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Matriarchy and patriarchy: which is better? Was there an era of matriarchy in the history of mankind

Manipulation is a game that destroys maximalists. Here you need to maintain balance and not go too far. After all, what is the purpose of any manipulation? To achieve success with a minimum of sacrifices and maintaining respect for each other.

Therefore, at first it can be beneficial to show emotional generosity - to demonstrate to him that if he stays with you, he will not be bored and he will get a comprehensive buzz not only in bed.

As one familiar manipulator told me: In sex, all women are about the same - if you wish, you can spin it into the right position and teach a lot, but whether she will cause a desire to fuck her more than once or twice, and continue to meet with her - it depends not only on her physical data ... "A from what? I asked. “And from her ability to be tempting and play the game ...” - he answers and adds - do you know who we call a heifer?

But there are men who are not interested in games. They are looking for stability and a safe haven, not a volcano of passion. What distinguishes them from players is that they are more PREDICTABLE.

And even with a player, you should not overplay, especially when:

1. The player begins a life crisis - a reassessment of values.

Or he is simply in a position where circumstances are lining up against him. Then he is not predisposed to the game - then you will win much more if, at this difficult moment for him, do not show your sadistic inclinations, but show him that you can be gentle and understanding.

Attention: do not confuse the manifestation of tenderness and the ability to listen with what it implies.

Blog Manipulation-Female pickup- —

In the school history course, such a thing as “matriarchy” is mentioned, and many people know that it means the power of women. This is where most people’s knowledge of this topic ends, so it’s worth understanding it in more detail, following current trends.

What does matriarchy mean?

The term is of Greek origin, literally translated as "the dominance of the mother." There is another name - gynecocracy. Describing what matriarchy is, it is worth pointing out that it appeared in ancient times, and this concept is used to describe the type of government that includes only women or in which the fair sex. In primitive society, matriarchy could exist in different forms.

History of matriarchy

The concept of this system was introduced by scientists Bachofen and Lafito in the 19th century, who claimed that there was an era when women were at the head. However, they were unable to provide real evidence for this theory, so this question is still open. Modern minds admit that matriarchy in primitive society was when the main occupation of men - hunting, faded into the background, but agriculture and gathering, which women were engaged in, became leading. In addition, do not forget about the Amazons, whose existence is proved by modern excavations.

Patriarchy and matriarchy

The desire to compare the two ways of life is incorrect, since each option has its drawbacks. If the comparison of matriarchy and patriarchy is translated into the animal world, then males, who are leaders, lead there. Females are more vulnerable, especially during and during the period of caring for offspring. As for people, matriarchy forces women to be tougher and more resolute, which is contrary to female nature, while men give up their positions, taking a passive position.

As for the patriarchal structure of society, it may have been the most correct decision before, but now women are less and less satisfied with the role of an appendage to a man. All this led to the formation of such a trend as feminism, aimed at fighting for equality. Thanks to this, women have the right to vote, and the opportunity to work in positions, like the representatives of the stronger sex. The ladies of the 19th century could not even think about this.


Transition from matriarchy to patriarchy

Historians believe that the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy plays an important role in the formation of the family. In primitive times, when hunting was the main source of food, men rarely lived to be 25-30 years old, so the fairer sex played the main role in preserving the family. They raised children, organized the life and life of the entire tribe. This could be considered matriarchy.

After men began to engage in agriculture, cattle breeding, handicrafts, the mortality rate of men significantly decreased. Then there was no longer patriarchy and matriarchy, but equality. Men did difficult work, which made them the main ones. Since that time, a transition from matriarchy to patriarchy began to be observed. Families were formed that united into tribes, and leaders were at the head.

Matriarchy - pros and cons

As times change, it is impossible to compare the matriarchy that existed in ancient times and modern trends. In addition, there are not so many historical facts to evaluate them, so we can judge what would happen if women became the main ones now. The benefits of matriarchy can probably only apply to the fair sex, who become more self-confident and their self-esteem rises. At the same time, there are many more disadvantages:

  • the family hierarchy is broken;
  • the institution of the family is being destroyed, which negatively affects society as a whole;
  • the emergence of demographic problems;
  • the identity of man and woman is lost;
  • concepts are being changed.

Matriarchy in the modern world

There are still places in the world where women play a dominant role, and everyone is fine with that.


