 Abraham & Son Patriarchy describes the structuring of society on the basis of family units, in which fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of these units. In some cultures slaves were included as part of such households. The concept of patriarchy is often used, by extension, to refer to the expectation that men take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, acting as representatives via public office (in anthropology and feminism, for example).
The feminine form of patriarchy is matriarchy, but there are no known examples of matriarchies from any point in history.[Steven Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, (William Morrow & Company, 1973).][Joan Bamberger,\'The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society\', in M Rosaldo and L Lamphere, Women, Culture, and Society, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 263-280.][Robert Brown, Human Universals, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 1991.][Steven Goldberg, Why Men Rule, (Chicago, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993).][Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won\'t Give Women a Future, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001).][Jonathan Marks, \'Essay 8: Primate Behavior\', in The Un-Textbook of Biological Anthropology, (Unpublished, 2007), p. 11.] Encyclopædia Britannica says it is a "hypothetical social system".[\'Matriarchy\', Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.] The Britannica article goes on to note, "The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development is now generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed."[\'Matriarchy\', Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.]
The anthropologist Margaret Mead said, "All the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed. ... men everywhere have been in charge of running the show. ... men have been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home."[Margaret Mead,\'Review of Sex and Temperament in Three Privative Societies\'. Redbook (October 1973): 48.] For moral comment on this see Feminist criticism below; for a scientific explanation of why, see Biology of gender below.
Etymology
The word patriarchy comes from two Greek words – patēr (πατήρ, father) and archē (αρχή, rule). In Greek, the genitive form of patēr is patr-os,[William D Mounce, The Morphology of Biblical Greek, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 209.] which shows the root form patr, explaining why the word is spelled patr-iarchy. The letter i in patr-i-archy occurs because patēr comes into English via Latin, which had a different vowel flavour to Greek in the genitive (pater/patris). For example, the abbreviation DVP stands for Decessit Vita Patris (literally, she died in the life of the father). The basic meaning of the Greek word archē is actually "beginning" (hence arche-ology or men-arche)[Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon, 3rd ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 137.] – the first words of Genesis in Greek (see Septuagint) are En archē ("In the beginning").[Alfred Rahlfs ed., Septuaginta, (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979), p. 1.] However, archē is also used metaphorically to refer to ruling, because rulers are perceived to "start" things.[Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon, 3rd ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 138.] This use of archē is especially common in compound words, for example hier-archy and an-archy.
Related words
A patriarch is a man who has great influence on his family or society. Some historical societies claimed descent from one great man. For example, the Romans believed they were descended from Romulus who founded Rome. The traditional founder of Athens is Erectheus, and of Sparta Lacedæmon. Similarly, the Jewish tradition in the Torah says Jews are descended from Abraham through Isaac. Both the Torah and Qur\'an say Arabs are descended from Abraham through Ishmael,[Genesis 25:12-18.][Sura 37:99-109.] Abraham\'s first son, Isaac\'s half-brother. Traditional founders are often called patriarchs. The feminine form of patriarch is matriarch, for example see Matriarchs (Bible). Patriarch is also a name for the most senior leaders of Eastern Christianity, roughly comparable to the western arch-bishop (archē as above).
The adjective for patriarchy is patriarchal; and patriarchalism and, more commonly, paternalism refer to the practice or defence of patriarchy. Patron is a related word used generically (that is, it is not gender or sex specific). Women and men who provide financial support to activities within a community can be termed patrons. The verb form patronize can be used positively, to describe the activity of patrons, or negatively, to describe adopting a superior attitude. If the superior attitude is adopted by a man, he can be called paternalistic.
Related customs
Patrimonalism uses the Greek word monos (μόνος, sole) to describe the view of a state as the extended household of a mon-arch (sole ruler, archē as above) or deity. There are records of patrimonalism almost as far back as the earliest writing itself (about 5000 years ago). In fact, this is probably because patrimonalism directly facilitated the invention of writing – the first hereditary monarchs gained so much wealth as to need to keep accounts, and enough to pay those accountants. The earliest records of patrimonalism come from Ancient Near Eastern legal documents, the best known being the Code of Hammurabi and the Torah. Some aspects of patrimonalism can still be found in the few remaining monarchies in the world today, for example, British law concerning real estate (see Crown lands), especially in Australia. For more detail regarding patrimonalism see Traditional authority.
