing, era when female power could have predominated. The first-century–attested historic British figure of
Boudicca
Boudica or Boudicca (, known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as ()), was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She ...
indicates that Brittonnic society permitted explicit female autocracy or a form of gender equality in a form which contrasted strongly with the patriarchal structure of Mediterranean civilisation.
20th–21st centuries
The
Mosuo
The Mosuo (; also spelled Moso, Mosso or Musuo), often called the Naxi among themselves, are a small ethnic group living in China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, close to the border with Tibet. Consisting of a population of approximately 40,000, ...
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
matrilineal
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...
. , 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 the 1970s, the Mosuo people have faced significant challenges from outside pressures to the point that "their social structure has begun to erode."
One significant challenge occurred from 1966 to 1976 when matrilineal societies were banned during the Cultural Revolution.
Since 1990, when foreign tourism became permitted, tourists started visiting the Mosuo people.
As pointed out by the Xinhau 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
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
, 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)](_blank)
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.
They formed a safe-haven in rural Samburu County in northern Kenya.
Men of the same tribe established a village nearby from which to observe the women's village,
the men's leader objecting to the matriarch's questioning the culture
as accessed October 13, 2013. and men suing to close the women's village.
As of 2019, 48 women, most of whom who have fled gender-based violence like female genital mutilation, assault, rape, and abusive marriages call Umoja home, living with their children in this all female-village.
Many of these women faced stigma in their communities following these attacks and had no choice but to flee.
Others sought to escape from the nearby Samburu community, which practices child marriage and female genital mutilation.
In the village, the women practice “collective economic cooperation.”
The sons are obligated to move out when they turn eighteen.
Not only has the Umoja village protected its members, the members have also done extensive work for gender equity in Kenya.
The message of the village has spread outside of Kenya as member “Lolosoli’s passion for gender equity in Kenya has carried her to speak on social justice at the United Nations and to participate in an international women’s rights conference in South Africa.”
The
Khasi
Khasi may refer to:
* Khasi people, an ethnic group of Meghalaya, India
* Khasi language, a major Austroasiatic language spoken in Meghalaya, India
* Khāṣi language, an Indo-Aryan language of Jammu and Kashmir, India
See also
* Khasi Hills
* Gh ...
people live in
Northeast India
, native_name_lang = mni
, settlement_type =
, image_skyline =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, motto =
, image_map = Northeast india.png
, ...
in the state of
Meghalaya
Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of As ...
.
Although largely considered
matrilineal
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...
, some women's studies scholars such as Roopleena Banerjee consider the Khasi to be matriarchal.
Banerjee asserts that “to assess and account a matriarchal society through the parameters of the patriarchy would be wrong” and that “we should avoid looking at history only through the colonizer/colonized boundaries.”
The Khasi people consist of many clans who trace their lineage through the matriarchs of the families.
A Khasi husband typically moves into his wife's home, and both wife and husband participate equally in raising their children.
A Khasi woman named Passah explains that "
he father
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
would come to his wife's home late at night... In the morning, he's back at his mother's home to work in the fields,” showing how a man's role consists of supporting his wife and family in Khasi society.
Traditionally, the youngest daughter, called the Khadduh, receives and cares for ancestral property.
As of 2021, the Khasi continue to practice many female-led customs, with wealth and property being passed down through the female side of the family.
Spokespersons for various
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
at the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
and elsewhere have highlighted the central role of women in their societies, referring to them as matriarchies, or as matriarchal in character.
Mythology
Amazons
A legendary matriarchy related by several writers was
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
society. According to
Phyllis Chesler
Phyllis Chesler (born October 1, 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is a renowned second-wave feminist psychologist and the author of ...
, "in Amazon societies, women were ... mothers and their society's only political and religious leaders", as well as the only warriors and hunters; "queens were elected" and apparently "any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression."
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
reported that the Sarmatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians, and that their females 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 Roman historiography stretches back to at least the 3rd century BC and was indebted to earlier Greek historiography. The Romans relied on previous models in the Greek tradition such as the works of Herodotus (c. 484 – 425 BC) and Thucydides (c. ...
.
