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Matriarchy – Definition & References

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Date: March 26, 2007

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy

Matriarchy

From Wikipedia

Matriarchy is a form of society in which power is with
the women and
especially with the mothers of a community. The word
matriarchy derives from the Latin word mater meaning
mother and the Greek word archein
meaning to rule. There exists a different term for ‘women’s rule,’ namely
gynecocracy, sometimes
referred to as gynocracy.

Matriarchy is distinct from matrilineality, where
children are identified in terms of their mother rather than their father, and
extended families and tribal alliances form along female blood-lines. For
instance, in Jewish Halakhic tradition
only a person born of a Jewish mother is automatically considered Jewish. Hence
Jewish descent is passed on from the mother to the child (see: Who is a
Jew).

Matriarchy is also distinct from matrilocality, which some
anthropologists use to
describe societies where maternal authority is prominent in domestic relations,
owing to the husband joining the wife’s family, rather than the wife moving to
the husband’s village or tribe, such that she is supported by her extended
family, and husbands tend to be more socially isolated.

Contents

Matriarchal societies

Some traditional matriarchal societies have been presented by scholars and
indigenous speakers from still existing matriarchal societies at two World Congresses on Matriarchal
Studies. The first one was held in 2003 in Luxembourg, Europe; it was
sponsored by the Minister of Women’s Affairs of Luxembourg, Marie-Josée Jacobs,
and organized and guided by Heide Goettner-Abendroth. The second one took place
in 2005 in San Marcos, Texas/USA, it was sponsored by Genevieve Vaughan and
again led by Heide Goettner-Abendroth.

Due to a lack of any clear and consistent definition of the word
‘matriarchy’, the discussion remains confusing: The Wemale culture of western Seram, studied by A.E.
Jensen during the Frobenius Institute
expedition of 1938, is often indicated as an example of matriarchy. See: Karl
Kerenyi noted in passing (introduction to Eleusis : Archetypal Image
of Mother and Daughter 1967, p. xxxii). On the other hand, anthropologist
Donald Brown’s list of “human universals” (i.e. features shared by all current
human societies) includes men being the “dominant element” in
public political affairs (Brown 1991, p. 137). He refers the opinion of
mainstream anthropology. Feminist Joan
Bamberger notes that the historical record contains no reliable evidence of any
society in which women dominated (Bamberger 1974), though there are many known
matrilineal societies. The
Trobriand Islands were
considered a matriarchy by anthropologist Bronisław
Malinowski; the dispute this view has engendered is discussed at that entry.
Peter N. Stearns and other historians have speculated as to whether or not
agricultural Japan
was a matriarchy prior to contact with patriarchal China. (Stearns 2000, p. 51). On
the other hand, anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday favors redefining and
reintroducing the word matriarchy, especially in reference to modern,
matrilineal societies like the Minangkabau. This group
lives in West Sumatra and numbers
about four million; it is considered the largest and most stable matrilineal
society in the modern world. Sanday argues that this society is a modern
matriarchy defined not in polar opposition to patriarchy, but on unique terms. A
clear and consistent definition has been given by Heide Goettner-Abendroth, who
did cross-cultural research on all of the still existing matriarchal societies
of today (in her major work on matriarchy). Her viewpoint is close to that of
Sanday. One of her examples are the Mosuo people of Southwestern
China. Furthermore, the Minicoy islanders are
also considered to be one of the living matrilineal societies today. Regardless,
the existence of any true matriarchal societies (as opposed to matrilineal or
matrifocal societies) remains controversial among scholars.[1]

Nair Matrifocality

Anthropologist R. L. Smith (2002) refers to ‘matrifocality’ as the kinship
structure of a social system where the mother assumes structural prominence.
Most anthropologists distinguish this from matriarchy.

The traditional Nair community in Kerala, South
India is matrifocal by their definition of ‘matrifocality’. (Nowadays this
system is rarely practiced. The members of the Nair community now live in
nuclear families). A traditional Nair matrifocal family is called a Tarawad or
Marumakkathayam family. A traditional Nair Tarawad consists of a mother and her
children living together with their mother’s surviving eldest brother or eldest
surviving maternal uncle who is called Karanavan. The Karnavan exercises
full powers over the affairs of the family. Till recently, the main significance
of this system was that the heirs to the property were the women in the family
and the men folk were only allowed to enjoy the benefits during their lifetime.
The naming system of the Nair community had the prefix of their mother’s ‘family
name’ and they adopted the maternal uncle’s surname. The Marumakkathayam system
of Kerala was a legal right which determined inheritance through the female
line. Thus if a family property was to be partitioned all female members would
receive one share and all male members who were direct offspring of the family
name would receive one share. Thus a brother might receive only one share while
his sister and her children (and grandchildren by her daughters) would each
receive a share. This right was removed by the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System
(Abolition) Act, 1975.