 Passing of X-linked conditions Some social customs reflect what is termed patrilineality or patrilocality.
Patrilineal describes customs where family responsibilities and assets pass from father to son. By contrast, contemporary Judaism considers people to be Jewish if their mothers were Jewish, which makes this aspect of contemporary Judaism matrilineal. Biblical Judaism is, however, a classical example of a patriarchal society. Matrilineal is a particularly useful term in genetics, where some genetic features are more or less passed via the maternal line, notably Mitochondrial DNA and severe X-linked genetic conditions. An X chromosome from the mother is always passed to offspring, male and female. However, daughters do not receive a Y chromosome, and sons do not receive an X chromosome from their fathers (see Sex-determination system, Heredity and Genetic genealogy).
Patrilocal describes the custom of brides relocating to the geographic community of the husband and his father\'s family. In a matrilocal society, a husband will relocate to the home community of his wife and her mother (see also Marriage). Matrilocality can substantially increase the social influence of women in a culture, however, given that tribal and family leaders are still men in all known matrilocal societies, matrilocality is not equivalent to matriarchy, see main entry Patriarchy (anthropology).
By contrast with these other customs, patriarchy can be seen to be distinctly about gender and the nuclear family, gender and public office, and about female-male relationships in general.
Benefits of patriarchy
Patriarchy is advanced as being advantageous for human evolution and social organization on many grounds, crossing several disciplines. Although biology may explain its existence (see below), arguments for its social utility have been made since ancient times.
Feminist criticism
 John Stuart Mill -
Most forms of feminism have challenged patriarchy as a social system that is adopted uncritically, due to millennia of human experience where male physical strength was the ultimate way of settling social conflicts – from war to disciplining children. John Stuart Mill wrote, "In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed ... before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other."[John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, (London: Longmans, 1868).]
During the democratic and anti-slavery movements of early 19th century Europe and America, kingdoms became constitutional monarchies or republics and slavery was made illegal (see abolitionism). The civil rights movements of 20th century America also sought to overthrow various existing social structures, that were seen by many to be oppressive and corrupt. Both social contexts led naturally to an analogous scrutiny of relationships between women and men (see Mill above). The 19th century debate ultimately resulted in women receiving the vote; this is sometimes referred to as first-wave feminism. The late 20th century debate has produced far ranging social restructuring in Western democracies – second-wave feminism. Although often credited with it, Simone de Beauvoir denied she started second wave feminism, "The current feminist movement, which really started about five or six years ago [1970-71], did not really know [The Second Sex]".[John Gerassi, \'Simone de Beauvoir: The Second Sex 25 Years Later\', an interview with Simone de Beauvoir, Society 13 (January/February 1976), pp. 79-85.] Some consider the "second wave" to be continuing into the 21st century, others consider it to be complete, still others consider there to be a "third wave" of feminism active in contemporary society.
In feminist theory, the opposite of feminism is not masculism but patriarchy. It is not surprising, therefore, that the word patriarchy has a range of additional, negative associations when used in the context of feminist theory, where it is sometimes capitalized and used with the definite article (the Patriarchy), likely best understood as a form of collective personification (compare "blame it on the Government" to "blame it on the Patriarchy"). The use of the word patriarchy in feminist literature has been arguably overused as a rhetorical device, becoming so loaded with emotive associations, that some writers prefer to use an approximate synonym, the more objective and technical androcentric (also from Greek – anēr, genitive andros, meaning man).
Fredrika Scarth (a feminist) reads Simone de Beauvoir\'s The Second Sex to be saying, "Neither men nor women live their bodies authentically under patriarchy."[Fredrika Scarth, The Other Within: Ethics, Politics and the Body in Simone de Beauvoir, (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), p. 100.] Mary Daly wrote, "Males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy."[Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), p. 29.] Carole Pateman, another feminist, writes, "The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection."[Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 207.]