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
spoke of the conquest of large parts of Asia by
Semiramis
''Samīrāmīs'', hy, Շամիրամ ''Šamiram'') was the semi-legendary Lydian- Babylonian wife of Onnes and Ninus, who succeeded the latter to the throne of Assyria, according to Movses Khorenatsi. Legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus, who dre ...
and the Amazons. Although Strabo was sceptical about their historicity, the Amazons were taken as historical throughout
late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
. Several
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...
spoke of the Amazons as a real people. Medieval authors continued a tradition of locating the Amazons in the North,
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen ( la, Adamus Bremensis; german: Adam von Bremen) (before 1050 – 12 October 1081/1085) was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. Adam is most famous for his chronicle ''Gesta ...
placing them at the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
and
Paulus Diaconus
Paul the Deacon ( 720s 13 April in 796, 797, 798, or 799 AD), also known as ''Paulus Diaconus'', ''Warnefridus'', ''Barnefridus'', or ''Winfridus'', and sometimes suffixed ''Cassinensis'' (''i.e.'' "of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk, sc ...
in the heart of Germania.
Greece
Robert Graves
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...
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
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
,
Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D ...
is said to have swallowed his pregnant lover, the titan goddess
Metis
Metis or Métis may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Métis, recognized Indigenous communities in Canada and America whose distinct culture and language emerged after early intermarriage between First Nations peoples and early European settlers, prima ...
, who was carrying their daughter,
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
. The mother and child created havoc inside Zeus. Either
Hermes
Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...
or
Hephaestus
Hephaestus (; eight spellings; grc-gre, Ἥφαιστος, Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes.Walter Burk ...
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 Jean Markale (May 23, 1928 in Paris – November 23, 2008) was the pen name of Jean Bertrand, a French writer, poet, radio show host, lecturer and high school French teacher who lived in Brittany. As a former specialist in Celtic studies at the So ...
'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."
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
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
argued that the archetypal background of Basque mythology had to be inscribed in the context of a
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
dominated by the Great Mother, in which the cycle of
Mari (goddess)
Mari, also called Mari Urraca, Anbotoko Mari ("the lady of Anboto"), and Murumendiko Dama ("lady of Murumendi") is the goddess of the Basques. She is married to the god Sugaar (also known as Sugoi or Maju). Legends connect her to the weather: ...
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.
Colchis
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.
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
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
.
[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).]
![Elizabeth Stanton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Elizabeth_Stanton.jpg)
In
first-wave feminist
First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on De jure, legal issues, primarily on securing Women's suffrage, women's right to vot ...
discourse, either
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca ...
or
Margaret Fuller
Sarah Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850), sometimes referred to as Margaret Fuller Ossoli, was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movemen ...
(it is unclear who was first) introduced the concept of matriarchy and the discourse was joined in by
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Joslyn Gage (March 24, 1826 – March 18, 1898) was an American writer and activist. She is mainly known for her contributions to women's suffrage in the United States (i.e. the right to vote) but she also campaigned for Native Ameri ...
.
Victoria Woodhull
Victoria Claflin Woodhull, later Victoria Woodhull Martin (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927), was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement who ran for President of the United States in the 1872 election. While many historians ...
, 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; and, on a basis of equality, she ran to be elected president in 1872.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (; née Perkins; July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935), also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate for social reform, and eugenicist. She wa ...
, in 1911 and 1914, argued for "a woman-centered, or better mother-centered, world" and described "government by women". She argued that a government led by either sex must be assisted by the other, both genders being "useful ... and should in our governments be alike used", because men and women have different qualities.
Cultural feminism
Cultural feminism, the view that there is a "female nature" or "female essence", attempts to revalue and redefine attributes ascribed to femaleness. It is also used to describe theories that commend innate differences between women and men. Cultu ...
includes "matriarchal worship", according to Prof. James Penner.
In
feminist literature
Feminist literature is fiction, nonfiction, drama, or poetry, which supports the feminist goals of defining, establishing, and defending equal civil, political, economic, and social rights for women. It often identifies women's roles as unequal ...
, matriarchy and patriarchy are not conceived as simple mirrors of each other.
While ''matriarchy'' sometimes means "the political rule of women", that meaning is often rejected, on the ground that matriarchy is not a mirroring of patriarchy. Patriarchy is held to be about power over others while matriarchy is held to be about power from within,
Starhawk
Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist Neopaganism and ecofeminism.
In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' ''Mind Body Spirit'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Spir ...
having written on that distinction
and Adler having argued that matriarchal power is not possessive and not controlling, but is harmonious with nature.
For radical feminists, the importance of matriarchy is that "veneration for the female principle ... somewhat lightens an oppressive system."
Feminist utopia
Utopian and dystopian fiction are genres of speculative fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal t ...
s 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." Willemsen continues, among "type
of feminist utopias
nbsp;...
nestem
from feminists who emphasize the differences between women and men. They tend to formulate their ideal world in terms of a society where women's positions are better than men's. There are various forms of matriarchy, or even a utopia that resembles the Greek myth of the Amazons....
ry few modern utopias have been developed in which women are absolute autocrats."
