Woman's Evolution From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family
In addition to age, gender is one of the universal dimensions on which status differences are based. Different sex, which is a biological concept, gender is a social construct specifying the socially and culturally prescribed roles that men and women are to follow. Women have always had lower condition than men, only the extent of the gap betwixt the sexes varies across cultures and time.
Images of women, mostly figurines of the aforementioned type equally the "Venus" of Willendorf*, Lespugue** and Laussel*** (former statuettes representing obese women, women whose wombs and hips are extremely exaggerated) all dating to the Paleolithic period, far outnumber images of men. This has lead to speculation almost the place of women in Stone Age society. Some have argued that these female figures announce the existence during this period of a prominent female deity identified usually every bit the Earth Female parent or the Mother Goddess. On the basis of this assumption, it has been suggested that, unlike today, women played a considerably more important, if non ascendant, function in Paleolithic gild; that possibly a matriarchy existed and women ruled. That ways men haven't always been the leaders; it'due south non an inborn quality (as a lot of them suggest)!
Johann Bachofen was a 19th Century Swiss archeologist and classicist who was among the first to recognize the presence of an early matriarchal stage in proto-European cultural evolution. Bachofen used Greek myth to support his arguments. He felt that in that location were three cultural stages that the early European civilization went through. In his view the first stage was a barbarian or hetairistic stage (from the Greek word hetero meaning both) where both or actually neither sex was actually in control for there was no control. The strong took reward of the weak, and in that location was wide-spread "wanton" sex, uncontrolled by values or morals. Bachofen thought that Aphrodite, Goddess of Dearest, was the master deity of this time.
The second stage was the matriarchal stage, where women banded together for their own defence force. Strong Greek hunter/warrior goddesses such as Artemis and Athena were idea by Bachofen to have come from ancient fragments of retentivity stemming from this time, too every bit the mythic Amazons and Furies. This middle phase saw the development of agronomics, and the rise of early culture in Bachofen Ð"s view. The third or last stage saw the domination of women by men. Myths depicting the rise of ability of Zeus over the Titans, his many sexual conquests, the rape of Persephone past Hades, the slaying of the Medusa by Perseus, and the slaying of the Sphinx by Oedipus were thought to be a mythic account of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.
In the mid-20th Century the British novelist, poet, and classicist Robert Graves lent much more acceptance to this theory of a primeval matriarchy in the Ancient Globe. Graves felt that at that place was much evidence to bear witness that the primeval cultures universally worshipped an Earth Mother Goddess. Graves also based much of his beliefs on the analysis of ancient myths. He also felt that Goddess worship coincided with the time when calendars were primarily adamant by the Moon, and noted the correspondence of the lunar and menstrual cycles, and that the World Mother was associated with the Moon Goddess. He also felt that the changeover to the patriarchy coincided largely with the changeover to the solar calendar and the worship of a solar deity.
Extensive archaeological evidence was unearthed in the 1950's sixty's and seventy'due south from the Near East and Europe to support his claim of a universal Earth Mother. This work has shown that there was a shut correspondence of Earth Goddess worship, lunar symbology and calendars and the tillage of plants by sedentary tribes. Right from its ancestry, the theory of matriarchy, was very much argued and contradicted.
It seems men had a very difficult time accepting this reality. Only why is that, since, even today, in the less adult "archaic" societies, matriarchy however dominates. Practiced examples of such societies are the Trobriands, the Kirghis, the Fijian, the Samoans, the Kuril, the Bhotiya and Sikkim (Tibet), and the Khorassan. In all these cultures the wife is ascendant and the rules of "proper comport" are quite shocking to the western culture. Almost all these societies practice what Briffault calls "underground marriage"; the position of the husband is one of a stranger, guest, or surreptitious visitor within the group to which his wife belongs. Ane of the Japanese words for matrimony is "home-iri", which may be interpreted as "to slip by night into the house", and the expression accurately describes the style of connubial intercourse among a large proportion of primitive peoples. The mother-in-law is treated with much circumspection and in some cases with even fear.