Matriarchy in the family

In the modern world, most families choose equality, but there are those who prefer inversion, that is, role reversal. To understand what matriarchy means in a family, one should consider the most common scheme when a woman successfully builds a career, and a man yields to her, giving up the reins of power. There are even examples when the representatives of the stronger sex are satisfied with the role of a housewife, and they are engaged in raising children.

If both parties agree with this way of life, then the relationship will be strong, and the family will be happy. Such a scenario is rare, but a kind of light version is common, when women nevertheless take on many male responsibilities. Possible problems of matriarchy in the family:

  1. The man feels powerless, which leads to him either leaving the relationship or taking on the infantile position of a boy.
  2. Strong women find it difficult to get along with weaklings, so they will strive to find a stronger partner. The role of the main one can get bored at any moment, so quarrels are inevitable.

Films about matriarchy

Although cinema is a great way to fantasize about matriarchy, there are actually very few films on this topic.

Books about matriarchy

If you want to fantasize about the primacy of the fair sex, then you can turn to literature. Popular books about matriarchy:

  1. « Rebel» T.P. Shulgin. Women changed the world, becoming the main ones, and men are only a means for them to reproduce and serve. At the same time, the ladies do not feel happy.
  2. « 1000 and one day» A. Gromov. The story of the matriarchy of the future - in the XXIII century. Men are enslaved, but a threat from outer space arises that only the stronger sex can handle.
  3. « Ruins of Isis» M.Z. Bradley. A novel about a planet ruled by women who are convinced of the humanity and justice of matriarchy.

That the current form of society in the main part of Russia, as well as Western civilization, is matriarchy. One can argue about this, but no matter what modern men say, this is so.

At the same time, for the sake of calming the male conscience, it should be noted that the formation of such a way of society is not due at all to the level of truly masculine qualities of modern representatives of the stronger sex, but to somewhat different reasons.

To understand the essence of the problem, it is necessary to turn to the past, to those times when a person lived as a tribe. The functional roles in the tribe had a clear distribution by gender, which is greatly erased at the current stage of the existence of human civilization: a man is a hunter and breadwinner, a woman is a keeper of the hearth.

At first glance, this distribution resembles the current situation, but there are differences, and very significant ones. The leader of the tribe was the strongest male who could have sex and have offspring with any woman.

If we identify a more key role of men in the tribe, then they represented for the woman a buffer between the external environment and the system organized within the tribe. A man is a protector from predators, as well as from negatively minded representatives of other tribes.

Without a man, a woman simply could not survive, he is the stronghold and cornerstone of the system that existed in those days. The need for a man was due not so much to the manifestation of feelings or the need to procreate, but to the desire for survival.

Today, the indicated main reason for the key role of men in society does not have an obvious manifestation. At the head of modern society is a "virtual" leader, called the State, which ensures the relative safety of citizens, including women, in the territory of sovereignty, as well as beyond its borders.

A woman no longer needs a man to survive, moreover, women themselves go to work and earn money for their existence. An obvious plus for a woman is state support for motherhood, which manifests itself in the form of the need to pay alimony to children by their fathers. Today, a woman needs a man to spend her leisure time, to realize her maternal instinct, as well as to fit pleasant nishtyakov. Losing a man means losing one of the many options, and in the absence of them, a woman is quite capable of living without anyone's patronage.

From childhood, modern mothers bring up boys in the spirit of pleasing women: “You are a man, you must”, “Girls cannot be offended”, “I would not do that”; a sort of club for the destruction of male significance. Despite this, women constantly suffer from a lack of “real” men, for which they fought, and ran into that.

and L. G. Morgan. In Soviet historical science, archeology, ethnography and anthropology, the existence of matriarchy has not been questioned for a long time, but ethnology, archeology and anthropology have not provided convincing evidence of the existence of women's power over men.

In Western anthropology already in the 1950s. there was a reasoned criticism of matriarchy in the view of Bachofen-Morgan, and by the 1970s, most anthropologists came to the conclusion that matriarchy is a myth created by Bachofen based on the interpretation of Greek mythology.

All Western experts agree that there are societies in which women have achieved enormous social recognition and power, but no one has ever described a society where women would be publicly recognized with power and authority that surpasses the power and authority of men.

According to the works of many experts, there has not been a single matriarchal society reliably known from any reliable sources in history. .