Most feminists do not propose to replace patriarchy with matriarchy, rather they argue for equality (though some have argued for separation). However, equality is a difficult idea (see Egalitarianism), "People who praise it or disparage it disagree about what they are praising or disparaging."[Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 2.] It is particularly hard to work out what equality means when it comes to gender[citation needed], because there are real differences between men and women (see Sexual dimorphism and Gender differences). Recent feminist writers speak of "feminisms of diversity"[citation needed], that seek to reconcile older debates between equality feminisms and difference feminisms. For instance, Judith Squires writes, "The whole conceptual force of \'equality\' rests on the assumption of differences, which should in some respect be valued equally."[Judith Squires, Gender in Political Theory, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 97.]
For a leading feminist who writes against patriarchy see Marilyn French; and for one who is more sympathetic see Christina Hoff Sommers.
 Average Income USA (2005 Census Data) In summary, recent feminist writers have shown a tendency to admit misandry among some members of the movement[citation needed], and acknowledge real differences in men and women that make diversity a more meaningful aim than reductionistic equality (for example Judith Squires above)[citation needed]. However, the basic issue stands out even more clearly now than at the peak of second wave activism in the early 1970s. Decades of legislation and affirmative action have not yet changed the fact that western culture is male dominated, and that it remains patriarchal. Women can vote in most countries of the world, and they outnumber men in higher education in many countries.
However, heads of state, cabinet ministers and the top executives of major companies are still mostly men (see glass ceiling). Also, women\'s average income is still significantly lower than men\'s average income. Sally Haslanger claims women are still marginalized within academic philosophy departments.[
Sally Haslanger, Article Title.]
Criticisms of feminism
While some feminists have provided critical discussion of the movement\'s views regarding patriarchy, most criticism of feminist views has come from outside the movement.
Steven Goldberg
Main article: Why Men Rule
To date, feminists have failed to achieve many of their goals (for example, those related to executive positions and average income, see above). This was predicted in 1973 by Steven Goldberg.
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| In every society a basic male motivation is the feeling that the women and children must be protected. But the feminist cannot have it both ways: if she wishes to sacrifice all this, all that she will get in return is the right to meet men on male terms. She will lose.[Steven Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, (London: Temple Smith, 1977), p. 196.]
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Goldberg (born 1941) was chairman of the department of sociology at City College of New York, and has written two books on patriarchy. In his second book on patriarchy he wrote:
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| There is nothing in this book concerned with the desirability or undesirability of the institutions whose universality the book attempts to explain. For instance, this book is not concerned with the question of whether male domination of hierarchies is morally or politically \'good\' or \'bad\'. Moral values and political policies, by their nature, consist of more than just empirical facts and their explanation. \'What is\' can never entail \'what should be\', so science knows nothing of \'should\'. \'Answers\' to questions of \'should\' require subjective elements that science cannot provide. Similarly, there is no implication that one sex is \'superior\' in general to the other; \'general superiority\' and \'general inferiority\' are scientifically meaningless concepts.[Steven Goldberg, Why Men Rule, (Chicago, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993), p. 1.]
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His first book was published in 1973 – the early days of second wave feminist activism. Like feminists, he started with the data that all known societies have constructed patriarchies. This data requires both moral comment and scientific explanation. Consider the theory that "all power corrupts". If all known cases of people with power result in some form of corruption, we need to study both the moral question of eliminating corruption, and the scientific question of how power leads to corruption – perhaps a just society should eliminate power structures; perhaps it only needs to modify them. In the case of patriarchy, feminism largely provides moral comment, while Goldberg tries to provide the scientific explanation. Goldberg\'s aim is neither to recommend nor to condemn patriarchy. He simply provides a hypothesis to explain it. Science is neither superior nor inferior to ethics. Science and ethics advance human knowledge in different directions by asking different types of question. Ideally the two assist one another.
In Goldberg\'s first book, he seeks an explanation for three specific aspects of male dominance behaviour in human societies. Patriarchy is the first of these. He also considers the phenomenon of male status seeking, which he calls "male attainment". He is influenced by Margaret Mead in identifying this phenomenon. She says, "Men may cook, or weave or dress dolls or hunt hummingbirds, but if such activities are appropriate behavior for men, then the whole society, men and women alike, votes them as important. When the same occupations are performed by women, they are regarded as less important."[Margaret Mead. Male and Female. London: Penguin, 1950.] Finally, he considers the way men seem to dominate in one-to-one relationships with women. Marriage is just one example of such relationships. Goldberg comments, "A woman’s feeling that she must get around a man is the hallmark of male dominance."[Steven Goldberg, Why Men Rule, (Chicago, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993), p. 11.]
