Patriarchal and Matriarchal societies

[Anthony Good]

on 18/12/00 01:00, "L. Suresh Kumar-LSK" <l_s_k at NETZERO.NET>
wrote, in part:

> Last night, (Friday-Dec-15-2000), I was watching a program on
> A&E channel, which was titled "Paradise Lost". It talked about
> Egyptian and Mesapatomian civilizations. The program dealt with
> both 'patriarchal and matriarchal societies' in these
> civilizations....
>
> Now, to the best of my knowledge, I did not hear any mention
> about how the societies evolved into P/M in the present day
> Indian sub-continental region in the past. [ I started
> watching it only from the middle of it ].
>
> Questions - "What was the nature of the society in the
> present day Indian sub-continental region in the past ?
> Was it a patriarchal or matriarchal society ? How was this
> presented in our ancient literature ? What kind of evidence
> do we have from archeological studies ? Were all societies
> P or M ? When did one change from P to M and viceversa ?"

There is, to the best of my knowledge, no evidence that
there have *ever* been matriarchal societies as such arguments
normally portray them.  The mistake often rests on either (a)
a confusion between matriarchy and matrilineal descent; and/or
(b) unjustified inferential reasoning based on the existence of goddess
worship.  Both features are reasonably common among contemporary
societies and those in the historically documented past.  However,
NONE of the societies concerned can reasonably be characterised
as 'matriarchal'.

A more radical critique would be to attack the terminology itself,
i.e., to point out the inadequacy of characterising whole
civilisations, in their full complexity, in terms of such simplistic
dichotomous labels.  In those terms, it is not meaningful to
describe societies as patriarchal either.

Tony Good

--
Dr Anthony Good
Department of Social Anthropology,
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh EH8 9LL

0131-650-3941 (work)
0131-650-3945 (fax: work)

A.Good at ed.ac.uk (work)
agood at bluenote.demon.co.uk (home/travel)