What is matriarchy? What do you think a matriarchal society would look like? ecotrain question of the week

Matriarchy, where women wear more pompous hats than men.

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Matriarchy, for lack of a better word, is good. - Gordon Gekko

With this fake quote, film aficionados might know the real one, I like to start off my post, refering to one theory that the word matriarchy itself is the product of a translation mistake.

When Johann Jakob Bachofen wrote his seminal work “Das Mutterrecht“ the direct but clumsy translation Mother Right was soon replaced with the term matriarchy in English then retranslated as Matriarchat into German and voila!, a star was born.

Ethnologists usually prefer the term matrilinear, describing societies, where land and property is owned and passed on among the females of a family, from mother to daughter, and husbands sometimes are mere visitors into the household of their wife, their social obligations remaining more to their own mother´s family than to that of their wife and the most important male figure for a child being not the own biological father but the eldest brother of its mother, the maternal uncle, since he is the one man permanently present in the child´s family.

I think this arrangement has a certain natural logic and charm to it.
Like the bee, which is needed to pollinate the apple blossom, but the apple stays with the apple tree, the male is only needed to impregnate the female and for genetic reasons this must be a man from another family, but the child stays in the mother´s family, like the apple stays with the apple tree.

One matrilinear society I visited during my travels was the Minangkabau in Sumatra, Indonesia, where traditions are now slowly being eroded by global influences, with many Minangkabau men heading off now to other parts of Indonesia, in search of a more dominant role than the one reserved for them in a society where women hold the key to the treasure chest.

Sometimes I also think that the Western mind, usually only capable of exclusive black and white thinking, coined the term matriarchy as a counter concept to patriarchy, probably with a heavy dose of counterinsurgency in mind, to strike fear into the hearts of men, about that terrible fate which would befall them should women ever rule.


It´s not that women are better human beings per se, they just have not got so much opportunity yet to dirty their hands. - Alice Schwarzer

I quite like this quote by Germany´s leading feminist thinkeress, since whenever women got the opportunity, like Bloody Brigitte in Auschwitz, they proofed quite capable of getting their hands dirty.
Or “the only man in the cabinet“ Margaret Thatcher, or Indira Ghandi as examples for women becoming head of state with all the power and abuse which comes with it.

Feminists might argue now that this were women coming into a position of power in a patriarchy and that in a matriarchy all would be rainbows and unicorns, quod erat demonstrandum!
Among some esoteric or leftist-feminist circles, there is a certain infatuation with the feminine, maintaining or hoping for, that the femine, being the “good“ force will save us from the “evil“ masculine force, the light side will save us from the dark side, some kind of positive sexism, but in the end it all comes down to power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolute, does not matter if the one holding the power is male or female.


Men and women are the same. In old age men get breasts and women moustaches.
Swami Yogaswarupananda of Rishikesh

So while His Hilariousness was referring to our genetic and hormonal makeup and the everchanging levels of estrogen and testosterone, every human being contains both feminine and masculine parts and traits and only the acceptance and the realisation of both parts and traits makes for a fully grown, mature and healthy individuum.

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As a child I fell victim to my father´s divisive patriarchal primitive thinking which deprived me of the possibility of living my full potential.

In summer holidays I always stayed with my maternal grandparents for some time, which, me being the only grandchild, was paradise.
My grandmother was very accomplished at crochet, making elaborate, refined shawls and selling them. So naturally, being in the presence of a master, I wanted to learn that too, so she taught me some basic stuff and I was happy with my work.
When my father came after a few days to pick me up he saw me at my crochet work and yelled:

“What are you doing there?“

I looked at him as if he was stupid, and only later I could understand the full dimension of his stupidity and said:

“I´m doing crochet.“
“A boy doesn´t do crochet!“

And that was the end of my career in needle work, luckily he intervened,
I might have become gay after all! 😉

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Somewhere I read that apparently men living in matriarchal or matrilinear societies, those societies being tribal, are quite happy with that arrangement and will fiercely defend this blueprint of life against all encroachments by other patriarchal men.
I can see why. I like to imagine that in those societies there is less of a rat race than in patriarchal societies, less competition among men, since there is not much status to gain anyway when women “own“ the really important stuff like land and children, so men can also indulge in cultural stuff, like making music, singing, dancing, story telling, enhancing their feminine qualities and it are those things which, after the basic needs are met, give meaning to the human existence.

When I went to the Philippines for the first time in 1983, I also visited Mountain Province with its tribes and there I could see men carrying and attending to babies and small children while the women where working in the fields.
So my Filippino relatives joked:
“You marry an Ifugao woman, you can stay at home and play with the kids while she will do all the work.“
There we have it again, the common misconception that housework and taking care of the kids is not work, even if men do it.
But I have to admit, the idea was quite tempting, since those men all looked quite contend, maybe only missing the good old days of headhunting.

I don´t really have any idea what a matriarchal society would look like, but since the term matriarchy seems to be already the result of a wrong translation, a misconception, I like to believe that a matriarchal society would be a society where both men and women could develop both of their masculine and feminine parts to their own liking, without oppressing each other while having fun together in the process. Sounds a bit like a fairy tale.

But now, with our rapidly changing work environment, the male hero not any longer being required to hunt (go to his 9 to 5 cubicle or conveyor belt to bring home the cash to faithful wifey in da cave) and the dragons are all being slayed by computers and robots now, both, men and women can stay at home now, make some money on da blockchain and live happily ever after.

Probably life in a matriarchal society would look a bit like in this video.
Not too shabby!

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@ecoTrain

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