A minority of feminists, generally
radical
Radical may refer to:
Politics and ideology Politics
*Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change
*Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
,
have argued that women should govern societies of women and men. In all of these advocacies, the governing women are not limited to mothers:
* In her book ''Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation'',
Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo ...
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".
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 ...
tatelesssocieties
ithout hierarchies she envisions a state whereby women either impose gender equality or a state where females rule supreme above males."
*
Starhawk
Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist Neopaganism and ecofeminism.
In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' ''Mind Body Spirit'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Spir ...
, in ''
The Fifth Sacred Thing
''The Fifth Sacred Thing'' is a 1993 post-apocalyptic novel by Starhawk. The title refers to the classical elements of fire, earth, air, and water, plus the fifth element, spirit, accessible when one has balanced the other four.
Plot
The nove ...
'' (1993), fiction, wrote of "a utopia where women are leading societies but are doing so with the consent of men."
*
Phyllis Chesler
Phyllis Chesler (born October 1, 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is a renowned second-wave feminist psychologist and the author of ...
wrote in ''Women and Madness'' (2005 and 1972) that feminist women must "''dominate'' public and social institutions". She also wrote that women fare better when controlling the means of production and that equality with men should not be supported,
even if female domination is no more "just"
than male domination.
On the other hand, in 1985, she was "probably more of a feminist-anarchist ... more mistrustful of the organisation of power into large bureaucratic states
han she was in 1972. Between Chesler's 1972 and 2005 editions,
Dale Spender
Dale Spender (born 22 September 1943)''The Bibliography of Australian Literature: P–Z'' edited by John Arnold, John Hay (page 409). is an Australian feminist scholar, teacher, writer and consultant. In 1983, Dale Spender was co-founder of an ...
wrote that Chesler "takes
sa ... stand
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
nbsp;....
uality 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." Spender wrote Chesler "remarks ... women will be superior".
*
Monique Wittig
Monique Wittig (; July 13, 1935 – January 3, 2003) was a French author, philosopher and feminist theorist who wrote about abolition of the sex-class system and coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". Her seminal work is titled ''The Straigh ...
authored, as fiction (not as fact), ''
Les Guérillères'', with her description of an asserted "female State". The work was described by Rohrlich as a "fictional counterpart" to "so-called Amazon societies". Scholarly interpretations of the fictional work include that women win a war against men, "reconcil
with "those men of good will who come to join them",
exercise feminist autonomy
through
polyandry
Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" ...
, decide how to govern,
and rule the men. The women confronting men are, according to Tucker Farley, diverse and thus stronger and more united and, continued Farley, permit a "few ... men, who are willing to accept a feminist society of primitive communism, ... to live." Another interpretation is that the author created an open structure' of freedom".
*
Mary Daly
Mary Daly (October 16, 1928–January 3, 2010) was an American radical feminist philosopher and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at the Jesuit-run Boston College for 33 years. Once a practicing Rom ...
wrote of hag-ocracy, "the place we
women traveling into feminist time/space"govern", and of reversing phallocratic rule in the 1990s (''i.e.'', when published). She considered equal rights as tokenism that works against sisterhood, even as she supported abortion being legal and other reforms. She considered her book female and anti-male.
*
Rasa von Werder
Rasa Von Werder (better known as Kellie Everts; born Rasa Sofija Jakstas, July 16, 1945) is a German former stripper, female bodybuilder, evangelist, author, photographer, mystic, contemplative, and founder of her own church.
Personal life
K ...
has also long advocated for a return to matriarchy, along with associated author
William Bond as well.
Some such advocacies are informed by work on past matriarchy:
* According to Prof.
Linda M.G. Zerilli
Linda may refer to:
As a name
* Linda (given name), a female given name (including a list of people and fictional characters so named)
* Linda (singer) (born 1977), stage name of Svetlana Geiman, a Russian singer
* Anita Linda (born Alice Lake i ...
, "an ancient matriarchy ...
as "in early second-wave feminism"the lost object of women's freedom." Prof. Cynthia Eller found widespread acceptance of matriarchal myth during
feminism's second wave. According to Kathryn Rountree, the belief in a prepatriarchal "Golden Age" of matriarchy may have been more specifically about a matrifocal society, although this was believed more in the 1970s than in the 1990s–2000s and was criticized within feminism and within archaeology, anthropology, and theological study as lacking a scholarly basis, and Prof.
