Matrilineality
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Matrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's mother's lineage.
A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are female. In a matrilineal descent system (uterine descent), an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as his or her mother. This is in contrast to the more currently common pattern of patrilineal descent. Patrilineal descent systems have not always been so common. Logically, it is easier to identify who the mother of a child is than the father.
The uterine ancestry of an individual is a person's pure female ancestry, i.e. a matriline leading from a female ancestor to that individual.
Mitochondrial DNA (mt-DNA) is normally inherited exclusively from one's mother - both daughters and sons inherit it all the same. As mt-DNA are sort of "cellular power plants", one's metabolism and energy conversion are much influenced by the matrilineal descent.
In some cultures, membership of a group is inherited matrilineally. For example, Jewish law holds that one is a Jew if one's mother (rather than one's father) is a Jew.
Other examples of matrilineal cultures are the Minangkabau culture of West Sumatra, the Nairs, Bunts and Kurichiyas of Kerala, India, the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya, India, the Naxi of China, and the Gitksan of British Columbia and the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee).
In the ancient kingdom of Elam, the succession to the throne was matrilineal, and a nephew would succeed his maternal uncle to the throne.
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[edit] Genetic genealogy
The fact that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is maternally inherited enables matrilineal lines of individuals to be traced through genetic analysis.
Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor for all living humans, from whom all mtDNA in living humans is derived. She is believed by some to have lived about 150,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia, Kenya or Tanzania. The time she lived is calculated based on the molecular clock technique of correlating elapsed time with observed genetic drift.
A woman's all children (both boys and girls) normally inherit their all mt-DNA heritage from the mother, and it consequently comes frommother's mother, and so on, up along the family tree in exclusive matriline. As mt-DNA are sort of "cellular power plants", one's metabolism and energy conversion are much influenced by the matrilineal descent.
Already ancient physicians had a whiff about such matrilineal heredity: Galen taught that a child's physical frame will (mostly) be provided by maternal heredity.
Attempts have been made to trace fatness and slimness along matrilines in genealogies of persons whose physical details are well-archived, such as the royally stout queen Victoria I of the United Kingdom.
There has been a hypothesis that better and worse suitability to give birth would be a (maternally) hereditary physical characteristic. If so, unsuitable matrilines are highly prone to extinction, whereas suitable matrilines would prosper.
[edit] Judaism
Orthodox Judaism states that, to be a Jew, one must be either a proselyte or the child of a Jewish mother. This ruling is not mentioned directly in the Bible, but derives from the Oral law [1]. The Talmudic commentary finds scriptural proof from various verses in the Torah and the rest of Tanakh (the Jewish Bible).
The current rule appears to be a glaring exception to an overwhelmingly patriarchal system of family law, in which all other questions of lineage are referred to paternal descent, for example the law of inheritance and the descent of the monarchy. Similarly, the question of which of the twelve tribes one belonged to always depended on the tribal affiliation of one’s father, so that to this day a kohen or Levi must be the son of a a kohen or Levi. It is deduced from this that the child of a mixed Sephardi-Ashkenazi marriage takes the communal identity of the father.
For this reason, many scholars, particularly from the Reform and Liberal movements in Judaism, suggest that the original rule of Jewish descent must have been patriarchal, and that it was changed around the time of Ezra, or even later, at the time of Yavneh. There are several instances in the Bible where Israelite men marry Gentile women without direct mention of the women converting. For example, many of the Israelite kings married foreign princesses, and this does not seem to have prevented the children of these marriages succeeding to the throne. An example is Rehoboam, who was the son of Solomon by the Ammonite princess Naamah. Another example is the Book of Ruth, which seems to claim such ancestry for King David himself.
The Orthodox answer is that both Ruth and Naamah were converts to Judaism: the Talmud [2] derives the laws of proselytes from the exchange between Naomi and Ruth. The standard view among historians, however, seems to be that the very notion of conversion with a mikvah is postbiblical. It must also be pointed out that, even if Ruth never became Jewish, this would not affect the Jewishness of King David on either a pure patrilineal or a pure matrilineal rule, as Ruth was King David's paternal great-grandmother.
Flavius Josephus refers to marriages between Jewish men and Gentile women without much commentary, and seems to assume that the offspring is Jewish (or, according to one of his statements, "half-Jewish") [3]; as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. On the other hand, Philo of Alexandria calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a nothos (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother [4]. In the same vein, the Mishnah raises, but eventually dismisses, the possibility that the child of a Gentile father and a Jewish mother is a mamzer.
A reconciliation of the evidence has been offered by Professor Shaye Cohen.[5] The original rule was patrilineal, but only applied to cases where the parents were legally married, or could lawfully have married, as it is only in these cases that the child legally has a father at all. So in the case of an all-Jewish or all-Gentile marriage, the child inherits its Jewish or Gentile status from the father. In Biblical times, the same rule would have applied to mixed unions, as such marriages were frowned upon but not regarded as legally impossible.[6] However, since the time of Ezra, Jewish law has held that mixed marriages are not only forbidden but void. Accordingly, the child of such a union has no legal father, and takes the status of the mother by default; just as in English custom a legitimate child takes its father’s surname but an illegitimate child takes its mother’s. In the result, it is only in the case of a mixed marriage that the child inherits its Jewish status from the mother; in the normal case of two Jewish parents it inherits its status from the father, but the Jewishness of the mother is a necessary condition for this to happen. The practical result of this is the same as that of a purely matrilineal rule.