Goldberg proposes the hypothesis that the statistical averages of all these forms of behaviour are partly explained by the necessary (but not sufficient) condition of neuroendocrinological effects – namely, testosterone. The title of his first book makes his hypothesis very clear, it was called The Inevitability of Patriarchy: Why the Biological Difference between Men and Women always Produces Male Domination. At the time he wrote (1973), there were only very limited results from biological researchers to support his hypothesis. The situation has changed a lot since then.
For other writers who make similar points to Goldberg see Steven Pinker and Donald Brown in the literature below.
For current feminists and writers with considerably more biological knowledge than Goldberg, who accept his hypothesis, but consider issues beyond the biological, see Helena Cronin and Louann Brizendine.
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| It all stems from muddling science and politics. It\'s as if people believe that if you don\'t like what you think are the ideological implications of the science then you\'re free to reject the science – and to cobble together your own version of it instead. Now, I know that sounds ridiculous when it\'s spelled out explicitly. Science doesn\'t have ideological implications; it simply tells you how the world is – not how it ought to be. So, if a justification or a moral judgement or any such \'ought\' statement pops up as a conclusion from purely scientific premises, then obviously the thing to do is to challenge the logic of the argument, not to reject the premises. But, unfortunately, this isn\'t often spelled out. And so, again and again, people end up rejecting the science rather than the fallacy.[John Brockman, \'Getting Human Nature Right: A Talk with Helena Cronin\', Edge 73 (2000): 2.]
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Biology of gender
 Female-Male Differences -
The biology of gender is scientific analysis of the physical basis for behavioural differences between men and women. It is more specific than sexual dimorphism, which covers physical and behavioural differences between males and females of any sexually reproducing species, or sexual differentiation, where physical and behavioural differences between men and women are described. Biological research of gender has explored such areas as: intersex physicalities, gender identity, gender roles and sexual orientation.
It has long been known that there are correlations between the biological sex of animals and their behaviour.[Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, (London: John Murray, 1859).][Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2 volumes, (London: John Murray, 1871).][Helena Cronin, The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).] It has also long been known that human behaviour is influenced by the brain.
The late twentieth century saw an explosion in technology capable of aiding sex research. John Money and Milton Diamond made great progress towards understanding the formation of gender identity in humans. Extensive advances were also made in understanding sexual dimorphism in other animals. For example, there were studies on the effects of sex hormones on rats. The early twenty first century started producing even more amazing results concerning genetically programmed sexual dimorphism in rat brains, prior even to the influence of hormones on development.
 Human Brain Skuse, David H (2006). "Sexual dimorphism in cognition and behaviour: the role of X-linked genes". European Journal of Endocrinology 155: 99-106.
Some specific relevant results are as follows. The brains of many animals, including humans, are significantly different for females and males of the species (Goy and McEwen, 1980).[Robert W Goy and Bruce S McEwen. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain: Based on a Work Session of the Neurosciences Research Program. MIT Press Classics. Boston: MIT Press, 1980.] Both genes and hormones affect the formation of many animal brains before "birth" (or hatching), and also behaviour of adult individuals. Hormones significantly affect human brain formation, and also brain development at puberty. Both kinds of brain difference affect male and female behaviour.
 Comparing Groups Brain differences also have a statistically measurable effect on an array of abilities. In particular, on average, women are more capable in nearly everything to do with sensory processing (a bit like comparing the red group to the purple group in the diagram). On the other hand, male brains seem to be "pushed" towards extremes of low ability or high ability in various forms of mental abstraction, especially those related to space and logic. This means the average scores of young women and men in mathematics, for example, will be close, but there will be more men than women in the very low scores and in the very high scores (like red and green, or red and blue).[Camilla Persson Benbow and Julian C Stanley, \'Sex Differences in Mathematical Reasoning Ability: More Facts\', Science 222 (1983): 1029-1031.] There is evidence to suggest that forms of autism may be essentially extreme expressions of certain typically male characteristics.[Simon Baron-Cohen, \'The Extreme-Male-Brain Theory of Autism\', in H Tager-Flusberg (ed.), Neurodevelopmental Disorders, (Boston: The MIT Press, 1999).][Simon Baron-Cohen. Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. (Boston: The MIT Press, 1997).] Hormones have also been linked with male aggression.[Elizabeth J. Susman, Gale Inoff-Germain, Editha D. Nottelmann, and others, \'Hormones, Emotional Dispositions, and Aggressive Attributes in Young Adolescents\', Child Development 58 (1987): 1114-1134.]