Harvey C. Mansfield
Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosopher. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships a ...
wrote that "the evidence
snbsp;... of males ruling over all societies at almost all times". Eller said that, other than a few separatist radical lesbian feminists,
spiritual feminists would include "a place for men ... in which they can be happy and productive, if not necessarily powerful and in control" and might have social power as well.
*
Jill Johnston
Jill Johnston (May 17, 1929 – September 18, 2010) was a British-born American feminist author and cultural critic who wrote '' Lesbian Nation'' in 1973 and was a longtime writer for ''The Village Voice''. She was also a leader of the lesbian ...
envisioned a "return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies"
[Johnston, Jill, '' Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution'' (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1973 (SBN (not ISBN) 671-21433-0)), p. 248 and see pp. 248–249.] in the future
and "imagined lesbians as constituting an imaginary radical state, and invoked 'the return to the harmony of statehood and biology.... Her work inspired efforts at implementation by the
Lesbian Organization of Toronto
The Lesbian Organization of Toronto (L.O.O.T. or LOOT) was a lesbian organization founded in 1976 and disbanded in 1980. The group was Toronto's first openly lesbian feminist group, and its members elected to open Canada's first Lesbian Centre.
...
(LOOT) in 1976–1980 and in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
*
Elizabeth Gould Davis
Elizabeth Gould Davis (June 23, 1910 – July 30, 1974) was an American librarian who wrote a feminist book called '' The First Sex''.
Early life and education
Davis was born in Leavenworth, Kansas to Colonel Robert Davis and Edwina Bailey McCa ...
believed that a "matriarchal counterrevolution
eplacing_"a[n_oldpatriarchal_revolution".html" ;"title="_old.html" ;"title="eplacing "a[n old">eplacing "a[n oldpatriarchal revolution"">_old.html" ;"title="eplacing "a[n old">eplacing "a[n oldpatriarchal revolution"nbsp;... is the only hope for the survival of the human race." She believed that "spiritual force",
"mental and spiritual gifts",
and "extrasensory perception"
will be more important and therefore that "woman will ... predominate",
and that it is "about ... ["woman" that] the next civilization will ... revolve",
as in the kind of past that she believed existed.
According to critic Prof. Ginette Castro, Elizabeth Gould Davis used the words ''matriarchy'' and ''gynocracy'' "interchangeably"
[ and see pp. 26, 27, 32–36, & 42.] and proposed a discourse "rooted in the purest female chauvinism" and seemed to support "a feminist counterattack stigmatizing the patriarchal present",
"giv
ngnbsp;... in to a revenge-seeking form of feminism",
"build
ngnbsp;... her case on the humiliation of men",
and "asserti
gnbsp;... a specifically feminine nature ...
smorally superior."
Castro criticized Elizabeth Gould Davis'
essentialism
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...
and assertion of superiority as "sexist"
and "treason".
* One organization that was named
The Feminists
The Feminists (also known as Feminists—A Political Organization to Annihilate Sex Roles, formerly as October 17th Movement) Greer, Germaine (1970). '' The Female Eunuch''. New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 295. was a second-wave radical feminist gr ...
was interested in matriarchy and was one of the largest of the radical feminist women's liberation groups of the 1960s. 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
Grace Atkinson (born November 9, 1938), better known as Ti-Grace Atkinson, is an American radical feminist activist, writer and philosopher.
Life and career
Atkinson was born into a prominent Louisiana family. Named after her grandmother, Gra ...
, would have objected had she remained in the organization, because, according to a historian, "
hehad always doubted that women would wield power differently from men."
![RobinMorgan profile](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/RobinMorgan_profile.jpg)
*
Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the ...
wrote of women fighting for and creating a "gynocratic ''world''".
* 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.
Some fiction caricatured the current gender hierarchy by describing a matriarchal alternative without 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"; "gender inequality is expressed through power inversion" and "all gender roles are reversed and women rule over a class of intimidated, effeminate men".
"''Egalia'' is not a typical example of gender inequality in the sense that a vision of a desirable matriarchy is created; ''Egalia'' is more a caricature of male hegemony by twisting gender hierarchy but not really offering a 'better world.
On egalitarian matriarchy,
Heide Göttner-Abendroth
Heide Göttner-Abendroth (born February 8, 1941 in Langewiesen, Nazi Germany, Germany) is a German feminist advocating ''matriarchy studies'' (also ''modern matriarchal studies''), focusing on the study of matriarchy, matriarchal or matrilineal soc ...
