Featured artist Anahata Katkin of Papaya Living
Patriarchy, it seems, is easy to define, right? Etymologically speaking it simply means something along the lines of fatherly control. Any dictionary could lead us into that discovery. Naturally, as we all can assume, things are not always what they seem at face value. Taking a closer look I shouldn't be surprised that having different perspectives such as sociological, anthropological, economic, and with perspectives specific to gender too, ideas of patriarchy and matriarchy begin to get a bit convoluted. But this conversation is not about patriarchy at all, so let's have a look to see if matriarchy might be something but we can all begin to understand through some historical exploration.
It seems the way we define matriarchy has changed over the past 50 years. When the term was first coined, it was an academic term not a political one. Later the idea was simplified by the women's lib movement in the 1970s to be thought of as contrary or opposite to patriarchy in the sense of female dominance. Both of these were thought of as terms that indicated dominance over one gender by the other. Dr. Riane Eisler wrote about matriarchal cultures in her book “Chalice and the Blade”, wherein she expounded on the idea of dominance, and introduced a third factor that she simply calls Partnership. So then, we have two distinct definitions and one evolutionary proposal: Partnership. This is where it gets convoluted. The original anthropological definition of matriarchal governing structures was inherently a partnership first called "Das Mutterrecht/Mother Right" (Bachofen, 1861). The only difference between the original idea of matriarchy in academia and the partnership of Dr. Eisler is that her modern-day partnership will be gender-neutral. That is to say, gender equality without having fixed gender roles. Let's have a look at matriarchy from its original academic perspective.
Although Dr. Eisler suggested there might have been ancient cultures that were female dominant, to which she calls a Matriarchy, and although the term makes perfect sense etymologically, that term had already been defined by Bachofen, Henry Lewis Morgan, and others. Traditionally, from an academic perspective, this form of social architecture should have a more specific name, perhaps Dominance Matriarchy as opposed to Partnership Matriarchy. Matriarchy is not necessarily complex, but as a result of different social architectures using the same term, things have become confusing. Furthermore, in anthropology, we can further delineate the subject by using terms such as Matrilineal and Matrifocal.
To clarify the distinction, here are some considerations:
Before Women’s Lib and Eisler’s 'Chalice and the Blade', Matriarchy implied a Partnership society that was gendered in which the property was controlled by the women and handed down through the daughters. Decision making and delegations between tribes and regions was done by the men. This division between property and decision making created a sort of checks and balances system that fosters partnership and limits domination.
After Women’s Lib and Eisler’s 'Chalice and the Blade', Matriarchy implied a culture of female dominance, assuming that women controlled both the property and the decision making. The research presented by Dr. Eisler is mostly archeological, and not anthropological, so it is difficult to know exactly how governance and ownership was viewed by those ancient societies she referred to as female dominant and called 'matriarchal'.
Patriarchy always implies a culture of dominance. Historically the term Patriarchy is considered male dominance, although, from an anthropological perspective is merely an etymological lack of recognition of a patriarchal social architecture and could technically be female dominated. In fact, Dr. Eisler could have called the female dominated cultures she presents in her book ‘a female dominated Patriarchy’, yet, being the well-known women’s rights activist she is, called it a Matriarchy. The term proves to be etymologically and politically correct, however, not correct anthropologically speaking.
Before Women’s Lib and Eisler’s Chalice and the Blade, Patriarchy implied Male Dominance. Patriarch arose as an academic term in reflection on the term Matriarchy. We didn't know western culture was patriarchal culture until we first observed functioning matriarchies such as the Iroquois.
After Women’s Lib and Eisler’s Chalice and the Blade, Patriarchy now still implies Male Dominance. However, as we are suggesting here, it might be useful to define terms more specifically to cover all the different perspectives on how these terms are used in relation to our past and our evolving future. We can now imagine that one day we might see societies where women have equal rights, and if women in a society of dominance culture have equal rights, they are then equally playing the role of the patriarch. Those oppressed are those without property or decision-making power regardless of their gender. We then see that equal rights has paved the way for a non-gender patriarch, and if we can have a non-gender patriarchy, then we can have a non-gender matriarchy. Again, the catch is how we use the term Matriarchy; in other words, we can use it to imply domination or to imply partnership, both seemingly opposite.
So then we can have a non-gendered dominance, and or a non-gendered partnership. In the past, societies had very well-defined gender roles, some in partnership societies and others in dominance societies. Historically, Patriarchy was always male dominated, and matriarchy (anthropologically speaking) was always a partnership where the women share in managing property and risk. Now we are coming to an age where gender roles are more flexible and societies are more capable of evolving culturally and legally to be more androgynous. A society without gender will still lean more toward partnership or dominance, although it will be more difficult to notice how this manifests because there are no longer contrasting sides.
