Matriarchy as Society Dominated by Women

In social sciences, the term matriarchy has two meanings, the first refers to a society in which women dominate and rule over men, while the second relates to a women-centered society. Swiss jurist and anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen was the first to propose the concept of a society dominated by women, although he used the term gynaecocracy and not matriarchy. In his book Mother Right (1861), Bachofen studies the cultural evolution of humanity. Analyzing the huge ethnographic material and classical Greek sources, which primarily consisted of myths, he concluded that matriarchy preceded patriarchy in the evolution of the family and society. He viewed motherhood as a source of religion and morality and believed that the original deities were of the female form. He explains the emergence of the matriarchy by the assumption that primitive people did not possess knowledge about the connection between sexual relations and the conception of a child. Since men could not establish paternity, all children belonged to women. When men understood the source of fatherhood, they became able to distinguish their offspring from the offspring of other men, which enabled them to establish power over women and children and form a patriarchy.

After Bachofen other influential anthropologist and sociologist, such as Herbert Spencer, Henry Lewis Morgan and Friedrich Engels adopted, and expended on, the concept of female dominated society (matriarchy). in Ancient Society (1877), Morgan argues that on the evolutionary level of savagery invention of the bow and arrow led to the development of matrilineal family and matrilineal clan, although the ownership of the property stayed communal. The Iroquois society, which Morgan studied and lived with, had women in positions of power and status, such as senior priestesses and female chieftains.  

Engels, in the book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) argues that In the beginning of social evolution, there was group marriage, which was followed by a  „consanguine“ type of marriage and family, after that came the "punalua" family (marriage between brothers from one family and sisters from another family), then a „pairing family“ developed, and finally, a monogamous family was formed. In the punalua family, there is a ban on marriages between siblings, so for the first time, there is a difference in classification between cousins ​​on the mother's side and relatives on the father's side. Since the lines of kinship were distinguished at this stage, this caused the appearance of "gentes", that is, kinship lines. Since kinship can be determined with certainty only through the mother's line, the matrilineal calculation of kinship and matriarchy was formed. Gradually, there was a ban on marriages with all relatives on the maternal line, which was the basis for the formation of matrilineal gentes. Due to the expansion of the rules according to which marriages can be concluded, a pairing family  (family of couples) appears, in which, most often, one man and one woman marry, although some men could have more than one wife or mistress, while women were required to be strictly faithful to one man. However, even in this type of marriage, the marital relationship status could be easily broken, and the children still belonged only to the mother. In this type of marriage, the purchase and abduction of women for the sake of marriage also occur. Women do most of the work in these families, but their social position is also high. Due to poorly developed production, private ownership is rare, and communist relations prevail in the household.

With the advent of animal husbandry, there is a sharp jump in the level of economic production, and this leads to the emergence of slavery, because, for the first time in history, defeated members of another tribe can be of economic benefit to the victor, as slave labor. With cattle breeding comes the greater economic role of men, so they also become owners of cattle and slaves. This also leads to changes in family relations, as it causes patrilineal calculation of kinship and to right of inheritance of property only through the paternal line, which, in the end, leads to the fall of matriarchy and the arrival of patriarchy to power. Engels believes that the fall of the matriarchy is "a historic defeat for women of world proportions". Men came to power, while women became subordinate to male autocracy, and their purpose became only to serve and give birth to children. Patriarchy, unlike matriarchy, where relations between the sexes would be more equal, introduces the autocracy of men as the heads of the family, not only over women but also over children and family slaves. To ensure that children born in wedlock are the direct biological descendants of the father, complete control over the movement and behavior of the woman is introduced. Although polygamy was reserved only for men, it was rare and a privilege only for richer men.

In the second half of the twentieth century, some authors, like Marshal Gordon and Cynthia Eller, argued that there is a lack of evidence for the existence, either from contemporary ethnographic sources or from historical and archeological evidence, that women-dominated societies ever existed.

                 Matriarchy as Women-Centered Societies

Women-centered societies refer to a wide range of female-centered practices in some societies. Some authors proposed the use of alternative terms for women-centered societies, such as matristic, gynarchic, or matrix societies. A large number of societies possess a matrilineal system of descent, where descent is traced only through maternal ancestors (see entry Kinship). Most societies that use the matrilineal systems of descent don’t have a matriarchal power system, as men hold most of the power. Some of the societies that have matrilineal descent also have a matrifocal family, where the woman is the head of the family. Some societies also have a matrilocal type of residence, where the groom, after marriage, moves to the household of his bride. Some matrilocal societies practice avunculate. The avunculate is a social institution where a special relationship exists between a male individual and his sister’s son. In societies where avunculate exists uncle (mother’s brother) of a man usually plays a more important authority role than his father. Apart from these practices, there are a lot of societies in which women play a significant role in areas of economy, politics, and religion.

Bronislaw Malinowski, who studied the Trobriand Islanders, found out that they have matrilineal descent, matrilocal residence, and practice avunculat. The mother-right played the most important role in law, customs, and institutions for Trobriand Islanders. Another ethnographic example of a women-centered society is the focus of the book Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer (1951), written by Evans-Pritchard. He showed that Nuer exhibit specific female-focused cultural customs, such as woman-to-woman marriage and ghost marriage. Mary Douglas, in The Lele of the Kasai (1963), paint a picture of matriarchal and politically anarchical Lele people, where social roles were not fixed but were continuously negotiated over.

Archaeological evidence for a women-centered society comes from the work of Marija Gimbutas, who, in the book Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (1982), argued that female figurines found in sites of Neolithic cultures of Europe represented belief in female gods.  

Heide Göttner-Abendroth, in “Matriarchal Society: Definition and Theory” (2004), defines matriarchy as a society where women have “the power of disposition over the goods of the clan, especially the power to control the sources of nourishment”. Those societies are characterized by belief in goddesses, women-only ceremonies that celebrate life stages, egalitarian relations free of domination, no class distinction, and a consensus-based political system.

References:

Bachofen. An English Translation of Bachoffen's Mutterrecht (Mother Right) (1861): A Study of the Religious and Juridical Aspects of Gynecocracy in the Ancient World (2007);

Douglas, Mary. The Lele of the Kasai (1963)

Engels. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (2010, in German 1884);

Eller, Cynthia. The myth of matriarchal prehistory. Why an invented past won’t give women a future (2000);

Evans-Pritchard. Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer (1951);

Gimbutas, Maria. Goddesses and gods of Old Europe, 6500–3500 BC: Myths and cult images (1982);

Göttner-Abendroth, Heide. “Matriarchal Society: Definition and Theory”, in Genevieve Vaughan (ed.) The Gift (2004);

Gumplowicz. Outlines of Sociology (2020, in German 1885);

Morgan, Henry Lewis. Ancient Society (1877);