's International Academy for Modern Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality (HAGIA) organized conferences in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
in 2003 and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
in 2005, with papers published. Göttner-Abendroth argued that "matriarchies are all egalitarian at least in terms of gender—they have no gender hierarchy ....
that, fr many matriarchal societies, the social order is completely egalitarian at both local and regional levels", that, "for our own path toward new egalitarian societies, we can gain ... insight from ...
tested"matriarchal patterns", and that "matriarchies are not abstract ''utopias'', constructed according to philosophical concepts that could never be implemented."
According to Eller, "a deep distrust of men's ability to adhere to"
future matriarchal requirements may invoke a need "to retain at least some degree of female hegemony to insure against a return to patriarchal control",
"feminists ...
avingthe understanding that female dominance is better for society—and better for men—than the present world order",
as is equalitarianism. On the other hand, Eller continued, if men can be trusted to accept equality, probably most feminists seeking future matriarchy would accept an equalitarian model.
"Demographic
lly,
[ (whether author's data global unspecified)] "feminist matriarchalists run the gamut"
but primarily are "in white, well-educated, middle-class circles";
many of the adherents are "religiously inclined"
while others are "quite secular".
Biology as a ground for holding either males or females superior over the other has been criticized as invalid, such as by Andrea Dworkin and by Robin Morgan. A claim that women have unique characteristics that prevent women's assimilation with men has been apparently rejected by Ti-Grace Atkinson. 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
Though the terms ''sex'' and '' gender'' have been used interchangeably since at least the fourteenth century, in contemporary academic literature they usually have distinct meanings. ''Sex'' generally refers to an organism's biological sex, while ...
is that the best qualified people should be chosen, regardless of gender or sex. 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.
Diversity within a proposed community can, according to Becki L. Ross, make it especially challenging to complete forming the community. However, some advocacy includes diversity, in the views of Dworkin
and Farley.
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...
e well-being and liberty of women cannot be separated from democracy's survival." (
''Herland'' was feminist utopian fiction by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1911, featuring a community entirely of women except for three men who seek it out, strong women in a matriarchal utopia expected to last for generations, although Charlotte Perkins Gilman was herself a feminist advocate of society being gender-integrated and of women's freedom.)
Other criticisms of superiority are that it is reverse sexism or discriminatory against men, it is opposed by most people including most feminists, women do not want such a position, governing takes women away from family responsibilities, women are too likely to be unable to serve politically because of menstruation and pregnancy, public affairs are too sordid for women and would cost women their respect
and femininity (apparently including fertility), superiority is not traditional, 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
as well as the desire and ability to wage war, women are less aggressive, or less often so, than are men and politics is aggressive, women legislating would not serve men's interests
or would serve only petty interests,
it is contradicted by current science on genderal differences, it is unnatural, and, in the views of a playwright and a novelist, "women cannot govern on their own." On the other hand, another view is that "women have 'empire' over men"
[, citing ]Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
, 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.
"Political feminists tend to regard discussions of what utopia would look like as a good way of setting themselves up for disappointment", according to Eller,
and argue that immediate political issues must get the highest priority.
"Matriarchists", as typified by comic character
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...
, were criticized by
Kathie Sarachild
Kathie Sarachild (born Kathie Amatniek in 1943) is an American writer and radical feminist. In 1968, she took the last name "Sarachild" after her mother Sara, coined the phrase "Sisterhood is Powerful" in a flier she wrote for the keynote speech s ...
,
Carol Hanisch
Carol Hanisch (born 1942) is a radical feminist activist. She was an important member of New York Radical Women and Redstockings. She is best known for popularizing the phrase "the personal is political" in a 1970 essay of the same name.https:/ ...
, and some others.
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, effectively criticizing and forbidding matriarchy. Within none of the following religions is the respective view necessarily universally held:
* In
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
, some Muslim scholars hold that female political leadership is prohibited, according to Anne Sofie Roald. The prohibition has been attributed to a
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
,
the founder and last prophet of Islam. The hadith says, according to Roald, "a people which has a woman as leader will never prosper."
The hadith's transmission, context, and meaning have been questioned, wrote Roald. According to Roald, the prohibition has also been attributed as an extension of a ban on women leading prayers "in mixed gatherings" (which has been challenged)
and to a restriction on women traveling (an attribution also challenged).
Possibly, Roald noted, the hadith applies only against being head of state and not other high office.
