How advanced would a matriarchy be?

Petula, I am sorry. I totally missed your reply.

I don't know about the deep historical past, but my aunt-in-law received her inheritance, a house and parcel of land, upon her marriage in 1972-ish. That land is still in her name and her name alone. The land title of that property was previously in the sole name of her married grandmother (who had recently died), who had inherited it from her married mother, so we are looking at female title going back to the late 19th century at least.

Interestingly, this is now causing some issues as my aunt-in-law wants to leave the land to her grandsons, and her daughter is extremely unhappy about it (read: flaming rows over the matter), though the daughter also received a property upon her marriage in the late 80s and also has now holds legal title on two more of her parents' properties.

I should probably point out here that the multiple property-owning thing isn't an issue of wealth in the way it would be in Britain. Indeed, up until the noughties, a lot of this land and property was practically worthless. The accumulation comes, instead, from this inheritance system where land and property never passed out of the family (and is not taxed upon death) and parents also "owe" a daughter an "inherited" house upon marriage, and sometimes find they need to purchase one because there isn't a family house spare, or the daughter simply will not live in the one that is spare (because it is, say, half way up a mountain with only feral goats as neighbours).

Any way, my own mother-in-law also received the title to a property upon marriage, previously in the name of her married mother (I don't know where she got it from). She sold this property and bought another, which is also in her name alone -- though she explains this by saying it was not advantageous at the time to allow people to think there was a British citizen (my father-in-law) involved in the transaction. According to her will, this property will be divided between my DH and my sil upon her death.

Depending how far back we go we would have to become highly aggressive to survive. The migration from being herbivores to omnivores requires the use of tools and aggression. For a matriarchy to take control it would have to happen then as that was the start of tribalism and families. Allowing for size we would need to be better armed or religion as previously mentioned. Religion though is about the survival of the tribe so it would have to be the better tool.

The only other key point would be the need to stay in the same place when we first started agriculture and domestication of animals. After that society has become too structured to keep the power in a limited number of hands based on wealth and/or power especially military. Any mother would fight to her last breath for her kids and this would be used to justify wars over food and land. Certainly the few women who have led in the past were willing to fight. Is it a necessity for survival? I believe so as things like water sources and fertile land have been fought over and I cannot see one giant tribe all following exactly the same religion.

What presumptions can we actually make?

humans want to procreate. Is that a non-negotiable in any of our imagined worlds? So men and women would have to have contact at some point. would that contact only be for procreation? Would men live separately from women and children? Would men support their children once born?

Men are on the whole physically stronger than women. do we think that patriarchal society stems from the fact that women know they are the mother of their child but men don't know for sure but they have a need to know that it is their own genes they are investing energy in so need to control women to prevent being cuckolded?

How would we get to this matriarchal society if we presume the above?

Would it need to be that men took on the childrearing role, staying close to home, pounding the cassava while women go out to hunt?

Argh. I can't imagine how this world would emerge.

I think the quote about 'if the world were run by women we'd still be living in grass huts' was Camille Paglia, who calls herself a feminist but IMO disqualifies herself from any meaningful feminism by her transparent contempt for other women.

Than*

Quite frankly we have no idea what such a society would look like, history would be so altered we would could technically be less advanced then we are now or even more advanced.

You can never have an accurate answer to questions like this, its a bit like asking what would happen if I time travelled and stepped on a bug: answer = who knows.

I think all sorts of medical things would have been understood & cures found at a much earlier stage. Women in my experience tend to be much more matter of fact about anatomy and bodily functions so I think people would have been allowed to carry out autopsies and understand problems with childbirth, or what tumours were etc much earlier on. IIRC it was a religious rule that prevention post-mortems?

We would certainly have foolproof and reliable, side effect free contraception by now, and ways to avoid excess pain in childbirth.

Society wise, I can imagine that women would each have their own home, and it would be up to them when to invite a man into it, whether for the night, or for a month, or indefinitely.

I think probably a lot of women would share their homes with other women, sisters for example might well live together, especially when they have younger children, to share childcare and resources, and older relatives might well live in too. There would need to be larger houses to accommodate these, or perhaps neighbouring houses with covered walkways between them and shared gardens.

Interesting idea.

We're all talking about male strength being superior to female strength, but that could easily be undermined if girl babies and children were prioritised nutritionally - given first access to all the protein rich foods so they grow stronger and taller, say - and were encouraged to build up strength as children/adolescents. If girls were treated like this, and boys were mainly given vegetable based foods and little protein, and made to stay indoors and sew/read, it might be that the strength difference could be almost discounted? And let's remember this is what an awful lot of places including the UK have done or currently do (in reverse) with their children.

And there was much rejoicing.

They have a crib sheet, don't they?

Annnnd... He's gone!

The obsession with circumcision and fake facts about Sweden tells me that this is a previously banned poster.

Everything to do with the sex industry would be illegal.
This would be ideal though.

That's interesting, works!

it's a ched evans supporter, can safely be ignored

that's interesting worksallhours

out of curiosity, who would "own" the bride's share upon marriage. would it continue to be in her name and control, or transfer to the husband, or in both their names?

"if property were inherited down the maternal line, would marriage have even developed as there would be no requirement to be "certain" of paternity?"

Abland ...

Interestingly, in my DH's culture, traditionally, daughters inherited land and houses, and sons inherited family businesses. Often a large portion of the settlement would be made upon marriage, so a bride's parents would be expected to donate the house and land she would inherit as part of her dowry and the groom would be expected to bring a profitable share of a business to the marriage.

Despite matrilineal property inheritance, my DH's culture was, and still is, incredibly patriarchal -- though it has got a lot better in the last fifteen years. It was still legal to beat your wife up to the late 70s, an unmarried woman still cannot really live alone without a lot of gossip, and divorce has only just become acceptable in the last ten years or so.

Men being physically larger can't be the only or main reason for their historical dominance over women. African slaves brought to Europe and the Americas were often larger and stronger than their masters (well, owners. I'm sureties men wumples to oversee their work were probably built like nightclub bouncers). Physical size can mean little when social structures all reinforce a power imbalance. Property ownership, freedom of movement, freedom of choice in matters of your own body are ways in which oppression of black slaves was perpetuated (and also women). Being physically larger is useless we the state doesn't recognise you as a legal person who can own things.

Groups get into positions of power over others because it makes their lives better. I don't see how it would have made women's lives better to have more power than men, so I don't see how it would make any sense for us to have ever had a matriarchal past.

The nearest I can see is the suggestion that men were very, very rare, in which case women would possibly have a desire to control them to ensure survival of the group. The reverse is not true for patriarchy. Women are not very, very rare.

This book written in the 1970s is a really good (I think) discussion of the ideas. It is also very very funny (gay menwim are expected to wear big plastic breasts for example)

I think that as men are physically larger and stronger than women [in general] there would have to be another form of suppression for women to become the ruling class.

I am imagining some form of religion, probably female entity focused, so goddess rather than god.

Men in this society would be encouraged to conform and submit to the female hierarchy as they had been taught from birth that women are spiritually superior to men and must be obeyed unquestionably... otherwise the moral structure of society will break down and the goddess entity will be displeased and deliver some form of terrible retribution.

So not that dissimilar from traditional god based religion, just with a gender role switch?

Oooh I'd read it!

Petula, tell us and we'll write it for you communally!

seven i have the entire plot of a novel in my head that's based on a similar premise!

i'm not a very good writer though, so i doubt it will ever be written down