Archaeological hypotheses

Whether matriarchal societies might have existed at some time in the distant
past is controversial. The controversy began in reaction to the book by Johann Jakob
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,
several generations of scholars, arguing usually from myths or oral traditions
and Neolithic female cult-figures, suggested that many ancient societies were
matriarchal, or even that there existed a wide-ranging matriarchal society prior
to the ancient cultures of which we are aware (see for example The White Goddess
by Robert Graves). More
recent archaeologists like Marija Gimbutas have
argued for a widespread matriarchal culture in pre-Indo-European Old
Europe of the Neolithic. J.F. del Giorgio in The
Oldest Europeans has opened a new view in the same line, observing that
there was a widespread fall in women’s rights from East to West, in synchonicity
with the Indo-European
invasions. He argues strongly that colleges of priestesses were prosecuted and
replaced by colleges of priests, based in archaeological and historical evidence
and relating it to ancient myths. He insists on the existence of post-glacial
female-structured tribes in Europe, observing that such characteristics were
typical in Basques and quoting well-proven
genetical evidence of an homogenous pre-Indo-European population whose genes
were akin to Basques. He also points to recent linguistic studies carried mainly
in Germany that corroborates that assumption. While he refrains from mentioning
matriarchy, he quotes ancient authors who did, and he insists in at least a
matrifocal, matrilocal, matrilineal Paleolithic society.

On the other hand, authors like Cynthia Eller, professor at Montclair State
University, as well as Philip G. Davis, author of Goddess Unmasked, have
come to increasingly call in doubt the factual accuracy of these hypotheses.
According to Professor Eller, Marija Gimbutas had a large part in constructing a
myth of
historical matriarchy by examining Eastern Europe cultures that, by and
large, never really bore any resemblance in character to the alleged universal
matriarchality of Gimbutas and Graves. She demonstrates that in “actually
documented primitive societies” paternity is never ignored and that the
sacred status of feminine goddesses does not automatically increase
female social status, affirming that utopian matriachy is simply an
inversion of antifeminism and in fact paralleling the denigrating exaltations of
an idealised motherhood found in comtemporary organised religion.

Matriarchies in mythology

One area where written myths are available from an early period is the Aegean
culture-zone, where the Minoan Great
Goddess was worshipped in a society where women and men were allegedly
equals. Gender equality is a typical characteristic of matriarchy, according to
the claims of modern Matriarchal Studies[citation needed].

Modern ‘Goddess women’ are sometimes too
quick to assume that any culture that worships a Mother Goddess must be
matriarchal. But some mentioned author believe there are traces, under the
insistently patriarchal Olympian mythology of classical Greece, of earlier
matrilineal and matrifocal systems. See the entries for Alcimede or for Hyas for examples.

A famous legendary gynarchy (not matriarchy) on the edges of the Greek
cultural horizon was Amazon society, which took shape
in the imaginations of classical Greeks, based on reports of Scythian and Sarmatian female status and
even female warriors. However, extreme caution is called for in determining to
what extent, if any, such myths or oral traditions reflected reality. About
Amazons, Michael Grant claims that
these female warriors were said to live at the boundaries of the world to which
Greeks had travelled, making them kin to marvellous beings or monsters supposed to dwell in
distant lands, like the Blemmyes or Cynocephali. Others like
Gerhard Pöllauer, Marguerite Rigoglioso and esoteric/neopagan author Vicki Noble
disagree.

Regardless of actual historical fact, many cultures have myths about a time
when women were dominant. Bamberger (1974) examines several of these myths from
South American cultures, and concludes that, by portraying the women from this
period as evil, they often serve to keep women under control.

Historian Ronald Hutton has argued
that there is no necessary correlation between the worship of female deities and relative
levels of social or legal egalitarianism between the sexes. He has pointed out
that within European history, in seventeenth century
Spain there were
many religious institutions staffed exclusively by women. A female quasi-deity
was a conspicuous part of public religious veneration, and cult images of
female supernatural beings were frequently encountered. Spain can be compared to
the seventeenth century Netherlands, where the
worship of female quasi-deities was emphatically rejected and female clergy did not
exist. Yet, the social and legal status of women was much higher in the
Netherlands than in Spain during this period. In the Netherlands, women were
freer to move about unwatched, and could own businesses of their own and
separate property. In Spain, their public roles, and their rights under both law
and unwritten custom, were sharply circumscribed. But these examples are all
from the epoch of full patriarchal history.