One source, wrote Roald, would allow a woman to "occupy every position except that of ''khalīfa'' (the leader of all Muslims)." One exception to the head-of-state prohibition was accepted without a general acceptance of women in political leadership, Roald reported. Political activism at lower levels may be more acceptable to Islamist women than top leadership positions, said Roald. The
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
has stated that women may not be president or head of state but may hold other public offices but, "as for judiciary office, ....
e majority of jurispudents ... have forbidden it completely." 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. 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). Whether the Muslim Brothers still support that statement is unclear. As reported in 1953, Roald reported later, "Islamic organizations held a conference in the office of the Muslim Brothers ....
ndclaim
dnbsp;... that it had been proven that political rights for women were contrary to religion". Some nations have specific bans. In
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
at times, according to Elaheh Rostami Povey, women have been forbidden to fill some political offices because of law or because of judgments made under the Islamic religion. As to
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, according to Asmaa Al-Mohamed, "Saudi women ... are ... not allowed to enter parliament as anything more than advisors; they cannot vote, much less serve as representatives". According to
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
P ...
, in a 2001–2007
Gallup poll
Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
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."
* In
Rabbinical Judaism
Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian ...
, among
orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
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
Tova Hartman (born 1957), scholar and social entrepreneur, is the Dean of Humanities at the Kiryat Ono Academic College.
Biography
She was formerly Professor of Gender Studies and Education at Bar Ilan University, specializing in gender and reli ...
, who reports the view has "wide consensus". When Israel ratified the international women's equality agreement known as
CEDAW, according to Marsha Freeman, it reserved nonenforcement for any religious communities that forbid women from sitting on religious courts. According to Freeman, "the tribunals that adjudicate marital issues are by religious law and by custom entirely male." Men's superiority' is a fundamental tenet in Judaism", according to Irit Umanit. According to Freeman,
Likud party
Likud ( he, הַלִּיכּוּד, HaLikud, The Consolidation), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement, is a major centre-right to right-wing political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon ...
-led "governments have been less than hospitable to women's high-level participation."
* In
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
, according to Karma Lekshe Tsomo, some hold that "the Buddha allegedly hesitated to admit women to the Saṅgha ...." "In certain Buddhist countries—Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand—women are categorically denied admission to the Saṅgha, Buddhism's most fundamental institution", according to Tsomo.
Tsomo wrote, "throughout history, the support of the Saṅgha has been actively sought as a means of legitimation by those wishing to gain and maintain positions of political power in Buddhist countries."
* Among
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
s in India, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family" ...
, "India's most extensive all-male Hindu nationalist organization,"
has debated whether women can ever be Hindu nationalist political leaders
but without coming to a conclusion, according to Paola Bacchetta.
The
Rashtriya Sevika Samiti
The Rashtra Sevika Samiti (''National Women Volunteers Committee'') is a Hindu nationalist women's organisation that parallels the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for men. Even though it is often referred to as the " Sister" of the RSS, the or ...
, a counterpart organization composed of women,
believes that women can be Hindu nationalist political leaders
and has trained two in
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
, but considers women only as exceptions, the norm for such leadership being men.
![John Knox statue, Haddington](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/John_Knox_statue%2C_Haddington.jpg)
* In
Protestant Christianity
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, considered only historically, in 1558,
John Knox
John Knox ( gd, Iain Cnocc) (born – 24 November 1572) was a Scottish minister, Reformed theologian, and writer who was a leader of the country's Reformation. He was the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
Born in Giffordgat ...
(
Maria Stuart's subject) wrote ''
''. According to Scalingi, the work is "perhaps the best known analysis of gynecocracy"
and Knox was "the most notorious"
writer on the subject.
According to an 1878 edition, Knox's objection to any women reigning and having "empire" over men was theological
and it was against nature for women to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city. Susan M. Felch said that Knox's argument was partly grounded on a statement of the
apostle Paul
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
against women teaching or usurping authority over men. According to Maria Zina Gonçalves de Abreu, Knox argued that a woman being a national ruler was unnatural
and that women were unfit and ineligible for the post.
Kathryn M. Brammall said Knox "considered the rule of female monarchs to be anathema to good government" and that Knox "also attacked those who obeyed or supported female leaders",
including men.
Robert M. Healey said that Knox objected to women's rule even if men accepted it. On whether Knox personally endorsed what he wrote, according to Felch,
Jasper Ridley
Jasper Godwin Ridley, FRSL (25 May 1920 – 1 July 2004) was a British writer, known for historical biographies. He received the 1970 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of ''Lord Palmerston''.
Born in West Hoathly, Sussex, he was ...
, in 1968, argued that even Knox may not have personally believed his stated position but may have merely pandered to popular sentiment, itself a point disputed by
W. Stanford Reid. On the popularity of Knox's views, Patricia-Ann Lee said Knox's "fierce attack on the legitimacy of female rule ...
as one in whichhe said ... little that was unacceptable ... to most of his contemporaries", although Judith M. Richards disagreed on whether the acceptance was quite so widespread.