However, even opponents of the theory of the existence of matriarchy as a stage in the development of society admit that in reality, some increase in women's status was still often observed at the initial stage of the development of the culture of agriculture, however, they believe that it is wrong to identify such an increase with the "formation of matriarchy" . According to some researchers, hoe, "horticultural" farming originated from gathering - a typically female occupation, in contrast to male hunting. With the increase in the role of agriculture in the economic life of people, the role of women in society also increased. Subsequently, with the transition from hoe farming to arable farming and cattle breeding, the social role of women fell. However, these statements are in conflict with recent archaeological finds in the south of Russia, Ukraine and southern Siberia, which confirm the high role of women in the social life of the ancient pastoral tribes.

According to some evolutionists, matriarchy was closely associated with the cult of fertility - ancient people associated "mother earth, nurturing the seed thrown into her" with a woman who becomes pregnant after intercourse. At the heart of the religious ideas of that time was the belief in the "mother goddess - the progenitor of the family."

Matriarchal societies

Modern science knows societies containing many signs of a matriarchal order.

Societies can be recognized as matriarchal in some ways, such as: matrilineality, matrilocality and avunculism (such a family hierarchy arrangement in which the maternal uncle assumes the role of head of the family); sometimes group marriage, guest marriage, and even polyandry are seen as signs of matrilineal societies. An indisputable sign of matriarchy is also mother right(the undeniable right of the mother to children, which comes into force after the breakdown of marriage - the children remain in the mother's family), and distribution and inheritance of property, in which the property of the family is managed by women, and it is transferred only through the female line. A man with whom a woman is in a long-term relationship does not have the right to dispose of the property of the woman and her family.

The basis of a typical matriarchal society was usually a matrilocal community sometimes numbering approximately 200-300 close relatives in the female line. It is led by an older woman, sometimes her brother. Within the family-clan group, there are many small families, consisting of a mother-woman and her children and grandchildren. From these families, the maternal clan was formed, which collectively owns the communal land. Other property is the property of women, and is transferred from mother to daughters. Usually in their family it was forbidden to marry, in order to avoid incest. And therefore, usually such a maternal clan was in close ties with another clan, with whom they exchanged grooms and brides (the so-called dual exogamy). Sometimes dual exogamy develops into a phraterial order (a tribal community of several tribes).

There is another version of the matriarchal order: the tribe is divided into two halves, men live in one and women live in the other, each half exists autonomously and relatively far from each other and has its own leader. Kinship is also conducted through the female line. The intersection of both halves of the tribe occurs only during the period of marriage ceremonies for the conception of children. Both halves of the tribe do not influence other spheres of each other's life.

In matriarchal societies, where the religious picture of the world is formed by paganism, the presence of a developed pantheon of female deities is noted, as well as the presence of a supreme female deity at the head of the pantheon of gods, personifying the great Mother Goddess. An example is one of the oldest branches of Hinduism, Shaktism, or the cult of the goddess Astarte in ancient Mesopotamia. As matriarchy is replaced by patriarchy, the female pantheon of gods is replaced by the male pantheon. Goddesses lose their cult and religious significance, they become secondary characters in religious mythology. And the throne of the supreme deity instead of the Goddess-mother is occupied by God-father. Matriarchal societies met everywhere at different times in different parts of the world, among various peoples inhabiting Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America

At present, matriarchal societies with the relative dominance of women in some areas of public life have survived only in some areas of Tibet, South and Southeast Asia (for example, the Ranathari people living in India and Nepal) and Africa, where, along with a relatively high female status polyandry is also typical, as well as the matriarchal way of life has been preserved among some peoples of Micronesia.

Some features of matriarchy have been preserved in the customs of the North African Tuareg people, where matrilineality and often matrilocality are still present, and there is also a high role of women in the social life of the tribe. The Tuareg now also has a distinction between male and female writing. If men use the Arabic script, then the Tifinagh script is predominantly common among women. The consonant letter Tifinagh is of very ancient origin and dates back to the pre-Islamic period. The Tuareg also has the concept of "Asri" - this is the absolute freedom of morals for all unmarried Tuareg women, regardless of whether they are girls, divorced or widows. If a woman is not dependent on a man, she can dispose of her body at her own discretion, and no one has the right to restrict her freedom. The more lovers she has, the higher her reputation. A girl cannot be given in marriage against her will. Moreover, the Tuaregs have a peculiar code of gallantry, which obliges the husband not to force his wife by force. If she refuses to reciprocate, he sends her to her parents.