The view of matrilineal descent as originating at the time of Yavneh is openly held by scholars affiliated with the Conservative movement. At the same time, matrilineal descent is the norm in Conservative halakha; if a Conservative synagogue accepts patrilineal descent ritually, it is generally expelled from the movement. (And, if Cohen's argument is correct, such a change could not be made without also recognising the legality of mixed marriages.) On the other hand, polls conducted by the Conservative movement show that 68% of all regular attenders at Conservative synagogues support patrilineal descent.
Some groups of Jews have historically recognized only patrilineal descent, e.g. the Juhurim of the Northern Caucasus, and other Jewish groups of Central Asia.
Reform Judaism in the U.S. officially adopted a bilineal policy in 1983: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification. This declaration formalized what had been Reform policy in practice for at least a generation. Clause (b) has been generally interpreted as making any form of public self-identification sufficient, though some congregations may make more formal requirements - especially if the individual in question has been raised as a Christian.
Other movements within the World Union for Progressive Judaism have adopted essentially the same position as U.S. Reform Judaism. These include: Liberal Judaism in England; Reconstructionist Judaism in the US, Canada and elsewhere; Progressive Judaism in Australia; one congregation in Austria; some congregations in Eastern Europe. Note that Reform Judaism in Canada and England adopts a different position, closer to the Orthodox one, at least in some congregations.
Many secular and non-religious Jews in America, Israel and elsewhere adopt a bilineal view similar to that detailed above. In Israel, the status quo is that the Orthodox definition is followed: the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother may immigrate to Israel (and may claim rights under the Law of Return), but will be registered in official documents as a non-Jew. The consequences are various: he/she may not be wedded inside the state to anybody considered to be officially a Jew, and he/she may not be buried in a military cemetery if he/she dies in battle.
[edit] South Indian matriliny
South west Indian society was matrilineal for greater part of the history. In fact, the regions of Kerala and coastal Karnataka(also known as, Tulu Nadu) were matrilineal until the 20th century. However, almost all of Andhra Pradesh and with few exceptions, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were patriarchal since known history. Except for few religious observances, the system is dead even in its traditional regions.
[edit] In Indo-European myths
While Indo-European peoples are mainly patriarchal and patrilinear, certain ancient myths have been shown to expose ancient traces of matrilineal customs. Namely, the fact that while the royal function was a male privilege, power devolution came through women, and the future king inherited power through marrying the Queen heiress.[7]
This is illustrated in the Homeric myths where all the noblest men in Greece vie for the hand of Helen (and the throne of Sparta ), as well as the Oedipian cycle where Oedipus weds the widow of the late king at the same time he assumes the Theban kingship. This trend is also evident in many Celtic myths, such as the (Welsh) mabinogi of Culhwch and Olwen, or the (Irish) Ulster Cycle, most notably the key facts to the Cúchulainn cycle that Cúchulainn gets his final secret training with a warrior woman, Scáthach, and becomes lover to both her and her daughter; and the root of the Táin Bó Cuailnge, that while Ailill may wear the crown of Connacht, it is his wife Medb who is the real power, and she needs to affirm her equality to her husband by owning chattels as great as he does. A number of other Breton stories also illustrate the motif, and even the Arthurian legends have been interpreted in this light by some.
[edit] Chinese civilization
Chinese surnames were originally matrilineally passed, although by the time of the Shang Dynasty,they had become patrilineal. [1] The Chinese character for "surname" (姓) still contains a female radical, suggesting its matrilineal etymology. Archaelogical data supports the theory that during the Neolithic period, Chinese matrilineal clans evolved into a patrilineal property-owning families by passing through a patrilineal clan transitional phase. Evidence include elaborate and highly adorned burials for young women in early Neolithic Yangshao culture cemeteries, and increasing elaboration of male burials toward the late Neolithic period. [2] Relatively isolated ethnic minorities such as the Mosuo clan of the Naxi tribe in southern China are still highly matriarchal today.
[edit] Tuareg
The Tuareg (Arabic:طوارق, sometimes spelled Touareg in French, or Twareg in English) are a Berber ethnic group or nation. Tuareg is a name that was applied to them by early explorers and historians (since Leo Africanus), but they call themselves variously Kel Tamasheq, Kel Tamajaq "Speakers of Tamasheq" and Imouhar, Imuhagh, Imazaghan or Imashaghen "the Free people". The meaning of the word Twareg has been long discussed, since it does not seem Berber. Probably it is Twārəg, the "broken plural" of Tārgi, a Ḥassānīya Arabic word whose former meaning was "inhabitant of Targa" (the Tuareg name of the Libyan region commonly known as Fezzan; targa in Berber means "(drainage) channel"). The Tuareg people also identify themselves with the concept Tamust, "The Nation".
The Tuareg today are found mostly in West Africa, but, like many in Northern Africa, were once nomads throughout the Sahara. They have a little-used but ancient script known as Tifinagh.
The Tuareg are matrilineal, though not matriarchal.
[edit] References
- ^ Mishnah tractate Kiddushin 3:12
- ^ Yevamoth 47b
- ^ Antiquities of the Jews 16.225, 18.109, 18.139, 18.141, 14.8-10, 14.121, 14.403
- ^ On the Life of Moses 2.36.193, On the Virtues 40.224, On the Life of Moses 1.27.147
- ^ Reviewed by Louis Jacobs, There is no Problem of Descent.
- ^ The Arba'ah Turim holds that the Biblical prohibition of intermarriage only applied to the seven nations of Canaan, and that both the extension to Gentiles in general and the sanction of invalidity are rules of Rabbinic rather than Biblical law: Tur Even ha-Ezer ch. 16.
- ^ Graves, R., The Greek Myths
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The origin of Matrilineal Descent in Judaism
- Why is Judaism passed on through the mother? (torah.org)
- Louis Jacobs, "There is No Problem of Descent", about Shaye Cohen's theory on the origin of the matrilineal rule in Judaism