According to David Laing's ''Preface'' to Knox's work, Knox's views were agreed with by some people at the time, the ''Preface'' saying, "
nox'sviews were in harmony with those of his colleagues ...
oodman, Whittingham, and Gilby. Writing in agreement with Knox was
Christopher Goodman
Christopher Goodman BD (1520–1603) was an English reforming clergyman and writer. He was a Marian exile, who left England to escape persecution during the counter-reformation in the reign of Queen Mary I of England. He was the author of a work o ...
, 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", even if, according to Richards, the woman was "virtuous". Some views included conditionality; while
John Calvin
John Calvin (; frm, Jehan Cauvin; french: link=no, Jean Calvin ; 10 July 150927 May 1564) was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system ...
said, according to Healey, "that government by a woman was a deviation from the original and proper order of nature, and therefore among the punishments humanity incurred for original sin", nonetheless Calvin would not always question a woman's right to inherit rule of a realm or principality.
Heinrich Bullinger
Heinrich Bullinger (18 July 1504 – 17 September 1575) was a Swiss Reformer and theologian, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Church of Zürich and a pastor at the Grossmünster. One of the most important leaders of the Swiss Re ...
, according to Healey, "held that rule by a woman was contrary to God's law but cautioned against
lwaysusing that reason to oppose such rule". According to Richards, Bullinger said women were normally not to rule. Around 1560, Calvin, in disagreeing with Knox, argued that the existence of the few women who were exceptions showed that theological ground existed for their exceptionalism. Knox's view was much debated in Europe at the time, the issue considered complicated by laws such as on inheritance
and since several women were already in office, including as Queens, according to de Abreu. Knox's view is not said to be widely held in modern Protestantism among leadership or laity.
Inclusionary
According to Eller, feminist
thealogy
Thealogy views divine matters with feminine perspectives including but not only feminism. Valerie Saiving, Isaac Bonewits (1976) and Naomi Goldenberg (1979) introduced the concept as a neologism (new word) in feminist terms. Its use then wid ...
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,
and thus may be unrealistic, unreachable, or even meaningless as a goal to secular feminists.
In popular culture
Ancient theatre
*As criticism in 390 BC,
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
wrote a play, ''
Ecclesiazusae
''Assemblywomen'' ( grc-gre, Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι ''Ekklesiazousai''; also translated as, ''Congresswomen'', ''Women in Parliament'', ''Women in Power'', and ''A Parliament of Women'') is a comedy written by the Greek playwright Aristo ...
'', about women gaining legislative power and governing
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, 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.
In the play, as Mansfield described it, written when Athens was a male-only democracy where women could not vote or rule, women were presented as unassertive and unrealistic, and thus not qualified to govern.
The play, according to Sarah Ruden, was a fable on the theme that women should stay home.
Literature
*
Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett
Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett (1846–1930), also known as Mrs George Corbett, was an English feminist writer, best known for her novel '' New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future'' (1889).
Corbett worked as a journalist for the '' Newcastle Da ...
's ''
New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future'' 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.
*
Roquia Sakhawat Hussain
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain") is the commonly used spelling of Rokeya's full married name, Rokeya herself is never seen to use her full married name in this English spelling. In much of her correspondence in English, she used just her initials: ...
's ''
Sultana's Dream
''Sultana's Dream'' is a 1905 Bengali feminist utopian story in English, written by Begum Rokeya, also known as Rokeya Sahkawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist, writer and social reformer from Bengal. It was published in the same year in Madras-bas ...
'' 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.
*
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel ''The Mists of Avalon'' an ...
's book, ''
The Ruins of Isis'' (1978), is, according to Batya Weinbaum, set within a "female supremacist world".
*In
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel ''The Mists of Avalon'' an ...
's book, ''
The Mists of Avalon
''The Mists of Avalon'' is a 1983 historical fantasy novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which the author relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters. The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (Mo ...
'' (1983), Avalon is an island with a matriarchal culture, according to Ruben Valdes-Miyares.
*In
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...
's ''
Speaker for the Dead
''Speaker for the Dead'' is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, an indirect sequel to the 1985 novel '' Ender's Game''. The book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in ''Ender's Game ...
'' (1986) and its sequels, the alien pequenino species in every forest are matriarchal.
*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.
*
Élisabeth Vonarburg
Élisabeth Vonarburg (born 5 August 1947) is a science fiction writer. She was born in Paris (France) and has lived in Chicoutimi (now Saguenay), Quebec, Canada since 1973.