In short, science has caught up with what feminists,[Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, \'Raising Darwin\'s Consciousness: Female Sexuality and the prehominid origins of patriarchy.\' Human Nature 8 (1997): 1-49.] Goldberg and common sense have said for a long time – on average, men are more aggressive in social behaviour. This does not justify patriarchy, it merely partially explains it. The explanation is only partial because there is a lot of variation in women and men that is not yet understood. It cannot be proven that female-ness or male-ness is 100% biological (in fact it almost certainly isn\'t), but what has been shown is that female-ness and male-ness are certainly not 100% determined by upbringing and culture (social determinism). These things are an exciting area of future research, with profound relevance for people of many different types.
 Chimpanzee For an illustrated description of clear differences between female and male brain response to pain see Laura Stanton and Brenna Maloney, \'The Perception of Pain\', Washington Post (19 December 2006).
For those who can understand technical biological language, Alexandra M. Lopes and others, recently published that:
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| A sexual dimorphism in levels of expression in brain tissue was observed by quantitative real-time PCR, with females presenting an up to 2-fold excess in the abundance of PCDH11X transcripts. We relate these findings to sexually dimorphic traits in the human brain. Interestingly, PCDH11X/Y gene pair is unique to Homo sapiens, since the X-linked gene was transposed to the Y chromosome after the human–chimpanzee lineages split.[Alexandra M. Lopes and others,\'Inactivation status of PCDH11X: sexual dimorphisms in gene expression levels in brain\', Human Genetics 119 (2006): 1–9.]
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The important thing to note about the biological research is that most of it was generally motivated by seeking the causes of diseases in human beings, and ways of treating or preventing those diseases. Research results are relevant to gender issues, but that is not their direct concern. Sexual dimorphism in the brain is important to study, because we may need to apply different kinds of treatment to women and to men.
Appendix
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This article or section may contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources.
Please help Wikipedia by adding sources whose main topic is "Patriarchy". See the talk page for details.(November 2007) |
- Patriarchies in dispute
The table shows all societies that have been claimed at one time or another to be matriarchal.[citation needed] The list, that follows the table, provides quotes from the first western women and men who studied these societies. In every case the ethnographers report that the societies were patriarchal not matriarchal, even before changes brought by contact with western culture. What some of the societies do typify, however, is matrilinearity or matrilocality, not matriarchy, because of clear features of male dominance, see the main entry Patriarchy (anthropology). This is the evidence that supports the statements made by Encyclopædia Britannica, Margaret Mead, Cynthia Eller and Steven Goldberg elsewhere in this article, and has been mainly located using their bibliographies. There are a lot of cultural groups in this appendix. No bias is intended against the more than 1,000 uncontroversially patriarchal groups, nor against the matrilocal or matrilineal cultural groups, whose patriarchal system of government has never been disputed.
Note: "separate" in the marriage column, refers to the practice of husbands and wives living in separate locations, often informally called "walking marriages". See the articles for the specific cultures that practice this for further description.
Table
List
Patriarchy in ethnographies
| Autonym | Comments | Image
|
| Alorese
| "Marriage means for women far greater economic responsibility in a social system that does not grant them status recognition equal to that of men while at the same time it places on them greater and more monotonous burdens of labor."
Bois, Cora du (1944). The People of Alor: A Social-Psychological Study of an East Indian Island. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
|  Indonesia |
| Bamenda
| "They are under the political authority of a Village Head, who is usually the descendant of the first settler or of the most senior man of a small band of first settlers in the locality. Where the village is the largest autonomous political unit, he may exercise a titular claim to all land within the village boundaries, but the implications of this are political rather than economic. The right to reside in a village and cultivate its land is contingent on obedience to the Village Head and conformity to custom." [Page 29.]