However, matriarchy as a form of social and family structure and feminism as a socio-political trend for women's rights are completely different phenomena of life and are in no way connected with each other. Feminism is a product of a patriarchal society in which a woman was deprived of many of the opportunities available to a man, such as freedom of movement (in classical patriarchal societies, a woman cannot leave her place of residence without the permission of the man who owns her - father, husband or brother. freedom of marital choice (the power of the main man in the family - the father allowed to dictate the choice of a spouse) freedom of speech, the opportunity to receive an education, hold a leadership position or simply work anywhere other than at home, freedom to dispose of one's property. As a result of this state of affairs, and obvious legal distortions towards men, preferences and discrimination gender, and a socio-political movement known as “feminism” appeared, the ultimate goal of which was the erasure of any legal and social differences between the sexes for the sake of universal justice, as well as the separation of women from “family slavery”.

Matriarchy in culture and art

The theme of a society built on a matricentric principle has long occupied the minds of writers, artists and poets. In antiquity, the image of the Amazon was reflected in various works of literature and fine arts.

With the advent of the era of feminism, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe "ideal matricentered society" - the golden age of mankind - became of increasing interest. New religious and cult practices appeared, which are an echo of the ancient matriarchal religions. One of these directions is Wicca, whose followers deny "male" monotheism with the image of God the Father and recognize "bisexual" monotheism. In which the supreme deity is a married couple or a combination of the Mother Goddess and her spouse.

Among fans of the Fantasy genre, the race of dark elves is well known - Drow, whose society, according to the generally accepted concept, is matriarchal.

The idea of ​​​​a matriarchal society in its most extreme manifestation is ridiculed by the Polish film Sex Mission, in which the characters enter the future, where complete matriarchy reigned due to the absence of men. Similarly, the film Litiya (Beyond the Possible) considers a variant of a society without men, also formed as a result of a destructive war.

see also

Notes

  1. "matriarchy" Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.
  2. Steve Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, (William Morrow & Company, 1973).
  3. 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.
  4. Robert Brown, Human Universals, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 1991.

At the request of Arzamas, Andrey Tutorsky, lecturer in the history of primitive society at the Department of Ethnology of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, explains why the idea that women were more important than men in the past has no scientific basis and what really stands behind it.

Amazon battle. Painting by Anselm Feuerbach. 1873 Nurnberger Opernhaus, Foyer

1. Matriarchy existed because some peoples have myths about how women once ruled over men

According to the so-called matriarchal myths that are widespread in Melanesia, long ago women ruled over men. The women had beards, and the men had female breasts. The men fed and raised the children, while the women went hunting and ran the society. Once the men agreed, attacked the women, took away their beards and gave them their breasts. Since then, power belongs to men.

In this story, some researchers saw evidence of the original matriarchy. This plot is really divided into two parts: before the transfer of the beard and after. But this should be perceived not as a division into two historical periods, but as two essential states: right and wrong. Many peoples have stories that are similar in structure to Kipling's fairy tale “Why does the baby elephant have a long nose?”. A baby elephant without a trunk and a baby elephant with a trunk are not two periods in the life of a particular elephant or in the evolution of an elephant as a species. This is the explanation why things are the way they are now. This is how one should look at the so-called matriarchal myths: this is the explanation why men occupy a higher position in society. They have nothing to do with historical realities.

2. Matriarchy existed because some peoples have an institution of polyandry (many-courage)

By analogy with polygamy, in which the number of wives corresponds to the strength and status of the man, many assume that in a polyandrous marriage, the status of a woman rises from the number of husbands. This logic of reasoning is wrong. Firstly, polyandrous marriages are very uncommon: George Peter Murdoch, who conducted statistical studies of tribes with polyandrous marriage, counted only four of them out of three thousand peoples of the earth. Secondly, polyandrous marriage is a form of survival in difficult cultural and environmental conditions. An example is the Toda people of Central India, who are pastoralists in extremely inconvenient areas. The survival of people depends on the well-being of livestock, which are driven to distant high mountain pastures and stay there throughout the summer. Under these conditions, every family needs a lot of male hands and few female ones. Environmental difficulties are exacerbated by a cultural factor: cattle is the sacred property of the clan, so the wife (as a representative of another clan) has no right to touch it. Moreover, she does not even have the right to cross the road that the cows have crossed - her husband must bear it. Thus, the position of a woman in this society, despite the large number of husbands, is not the highest.