From 1979 to 1990 she was the literary director of the French-Canadian ...
'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.
*
N. Lee Wood
N. Lee Wood (born November 15, 1955) is an American author. She has written science fiction, Fantasy (genre), fantasy, Crime (genre), crime and mainstream novels.
Biography
N. Lee Wood was born November 15, 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut. She b ...
'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'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
''.
*
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".
*
Elizabeth Bear
Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky (born September 22, 1971) is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo A ...
's ''
Carnival
Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...
'' (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.
*In
Naomi Alderman
Naomi Alderman (born 1974) is an English novelist and game writer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel '' The Power'', which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017.
Biography
Alderman was born in London, the daught ...
's book, ''
The Power'' (2016), women develop the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers, thus leading them to become the dominant gender.
*
Jean M. Auel
Jean Marie Auel (; ; born February 18, 1936) is an American writer who wrote the '' Earth's Children'' books, a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores human activities during this time, and touches on the interactions of Cro-Mag ...
's ''
Earth's Children
''Earth's Children'' is a series of epic historical fiction (or more precisely, prehistorical fiction) novels written by Jean M. Auel set circa 30,000 years before the present day. There are six novels in the series. Although Auel had previousl ...
'' (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
*In the 2011 ''
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
animated film
Mars Needs Moms
''Mars Needs Moms'' is a 2011 American 3D computer-animated science fiction film co-written and directed by Simon Wells, produced by ImageMovers Digital and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Based on the Berkeley Breathed book of the same ti ...
'', 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 females 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.
Animals
Matriarchy may also refer to non-human animal species in which females hold higher status and hierarchical positions, such as among
spotted hyenas
The spotted hyena (''Crocuta crocuta''), also known as the laughing hyena, is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus ''Crocuta'', native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUC ...
,
elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
s,
lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 exist ...
s,
naked mole rats, and
bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...
s.
The social structure of
European bison
The European bison (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, along ...
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.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342897635_The_Other_Sister_Bonobos]
See also
*
Alain Daniélou
Alain Daniélou (4 October 1907 – 27 January 1994) was a French historian, Indologist, intellectual, musicologist, translator, writer, and notable Western convert to and expert on the Shaivite sect of Hinduism.
In 1991 he was awarded the Sa ...
*
Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from appr ...
(denials of matriarchy)
*
Female cosmetic coalitions
The theory of female cosmetic coalitions (FCC) represents a controversial attempt to explain the Cultural evolution , evolutionary emergence of art, ritual and symbolic culture in ''Homo sapiens''.Power, C. 2009. "Sexual selection models for the ...
* ''
Marianismo
''Marianismo'' is a term that describes an ideal of true femininity with characteristics derived from a central figure of Catholicism, Mary of Guadalupe. It defines standards for the female gender role in Hispanic American folk cultures, and is ...
''
*
Menstrual synchrony
Menstrual synchrony, also called the McClintock effect, or the Wellesley effect, is a contested process whereby women who begin living together in close proximity would experience their menstrual cycle onsets (the onset of menstruation or menses) ...
*
*
Bissagos Islands
The Bissagos Islands, also spelled Bijagós ( pt, Arquipélago dos Bijagós), are a group of about 88 islands and islets located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. The archipelago was formed from the ancient delta of the Geb ...
*
Trưng sisters
Notes
References
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)
* Finley, M.I., ''The World of Odysseus'' (London: Pelican Books, 1962)
* Gimbutas, Marija, ''The Language of the Goddess'' (1991)
*
Goldberg, Steven, ''Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance'' (rev. ed. 1993 ())
* Hutton, Ronald, ''The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles'' (1993 ())
* Lapatin, Kenneth, ''Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History'' (2002 ())
* Lerner, Gerda, ''The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993 ())
* Lerner, Gerda, ''The Creation of Patriarchy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986 ())
*
* Sanday, Peggy Reeves, ''Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy'' (Cornell University Press, 2002)
* 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
Johann Jakob Bachofen (22 December 1815 – 25 November 1887) was a Swiss antiquarian, jurist, philologist, anthropologist, and professor for Roman law at the University of Basel from 1841 to 1845.
Bachofen is most often connected with h ...
, editor) ()
* Shorrocks, Bryan, ''The Biology of African Savannahs'' (Oxford University Press, 2007 ())
* Stearns, Peter N., ''Gender in World History'' (N.Y.: Routledge, 2000 ())
External links
* Knight, Chris
">Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal (2008)
{{Authority control
Motherhood
Mother goddesses">Family
Motherhood
Mother goddesses
Female
Feminist theory
Political anthropology