The argument of the "cardinal matriarchy" was further articulated by, among others, Friedrich Engels in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Holding and the State published in 1884. Engels argued that the transition from primate societies to the earliest human social structure was accomplished "by granting to solidarity a supreme importance which transcended even sexual competitiveness and jealousy". According to Engels, solidarity was achieved through "group marriage" where whole groups of kin-related women were collectively "married" to whole groups of men. Under these circumstances, just the mother of a kid was known, then kinship tended to be traced through the female line, creating what Engels called a "matrilineal clan."
Ancient Egypt, a very patriarchal club today, is an example of a "matrilineal clan". Women in Egypt seem to accept enjoyed the aforementioned legal and economic rights as men, a situation which the Greeks, writing about the Egyptians, found very strange. Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, and who had visited Egypt, lists among their reverse customs that "women buy and sell, the men abide at dwelling and weave". Diodorus of Sicily, who had visited Egypt some fourth dimension between 60 and 56 BC, writes that the Egyptians had a law "permitting men to marry their sisters" and adds that "it was ordained that the queen should accept greater power and laurels than the rex and that among private persons the wife should relish potency over her married man".
Such notions take contributed to the so-called "heiress" theory which argues that the right to the throne in Ancient Arab republic of egypt was transmitted through the female line. A man, no matter what his status, the eldest son of the previous pharaoh or a commoner, became a pharaoh through his human relationship to the queen. The Ð"pharaohship' was legitimized through marriage to the "heiress" who was often the pharaoh's sister or his half-sister. It has been argued, therefore, that Ancient Egypt was a matrilineal gild where power resided in the female line.
At that place is testify to prove that the female person line of inheritance was still intact in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BCE) and, though not equally stiff, matrilineal descent in Ancient Egypt persisted fifty-fifty through the Ptolomaic catamenia (323-30 BCE), ending finally with the decease of Queen Cleopatra 7.
Another example of matrilineal societies are the Aegean Bronze Age cultures. Although suppressed by patriarchal societies much sooner than in Egypt, the power of the Greek matriarchal culture surfaces fifty-fifty today through such stories every bit the Iliad and the Odyssey. This adult female dominated social club switched to a male person dominated one as soon equally invaders from Western Europe began to settle in the Balkans. Very soon the position of the Greek women dropped so low, that the simply difference between them and slaves was past name. The female in ancient Greek history was excluded not but from social and political life but as well from the world of reason and love (communication and expression with the male race). She had no formal educational activity (female children were largely taught to read and write informally, in their homes and usually by their mothers or by slaves who acted every bit tutors) and, therefore, was considered inadequate for the training of new generations; this fell into the hands of the men. Greek women were married every bit young as 14 or 15 to a man as arranged by her family.
He may be every bit old as 30 and could very well be dead by age 45. A widow was expected to remarry, particularly if she was still of childbearing age. The Greeks likewise had an interesting ritual associated with matrimony: on the night in which the marriage was consummated, the bride was dressed in a man's cloak and sandals and laid in an unlit room to wait for her new husband. This ritual is considered a transition menstruum for a man from a homosexual earth of the mess (a male aloof clan) to heterosexuality.
For the respectable women, the domicile was the center of private life and the focus of daily action. To run the household was her foremost responsibleness, second only to her duty to carry children. Because of the overwhelming want for sons and the need for an heir, couples rarely kept more than i girl. The practice of exposing unwanted children was common to both cultures. The discarded babies were often picked up and raised as slaves or prostitutes. Afterwards, laws were passed which rewarded women with three or more than children in hopes of discouraging the exposure of babies.
Upper class Athenian wives lived in near seclusion in the "women's quarters" of their husbands' homes. They had next to no contact with the outside earth. Their responsibilities were those of motherhood, spinning, weaving, and sewing for the making of the family'due south wearable, the gathering of vegetables, the harvesting of fruit, preparing and serving food, the supervision of the slaves and bathing and tending to guests. Sexual and emotional intimacy betwixt husband and married woman was minimal. Sex in Greek civilisation was not an activity for women to bask, but rather only a means to create citizens. Withal, there is prove of nascency control: women mostly used crude pessaries or douches made up of honey and vinegar.