This graph shows the use of the terms matriarchy and patriarch between 1900 and The Woman's Lib Movement in the 70's
This graph shows the use of the terms matriarchy and patriarch between 1970 and today
So let’s suggest some specific terminologies:
Anthropological Matriarchy - Gendered Matriarchy as a Partnership where propriety is passed down through the mother and daughters.
Eislerian Matriarchy - Ancient cultures of female dominance based on archeological evidence. Matriarchy as Female Dominance
Patriarchy - Dominance culture.
Non-Gender Patriarchy - Dominance culture that allows for men and women alike, regardless of gender to dominate through leveraging property and decision making power. Essentially, anyone wealthy enough to own big businesses and influence legislators.
Non-Gender Partnership - Anthropological Matriarchy that is not gender biased or gender specific, with equal rights for all regardless of gender, age, race, or creed. No member of a group has absolute control over property or decision making, risk management and responsibility is shared, dominance is limited, and egalitarian partnership is encouraged and incentivized.
Two women from the matriarchal Hopi Tribe of what is today the State of Arizona
Matrilineal means that the family name and history follows lineage of the mother. Matrilocal means that traditionally, when a couple is married they would move into the house or village of the Wife. Matrifocal means that the wife is the primary head of household and makes most of the decisions. We don't really need to go deeply into these three subgroups within many matriarchal systems, but they are useful in showing how complex this conversation could essentially become. In fact every patriarchal culture in the history of the human race from an academic perspective will have slight variations from every other one. I feel it is important to understand that matriarchy does not have a fixed simple definition of 'female dominance' from a scientific perspective. That definition is not academic, and rather it is a political one. It doesn't come necessarily from a studious unbiased observation, but through direct opposition to the perceived dominance of a patriarchy. Women's lib in the 70s was of the utmost importance just as the women's movement now is paramount to shifting inequalities not just for women in the West, but for women around the world. Using the terms matriarchy and patriarchy politically to express dominance created a simple linguistic tool which gave us the ability to draw attention towards injustice in women's issues. As these issues begin to balance out over time it might be useful to identify from where we have come in matriarchal history and to where we might be going. The ideas here are based on the matriarchal structure of the Iroquois Nation and the writings of Heidi Göetner-Abendroth. Heidi Göetner-Abendroth is a German academic feminist who focuses on matriarchal studies. When taking a look at the way matriarchal cultures behave in regard to decision-making and economics, we find a partnership and egalitarian balance between the genders.
Historically speaking we can all agree that in the past we've had very specific gender roles. For example, women raised the children and men went hunting. In present times we can say that a stay-at-home dad who cares for the children and resides with a mom that goes to the office every day is not completely unheard of. In fact, even if a working father is not willing to take care of the kids at all he might be viewed as irresponsible. However just for the sake of example we will use the gender roles of the past to explore how matriarchy once functioned, and it is quite simple. One gender makes decisions while the other gender owns property. Generally speaking the women were owners of the property and the men held council to make decisions. If the men made decisions that the women collectively did not like they could impose sanctions of sorts upon the men. If the women worked, managing the land in ways that the men did not like, the men could make decisions in retribution. This served as a sort of built-in judiciary system that prevented any one gender from dominating the other. So then, matriarchy, academically speaking, was exactly the opposite of domination and in fact was a Partnership similar to the one envisioned by Dr. Riane Eisler. The partnership envisioned by Eisler, as we mentioned, does not have specific gender roles, and is more organic in nature. Perhaps we could call it a gender-neutral partnership. Essentially then, patriarchy was represented historically, as a culture where the man had absolute control over both the property and the decision making. As is possible in today's world, if a woman has absolute control over both the property and this decision making, from an academic perspective, it would be considered patriarchy, and she would be the patriarch. From a political perspective, in defining patriarchy and matriarchy both in reference to dominance as we tend to do colloquially, the opposite would be true. She would be the matriarch of her matriarchy. Are we following the difference here? In the past we had a partnership between genders called matriarchy. In the 70s we had a division between genders that we called patriarchy. Patriarchy actually means dominance regardless of gender, and matriarchy didn't mean dominance until Dr. Riane Eisler suggested it in her aforementioned book about goddess worship in ancient Minoan Crete. So where do we go from here? I feel many would agree that gender dominance is not working for most at the present. Just as well, it's not likely that we will all agree to revert to the fixed gender roles of the past. So then, perhaps we can combine the partnership of our anthropological matriarchal cultures with gender neutrality of our modern world to correct power structure whereever they might be out of balance. Rather than making matriarchy a gender issue perhaps we could restore partnership between ownership and decision-making as it once was with the Iroquois. If corporations and land moguls own much of the property and make decisions without the concentration of those who live and work on those properties, this is patriarchy. Matriarchy could help create a more balanced world if we can hold those who are most powerful in our society accountable by re-establishing a separation of ownership and governance in order to limit domination, without gender dichotomy and without unnecessary class division. In order to create a matriarchy that works for everyone we must be able to imagine it first.
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