"I stress this point since the European observer, confronted by the spectacle of women bending over their hoes through the day while a number of men may be seen lounging in the compounds, are apt to regard the division of labour as not only inequitable but as an exploitation of the female sex. Such an attitude, however, fails to take into account the contribution made by the men in the heavier tasks, more especially in the dry season; and, secondly, the onus on them to earn money for household necessaries." [Page 27.]
"Women are not eligible for the headship of kin or political groups." [Page 148.]
Kaberry, Phyllis M (1952). Women of the Grassfields. London: Colonial Research Publications 14.
|  Cameroon |
| Bantoc
| "As is typical of the Bantoc ... the Tanowong are organized into different dap-ay groups ... . The dap-ay ... is the men\'s house. The dap-ay are the religeous, social, and political centers of village life, where major decisions are made ... . While each dap-ay theoretically has a council of old men who make the decisions, in actual fact, especially at present, every mature man participates in the deliberations of the council."
Bacadayan, Albert S (1974). "Securing water for drying rice terraces: irrigation, community organization, and expanding social relationships in a Western Bontoc group, Philippines". Ethnology 13: 247–260.
|  Philippines |
| Batek
| "Wives usually go where their husbands want to go and the men seem to prefer their own home areas. ... The Batek have a system of headmanship which appears to go back some time. There are at least seven men in the Aring and Lebir Valleys today who are commonly regarded as penghulu (\'headmen\') and they have in their genealogy several generations of penghulu, menteri (\'ministers\' or \'chiefs\'), panglima (\'war captains\'), and even a raja (\'king\'). ... The position of the penghulu descends to the sons of previous penghulu, ideally in order of birth. If the penghulu has no sons, it goes to his next oldest brother and then to his sons in order."
Endicott, Kirk Michael (1974). Batek Negrito Economy and Social Organization. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Unpublished PhD thesis, 239–246.
|  Malaysia |
Boyowan
Kiriwina
Trobriand Islands
|
These are matrilinear, patrilocal and patriarchal tribes. Maternal uncles are family heads, and the tribal chiefs are dynastic male monarchs, paid a tribute.
"A district is formed by a number of villages, which are tributary to a particular headman of high rank, a chief."
"A chief has a wife from each subject village."
"The headman of a village is the oldest male of the dominant subclan."
"Next to the chief and sorcerer, the garden magician is the most important person in the village. He may even be the chief. He is a hereditary specialist in a complex system of magic handed down in the female line."
"Fishermen are organized into detachments, each of which is led by a headman who owns the canoe, performs the magic, and reaps the main share of the catch."
"Although descent is matrilineal, postmarital residence is patrilocal."
Quotes from an article sourced on Malinowski (see below) by Martin J Malone.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1916). "Baloma: Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 46: 354-430.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1918). "Fishing in the Trobriand Islands". Man 18: 87-92.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1920). "Kula: The Circulating Exchange of Valuables in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea". Man 20: 87-105.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1920). "The Economic Pursuits of the Trobriand Islanders". Nature 105: 564-565.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1921). "The Primitive Economics of the Trobriand Islanders". The Economic Journal 21: 1-16.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Seattle: Washington University Press.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1936). "The Trobriand Islands of Papua". Australian Geographer 3: 10-12.
There is an amusing anecdote of cross-cultural contact on Kiriwina. The local yam is part of the staple diet and has something of a contraceptive effect. The Kiriwina tribes were initially reluctant to believe western stories of sex causing pregnancy.
|  PNG |
| Bribri
| "(The brother) ... or in the default of a brother, a cousin or uncle, [has a ruling voice in any family council or discussion]."
Gabb, William Moore (1875). "On the Indian tribes and languages of Costa Rica". American Philosophical Society Proceedings 14: 483–602.
|  Costa Rica |
| Çatalhöyük
| "The archaeological evidence of female oriented ritual at Catal Hüyük is no more a substatial demonstration of matriarchy than some future excavations of a contemporary shrine of La Virgin de Guadalupe (or some other cult of the Madonna) might uncover."
Webster, Steven (1973). "Was it Matriarchy?". New York Review of Books: 37–38.
|  Turkey |
Chambri
(Tchambuli)
| "Nowhere [in Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies] do I suggest that I have found any material which disproves the existance of sex differences [in Tchambuli Society]. ... This study was not concerned with whether there are or are not actual and universal differences between the sexes, either quantative or qualitative."