Existing Matriarchal Societies

The idea of peaceful matriarchal civilizations being put to the torch by patriarchal, nomadic
barbarian invaders has lived on as a powerful literary trope. The Nazi ideology of a master
race of Aryan
patriarchal conquerors was based in part on Müller’s hypothesis about conquering
Aryans being the founders of the European race.

More recent uses of the theme share essentially the same narrative. Goddess
worship is one motif referred to by James Joyce in his novels
such as Ulysses and
Finnegans Wake. In
addition to Robert Graves, poets such
as T. S.
Eliot and Ezra Pound made use of the
theme.

Mary
Renault‘s historical novels about
Greek mythology and
history such as The King Must Die combine motifs of political conflict
between goddess and god worshippers with The Golden Bough‘s
hypothesis about dying and reviving
gods. The patriarchal conquest of matriarchy motif is found in literally
dozens of fantasy novels, from Marion Zimmer
Bradley‘s historical revisions of Arthurian romance and
the Trojan
War to works of pure fantasy such as Guy
Gavriel Kay‘s A
Song for Arbonne. Gender roles and the conflict of patriarch vs.
matriarchy is a major theme in the Wheel of Time
books by Robert Jordan
(fantasy).

In the expanded universe of Star Wars, the women of
Dathomir are portrayed as the ruling sex. Another matriarchy is the Hapan
Consortium, a cluster of 63 planets, that are all ruled by the Queen Mother of
Hapes.

In the fantasy world of Forgotten Realms, the
evil Drow race is a
highly matriarchial society where the females rule drow societies—a
gynocracy. Males are merely servants and regarded as pets. The same goes for the
aptly-named gynocracy of Telchos in the Lone Wolf setting.

The webcomic Sinfest sometimes parodies The Matrix
as “The Matriarchy”.

Dreamfall The Longest Journey, a game by Funcom, features a Goddess
worshiping Matriarchal people, The Azadi. Men are described as having less
freedom than women, but are in no way regarded as pets. The Azadi are very
religious, and have a very strict code of honor. The Azadi have taken to
conquering other races. Though their intentions are good their, “The case
justifies the means attitude,” and their discrimination against Magicals makes
them responsible for many horrible crimes, as well as good deeds.

The 2006 remake of “The Wicker Man” starring Nicolas Cage, takes place within
a fictional matriarchy in Washington state. The society, Summersisle, is modeled
after honeybee culture and behavior.

Origins of the unclear concept

The unclear concept of matriarchy, and of its replacement by “patriarchy”
can be linked to the historical “inevitabilities” which the nineteenth century‘s
concept of progress through cultural evolution
introduced into anthropology. Friedrich Engels, among
others, formed the notion that some primitive peoples did not grasp the link
between sexual intercourse
and pregnancy. They therefore had
no clear notion of paternity, according to this
hypothesis; women produced children mysteriously, without necessary links to the
man or men they had sex with. When men discovered paternity, according to the
hypothesis, they acted to claim power to monopolize women and claim children as
their own offspring.

This belief system was the result of errors in early ethnography, which in return
was the result of unsophisticated methods of field work. When strangers
arrive and start asking where babies come from, the urge to respond imaginatively is hard to
resist, as Margaret Mead discovered
in Samoa. In fact, while prior to the discovery of egg cells and genetics there have been many
different explanations of the mechanics of pregnancy and the relative
contributions of either sex, no human group, however primitive, is unaware of
the link between intercourse and pregnancy. The fact that each child has one
unique father has come more recently, however; Greek and Roman writers thought
that the seed of two men might both contribute to the character of the child. By
the time these mistakes were corrected in anthropology, however, the idea that a
matriarchy had once existed had been picked up on in comparative
religion and archaeology, and was used as
the basis of new hypotheses that were unrelated to the postulated ignorance of
primitive people about paternity.

In the late nineteenth century, belief in primitive matriarchies was also
allied with Max Müller‘s hypothesis
that an ethnically distinct Aryan race had invaded and
displaced or dominated earlier populations in prehistoric Europe. Their
conquests, according to Müller, were responsible for the spread of the Indo-European
languages; they would have also replaced an earlier language and culture in
the invaded areas where Indo-European languages are now spoken. This theory, and
the corresponding hypothesis for India, the Aryan invasion
theory, are controversial. Marija Gimbutas has
advocated the strongest form of the hypothesis, that of military conquest and
forced cultural displacement, in recent decades.

 See also

References

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