3. Matriarchy existed because some peoples remained matrilineal

The practice of transferring titles and material wealth through the female line is widespread among many peoples. It is called matrilineality (from Latin mater - "mother" and linea - "line"). Matrilineality is common in many early agricultural societies or societies transitioning to farming. The best-known examples of matrilineal societies in science are the Iroquois, the Trobriands, and the Minangkabau.

Scientists, however, note that matrilineality, although it is associated with the growth of the authority of women, does not lead to the establishment of their power. Both among the Iroquois, and among the Trobriands, and among the Minangkabau, the leaders are men. Moreover, for example, among the Trobriands, inheritance is transmitted, albeit through the female line, but from man to man, for example, from a mother's brother to her son. The Soviet scientist Mark Kos-ven even suggested that the avunculate - a special relationship between the mother's brother and nephew - be an obligatory period in the development of all societies on earth, a kind of transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.

4. Matriarchy existed because some peoples have traditions of nyumba-ntobu (weddings of women with women)

The rite of Nyumba-ntobu (wedding of women) is one of those ceremonies that at first glance confirm the possibility of matriarchy. This rite is common among a number of peoples of Tanzania and consists in the fact that an elderly woman who has no children, but has her own household, can marry a young woman. The young woman is given complete freedom in her relationship with men, and the elderly woman receives an heir who will become the owner of the household. It turns out that a woman acts as a man, and this significantly increases her social status.

This is not entirely true. Firstly, an elderly woman who marries as a "man" does it by force - she is pushed to this only by the impossibility of having children (for objective reasons or by coincidence). Secondly, an elderly woman, entering into marriage, acquires a large number of responsibilities: she is forced to support her young wife and her children, protect her from jealous young people, and so on. Thirdly, the men of the village always look at the Nyumba-ntobu very wary. The only reason forcing them to come to terms with such a marriage is the necessity they understand to preserve the economy. Thus, entering into marriage as a "man" does not give a woman a male social position, that is, the matriarchal nature of this custom is an illusion.


Amazon falling from a horse. Engraving by Ludovico Prosseda, based on a bas-relief by John Gibson. Around 1823 The Trustees of the British Museum

5 Scholars Started Talking About Matriarchy Because They Had Ethnographic Evidence That Proved It Existed

For the first time matriarchy in 1861 was described by the researcher of ancient drama Johann Jacob Bachofen in the book “Mother's Right. An inquiry into the religious and legal nature of gynecocracy in the ancient world". Based on the materials of early ancient literature, Bachofen argued that the influence of women in society from antiquity to contemporary Europe of the 19th century was constantly falling. Developing this idea, he came to the idea that in the "primal antiquity" (primitiveness) the influence of a woman was maximum. The scientist proved this thesis exclusively speculatively, based not on empirical data, but on his own logical construction: 1) in conditions of unregulated sexual relations, children knew only mothers, it was impossible to determine fathers; 2) therefore, long-term intergenerational ties could exist only among mothers and daughters; 3) therefore, wealth and titles had to be transferred through the female line; 4) who transfers wealth - he has power. Thus, in primitive antiquity, power could only be in the hands of women.

These ideas fell on fertile ground. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, ideas about the need to equalize the social position of men and women were widely spread among progressive thinkers: to give women voting rights, to allow them to decide their own destiny. The concept of the existence in ancient times of matriarchy (originally called gynecocracy) was perceived as a historical justification for these ideas: if in primitive times the status of women was high, then this is the natural state of affairs, and it is necessary to return to it.

Since at the turn of the century many thinkers advocated a large-scale transformation of society and supported various ideas related to this - from Marxism to feminism, from scientific atheism to anarchism - the idea of ​​matriarchy easily moved from the pages of one book to the pages of another: from "Mother's Right" Bachofen to Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society, from there to Engels' Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and then to textbooks on the history of primitive society. It is no coincidence that it was Soviet scientists who were the last to abandon the concept of matriarchy in world science: if the scientific mainstream stopped dealing with the problem of matriarchy around the 1920s, when serious field studies began, they did not give any signs of its existence in the present , nor in the past of different peoples of the world, then in the Soviet Union this idea was abandoned only in the 1980s.