Mead, Margaret (1937). "Letter". The American Anthropologist 39: 558-561.
"All the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed. ... men everywhere have been in charge of running the show. ... men have been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home."
Mead, Margaret (1973). "Review of Sex and Temperament in Three Primative Societies". Redbook October: 48.
| PNG |
Filipinos
(and Filipinas)
| "This combination of patterns has brought the Filipino woman to a point where, although denied some of the adventurous freedom of the male, she may be even better prepared for economic competition. The acceptance of the boredom of routine work may be seen as part of \'patient suffering\' which is said to characterize the Filipino female to a greater extent than the male. Her responsibile role in the household means that the wife is charged with practical affairs while the husband is concerned to a greater extent with ritualistic activity which maintains prestige."
Hunt, CL (1965). "Female Occupational Roles and Urban Sex Ratios in the United States, Japan, and the Philippines". Social Forces 43: 144.
| Philippines |
Gahuku-Gama
(Fore)
| "At marriage a Fore woman ... is expected to be ... an obedient spouse, a prolific childbearer, and generous with gifts of food to her affines and her husband\'s friends."
Glasse (Lindenbaum), Shirley (1963). The Social Life of Women in the South Fore. Port Moresby: Department of Public Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1.
What is tastefully left out of this description is that food sometimes consisted of recently deceased members of the tribe. A disease called kuru, probably spread by this canibalism, affected more women, children and elderly than men. [Note again that anthropologists provide scientific observations not moral judgements.]
| PNG |
| Hopi
| "It seems that brothers are assumed to be senior to sisters, and entitled to respect as such, in the absence of evidence to the contrary."
Freire-Marreco, Barbara (1914). "Tewa Kinship Terms from the Pueblo of Hano, Arizona". American Anthropologist new series 16: 269–287.
"Within the family, the mother\'s brother, or, in his absence, any adult male of the household or clan, is responsible for the mainenance of order and the discipline of younger members."
Dozier, Edward P (1954). "The Hopi-Tewa of Arizona". American-Archaeology and Ethnology 44: 339.
|  USA |
| Iban
| "Typically, every bilek family has as its head a man who is responsible for the general management of the farm." (page 81)
The original ethnography is cited in
Whyte, William King (1978). The Status of Women in Pre-Industrial Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
"The tuah rumah is the administrator and custodian of adat, Iban customary law, and the arbiter in community
conflicts. He has no political, economic, or ritual power. Usually a man of great personal prestige, it is through his knowledge of custom and his powers of persuasion that others are induced to go along with his decisions. Influence and prestige are not inherited. The Iban emphasize achievement, not descent."
Quote from Martin J Malone\'s cultural summary drawn from sources including:
Gomes, Edwin H (1911). Seventeen years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: a record of intimate association with the natives of the Bornean jungles. London: Seeley.
The main Wikipedia entry above includes a short recent history of colonial politics and wars involving the Iban, up to the co-operation between Iban and Australians against Japanese in World War II.
The film, The Sleeping Dictionary, is set among the Iban.
| Malaysia Indonesia |
Imazighen
(Berbers)
|
"Nuclear families are reported to be independent social groups only among the Mzab. Elsewhere they are aggregated into patrilocal extended families, each with a patriarchal head."
Murdock, George Peter (1959). Africa: Its people and Their Cultural History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 117.
|  Libya  Algeria |
Iroquois
| "The Indian regarded woman as the inferior, the dependent, and the servant of man, and from nurturance and habit, she actually considered herself to be so."
Morgan, Lewis Henry (1901). League of the Ho-Dêé-No-Sau-Nee or Iroquois. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 315.
"Ruling over the League was a council of 50 chiefs known as sachem[s] or lord[s]."
From Marlene M Martin\'s cultural summary, which draws upon the text quoted above.
Two interesting thing about this society are that the chiefs were elected, not hereditary, and that the voters were exclusively female. The council itself had a ruler, but he was elected by the council.
See also:
Richards, Cara B (1957), "Matriarchy or Mistake: The Role of Iroqois Women Through Time", Cultural Stability and Cultural Change, New York: American Ethnological Society, p. 36–45.