Center and lower class Athenian women led a less confined life. Their husbands had higher expectations of productivity for them because of the disability to afford idleness. This sector of women had a wider circle of friends and acquaintances.
Spartan women enjoyed a less restricted life than that of their Athenian sisters. Considering their chief contribution to the state was producing future warriors, the Spartan women were better fed, married later, exercised and enjoyed a less restricted sex life.
The Roman women shared a very similar life to that of their Greek counterparts. A adult female's legal condition was virtually entirely dependent upon the men in her life. She was substantially passed from father to husband, surrendering her dowry and whatsoever property she was to inherit to her hubby. Equally she was considered property, information technology was rare she possessed property of her own or engaged in business, commerce or anything simply a limited scope of frowned-upon professions. Until the outset century A.D. constabulary did not require consent of the female for marriage. Emperor Augustus that issued a law which penalized unmarried and childless women betwixt the ages of 20 and 50, including whatever divorcees and widows who didn't marry within xviii months of her divorce or two years after her hubby's decease.
A man who divorced his wife for reasons other than infidelity, poisoning a child or tampering with the household keys was required to give his wife half of his property. Wives were non allowed to bring charges of adultery confronting their married man, or any other human being. If she lent her business firm out to someone for the use of adultery, she was guilty for infidelity besides. In one case a woman was named an adulterer, she could not marry again. Adultery was considered a legal motive for murder. The only person who could charge a man with infidelity was another man.
Slaves could never lawfully marry. They instead underwent quasi-marriages known as countubernium, which had no condition nether the law.
Unmarried upper-class women, including widows, were forbidden to have sexual relations, just upper grade men were entitled to take sex with prostitutes and other lower form women.
While Roman women's lives focused mainly on domestic duties, they were not cut off from the events of the globe outside their homes. Different the women of classical Hellenic republic, Roman women oft attended social events and dined with the men in the family unit, thus hearing and participating in daily discussions of the problems of both family and customs. Roman women's primary importance was also bearing children. In the Roman Empire, a committed wife was expected to lie still during sexual intercourse considering it was believed that this ensured conception.
We come to wonder what exactly happened that brought the earlier strong and contained women to such submissiveness. Merlin Stone concluded, in his volume "When God was a woman", that the end of the matriarchy was ultimately a result of ownership, paternity, and inheritance issues: "Upon reading the Levite laws it became apparent that the sexual autonomy of women in the religion of the Goddess posed a continual threat. It undermined the far reaching goals of the men, perhaps led or influenced past Indo-European peoples, who viewed women every bit belongings and aimed at a club in which male kinship was the dominion, as it had long been in Indo-European nations. This in turn required that each adult female be retained equally the possession of one man, leaving no incertitude as to the identity of the male parent of the children she might comport, peculiarly her sons. Only male kinship lines remained impossible as long equally women were allowed to function as sexually contained people, continuing to bear children whose paternity was non known or considered to be of any importance."
Supporting the same idea, Evelyn Reed observes in her volume "Woman'due south development from matriarchal clan to patriarchal family", that: "the virtually important feature of marriage from its very inception has gone largely unobserved: it was a new kind of union equanimous of husband and wife, distinctly different form the erstwhile clan union of sisters and brothers. The two were in fundamental antagonism to each other. Thus, although marriage was introduced by the mothers inside the framework of the maternal association construction, in the stop marriage would undermine the matriarchy."
Therefore womankind gave up its most powerful weapon in maintaining its authorisation in a world of "fatherless" children and brought most itself the torments of patriarchy, by instutionalizing wedlock.
Unfortunately, unlike the matriarchy, patriarchy has lasted to our present day. Of class there has been major progress since the days of the Roman Empire, now information technology is illegal to consider women lower and so men in any sense (at least in some countries), yet well-nigh of the states still meet the earth through the patriarchal mantle that covers our eyes.
Source: https://artscolumbia.org/women-ancient-times-matriarchy-patriarchy-42537/
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