Why has it always been a patriarchy?

[4plusthehound]

DD came home from school the other day and asked this question.

Am stumped.

Can anyone help me? 😂

Men have always been physically stronger so have done hunting, fighting etc. Women have been at home with the children - stereotypically more caring and less aggressive. Society was put in place based on those principles.

i don’t know what the learned explanation is but my assumption is it comes from physical ability to fight to defend and conquer which is then expanded by delegation of power in exchange for vassals providing fighting strength. So one man in a pyramid of delegated power, at the bottom is men who are given power by the state and the church over their wives and children.

Men are stronger. Men want, men take. Women can't fight back. Women are a resource (breeding) and men use violence and strength to control that resource the same as any other.

Watch the behaviour of gorillas or chimpanzees. We are still evolving.

Men are physically stronger than women.

Really? Because men have a physical advantage over women, can kill or seriously injure a woman with their bare hands. And want to guard and control women's reproductive capabilities in order to ensure the parentage of their children. Women are also disadvantaged by pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting meaning they are less able to defend themselves or escape controlling situations. En masse, that means men can dominate women.

In essence, we were both always patriarchal but have been more and more so for about 12,000 years (introduction of farming).

Archaeological evidence suggests that pre farming societies were more egalitarian but the introduction of non nomadic farming created a series of issues for women eg saving food for the strongest member of the family (not so much with hunting gathering) and the ability to pass on land through the generations (patriarchal residence).

It’s not always been a patriarchal society worldwide though. Lots of African tribes were (and are) matriarchal. Women did hunt too.

It hasn’t.

Angela Salini recently published a book on the history of the patriarchy. Here is a link to The Guardian about it.

If the whole book is too grown-up for your DD you can find a fair bit of press about the book, excerpts and so on online, or probably podcast episodes. She’s doing quite a bit of book touring so if she’s coming near you you could see if you could catch her. (I’ve seen the talk but not read the book myself - lots of my friends rave about her writing and her previous books though.)

That was my answer too - the power to kill.

That author seems from the guardian article as if she is somewhat tilting at windmills. I don't think many people seriously argue that the patriarchy is "one monolithic, conspiratorial, overarching plan of male domination that somehow just swept the world in a very homogeneous way"

I was reading A Room of One's Own and was struck by this.

"thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other"

In a way i think it is so because they can!

i find it hard to gather what the writter thinks from this article.I would need to read the book I think.

But thank you at @erinaceus - that is very helpful.

She has a project to do so I can throw this her way.

I thought it was linked to the beginnings of agriculture and land ownership? People needed to know who their children were to pass on the land to them, and because women carry the babies that means men needed to control women to know whose baby was theirs. So marriage/monogamy/ownership of women became important.

I think I heard that’s in Ian McGilchrist’s book The Master and His Emissary but I haven’t read it and might be misremembering.

Men are stronger. That was always the reason. The strongest / best gets the best land, money, capital whatever. Ultimately taking what you want gets you it.

For fascinating (and some slightly batty) theories on this, I rec 'The Descent of Woman' by Elaine Morgan. It provides a great counterpoint to evolutionary theory usually focussed on a default male and male's presumed needs/drives.

Instead, Morgan places the mother/baby dyad at the centre of society and theorises around that. While some of the theories are very much contested (she favours the 'Aquatic Ape' theory) it's really useful to reconsider evolution through a female lens.

Not all cultures are patriarchal btw - google matriarchal cultures - https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/g28565280/matriarchal-societies-list/

Women get distracted and are busy with children and restricted by menstruation. I think women do need protection from men at this time. Some men interpret this (what is actually women's power!) as a weakness, they step in to take advantage, to gain free labour, weak men notice this and join in. The good men are lazy and sometimes selfish. The women suffer. Older women have to remind the good men to do their jobs. Well that's my theory.

Women die younger?? In Victorian times 1 in 10 pregnancies ended in the death of the woman. Maybe even more before then.
Interestingly, In the Anglo Saxon time period women had lots more rights. They could inherit, own there own property etc. and crimes against women such as rape were very severely punished. All changed when we got the monarchy in 1066.

on twitter, @ aliceevans has some great threads on the patriarchy and why it differs between different cultures - a combination of religion and agriculture and all sorts of things - I always learn something new from her threads.

https://twitter.com/_alice_evans

Soldiers, sailors, miners and those in heavy industry often faced death or injury on an almost daily basis. Women often died in pregnancy or during childbirth.
Among nomadic peoples with little property ownership, matriarchy or patriarchy may prove equally successful. However, when most land is owned and controlled by a few, those people will be able to dictate the structure of society.
I see no reason why there shouldn't be broadly similar numbers of male and female CEOs, doctors, lawyers and other trades that don't rely on absolute physical strength. But on day 420 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I have yet to see anyone demanding places for more female combatants on the front line.
Should Putin be conscripting as many women as men?

I would be concerned that the school has asked or phrased the question in that way.

As many have already said, most early civilisations are thought to have been matriarchal, or rather matrilineal.

It may have been true that in early days men did the hunting etc., but by and the the heavy work, agriculture was carried out by women.

But women had more status as the sex that gave birth.

What is said to have changed it, is the knowledge that pregnancy was dependent on men, and that whereas previously cultures had been matrilinieal, descending through women, men started to assert their right to be seen the primary line. And with that, and to ensure that children were their children, women had to be linked / tied to a man. ie it was necessary for women's to became subservient to men, rather than autonomous individuals.

There are quite a lot of historical novels about this period, et Mary Renault who wrote the period of time in Greece when the matriarchal culture was losing its status to patriarch.

But needless to say contemporary concepts may have misinterpreted historical artefacts, eg was the prevelance of statues and carvings of pregnant women, to to celebrate women being (somehow) pregnant and through that continuing life.

See I view war as a male thing.

As in - the people who start them.

But your point is interesting. Would the imbalance of physical strength be a factor? In a ground invasion I mean. How would menstruation be dealt with on the front line?

Not all societies are, some places have a matriarchal society 🙂