Randle, Martha C (undated). "Iroqois Women, Then and Now". Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 149.
The main Wikipedia entry also provides enough circumstatial evidence to suggest what the anthropologists reported – the Iroqois were traditionally a matrilineal but patriarchal people.
|  Canada  Quebec USA |
| Jivaro
| "On relations between husband and wife it may be proper to say that it is regulated according to the principle \'the man governs, but the woman holds sway\'."
Karstan, R (1935). The Headhunters of Western Amazonia:The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru. Helsingfors: Finska Vetenskaps-societeten Helsingfors, 254.
|  Ecuador  Peru |
| Kenuzi
| "The subservient position of women was determined by the Islamic religion." (page 133)
"Women influence their husbands, but [their husband\'s] decisions are decisive." (page 89)
The original ethnographies are cited in:
Whyte, William King (1978). The Status of Women in Pre-Industrial Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
It is also worth noting that in this society, girls are married before puberty (Godard, 1867), by adult men who inspect them manually for virginity (Kenedy, 1970). Female circumcision is later performed at puberty to ensure chastity (Barclay, 1964). [Once more we note that niether the anthropologists who report such practices, nor those who cite them, nor this article endorse these things in any way. These practices are mentioned only to explain why most scholars do not consider this society matriarchal.]
|  Sudan |
| Kibbutzim
| "Some women serve as secretaries of kibbutzim, very few as treasurers; women as economic directors are still a
rarity. Experience in the internal positions of power is the stepping stone to external positions of power. There has been one woman national secretary of a kibbutz federation. The kibbutz federations usually send into national politics one token woman at a time."
Agassi, Judith Buber (1989). "Gender Equality: Theoretical Lessons from the Israeli Kibbutz". Gender and Society 3: 160-186.
|  Israel |
| !Kung
| "N≠issa\'s descriptions ... of her relationship with her husband, Tashay, suggest that relations between the sexes are not egalitarian, and that men, because of their greater strength, have power and can exercise their will in relation to women. This confirms Marshall\'s (1959) finding that men\'s status is higher than women\'s."
Shostak, Marjorie (1976), "A!Kung Woman\'s Memories of Childhood", in Lee and De Vore, Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, p. 277
"The dominant impression one gets from accounts of patrilocal bands is one of semi-isolated, male-centered groups, encapsulated within territories."
Lee, Richard B (1976), "!Kung Spacial Organization", in Lee and De Vore, Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, p. 75
"There are inherited positions, such as the \'headman\'."
Marshall, Lorna (1976). The!Kung of Nyae Nyae, 125.
"Raising 2 or 3 children to competent maturity—the life\'s work of a successful woman—has typically required hard decisions about priorities, attentive management of social relations, ingenuity, luck, and decades of hard labor."
Fielder, Christine; Chris King (2004). Sexual Paradox
Complementarity, Reproductive Conflict, and Human Emergence. ISBN 1-4116-5532-X.
|  Angola  Namibia  Botswana |
Maliku
Minicoy
|  Maldives Royal Family 1888 "Maliku seamen then had small colonies in Burma, near Rangoon, and on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Nowadays, the men prefer to work on cargo ships owned by national and international shipping companies. Their \'Minicoy Seamen\'s Association\' shifted from Calcutta to Bombay, where they teach the young men and supply employment."
"Until 1960, all the villages selected an additional authority, the rahubodukaka (lit. the country\'s big brother), who was in charge of the rahuge (lit. house of the country). He and the rahuweriñ (lit. ruler of the country), a boduñ selected by the boduñ and niamiñ [high status groups], were responsible for all the affairs concerning the whole island and the access to the southern part for collecting firewood and coconuts."
Kattner, Ellen (1996). "Union Territory of Lakshadweep: The Social Structure of Maliku". Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter 10.
|  India |
| Minangkabau
| "In spite of the nominal \'matriarchate\', Van Hasselt claims that the women are really the servants of the men. They not only prepare the meals of the men in their family, but they also serve them first, later eating with the children."
Paraphrase of:
Hasselt, AL van (1882), "Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra", in PJ Veth, Midden-Sumatra, Leiden, p. Third Part
"The women | |
