Patriarchy (anthropology)
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Patriarchy (from Greek: patria meaning father and arché meaning rule) is the anthropological term used to define the condition where male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that position. The term "patriarchy' is distinct from patrilineality and patrilocality. "Patrilineal" defines societies where the derivation of inheritance (financial or otherwise) originates from the father's line; a society with matrilineal traits such as Judaism, for example, provides that in order to be considered a Jew, a person must be born of a Jewish mother. "Patrilocal" defines a locus of control coming from the father's geographic/cultural community. In a matrilocal society, a woman will live with her father and/or brothers after marriage, and those males will hold a higher influence on the women's offspring to the detriment of the children's father. Most societies are predominantly patrilineal and patrilocal, but this is not a universal.
Human societies can be described in anthropology in terms of being patriarchal, matriarchal or equiarchal (where gender is unrelated to attainment) systems. All societies have been defined as patriarchal, varying only in the degree that the society allows variance from the strict norm. Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead later acknowledged that she was misquoted when she stated that a "patriarchy was defined as one in which women take their husband's name and the children bear the father's name" whereas a matriarchal society" is one in which some if not all the legal powers relating to the ordering and governing of the family - power over property, inheritance, marriage are lodged in women rather than in men." (Mead 1950, p. 275). Mead was actually distinguishing a patrilocal from a matrilocal society. Mead observed that "[a]ll the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed....Men have always been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home."[1]
The majority of the higher economic, political, industrial, financial, religious, and social positions of the world today are held by men. However, There are no known exceptions to this rule recognized by the American Anthropological Association. Anthropologist Donald Brown has listed patriarchy to be a "human universal" (Brown 1991, p. 137), which includes characteristics such as age gradation, personal hygiene, aesthetics, food sharing, rape, and other sociological aspects, implying that patriarchy is innate to the human condition.
All advanced industrial societies are variations of patriarchy. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, patriarchy is distinctly visible, and in the European nations patriarchy remains the underlying social structure in spite of some changes creating wider possibilities for both women and men. In both cultures, men still dominate public life. In Marxist cultures, there has also been an attempt to create an impression of egalitarian organizations based on gender equality.
In China, for example, the National People's Congress consists of an equal number of men and women. There are, however, no women within the ruling Politburo of the Communist Party of China. Prior to its dissolution, the Soviet Union's Congress of People's Deputies likewise consisted, by law, of equal numbers of men and women. However, the successor Russian Duma, which unlike the predecessor Congress actually has power and is not a rubber-stamp organization, presently has only 35 woman deputies among the 450 members.[2]
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[edit] Patriarchies in dispute
The following is a list of patriarchal societies alleged by some to be matriarchal and, where available, quotes from the anthropologists who originally studied them. In nearly every case it is clear from what the women and men who studied them report, that the societies were patriarchal not matriarchal, even before changes brought by contact with western culture. What some of the societies do typify, however, is matrilinearity or matrilocality, not matriarchy, because of clear features of male dominance, see Patriarchy. There are a lot of cultural groups in this list. No bias is intended against the more than 1,000 uncontroversially patriarchal cultural groups, nor against the few matrilocal or matrilineal cultural groups not mentioned here. [Note: the social customs described in the list that follows are neither endorsed nor condemned by the anthropologists who report them, nor by those who cite them, nor by this article.]
Alorese (main entry Alor)
"Marriage means for women far greater economic responsibility in a social system that does not grant them status recognition equal to that of men while at the same time it places on them greater and more monotonous burdens of labor."
Bois, Cora du (1944). The People of Alor: A Social-Psychological Study of an East Indian Island. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bamenda (main entry Bamenda)
"Women are not eligble for the headship of kin or political groups."
Kaberry, Phyllis M (1952). Women of the Grassfields. London: Colonial Research Publications 14.
Bantoc
"As is typical of the Bantoc ... the Tanowong are organized into different dap-ay groups ... . The dap-ay ... is the men's house. The dap-ay are the religeous, social, and political centers of village life, where major decisions are made ... . While each dap-ay theoretically has a council of old men who make the decisions, in actual fact, especially at present, every mature man participates in the deliberations of the council."
Bacadayan, Albert S (1974). "Securing water for drying rice terraces: irrigation, community organization, and expanding social relationships in a Western Bontoc group, Philippines". Ethnology 13: 247–260.
Batek (main entry Batek)
"Wives usually go where their husbands want to go and the men seem to prefer their own home areas. ... The Batek have a system of headmanship which appears to go back some time. There are at least seven men in the Aring and Lebir Valleys today who are commonly regarded as penghulu ('headmen') and they have in their genealogy several generations of penghulu, menteri ('ministers' or 'chiefs'), panglima ('war captains'), and even a raja ('king'). ... The position of the penghulu descends to the sons of previous penghulu, ideally in order of birth. If the penghulu has no sons, it goes to his next oldest brother and then to his sons in order."
Endicott, Kirk Michael (1974). Batek Negrito Economy and Social Organization. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Unpublished PhD thesis, 239–246.
Boyowans (autonym, also known as people of Kiriwina or Trobriand Islanders)
These are matrilinear, patrilocal and patriarchal tribes. Maternal uncles are family heads, and the tribal chiefs are dynastic male monarchs, paid a tribute.
"A district is formed by a number of villages, which are tributary to a particular headman of high rank, a chief."
"A chief has a wife from each subject village."
"The headman of a village is the oldest male of the dominant subclan."
"Next to the chief and sorcerer, the garden magician is the most important person in the village. He may even be the chief. He is a hereditary specialist in a complex system of magic handed down in the female line."
"Fishermen are organized into detachments, each of which is led by a headman who owns the canoe, performs the magic, and reaps the main share of the catch."
"Although descent is matrilineal, postmarital residence is patrilocal."
Quotes from an article sourced on Malinowski (see below) by Martin J Malone.
Malinowski, Bronisław (1916). "Baloma: Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 46: 354-430. Malinowski, Bronisław (1918). "Fishing in the Trobriand Islands". Man 18: 87-92. Malinowski, Bronisław (1920). "Kula: The Circulating Exchange of Valuables in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea". Man 20: 87-105. Malinowski, Bronisław (1920). "The Economic Pursuits of the Trobriand Islanders". Nature 105: 564-565. Malinowski, Bronisław (1921). "The Primitive Economics of the Trobriand Islanders". The Economic Journal 21: 1-16. Malinowski, Bronisław (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Seattle: Washington University Press. Malinowski, Bronisław (1936). "The Trobriand Islands of Papua". Australian Geographer 3: 10-12.
There is an amusing anecdote of cross-cultural contact on Kiriwina. The local yam is part of the staple diet and has something of a contraceptive effect. The Kiriwina tribes were initially reluctant to believe western stories of sex causing pregnancy.
Bribri (main entry Bribri)
"(The brother) ... or in the default of a brother, a cousin or uncle, [has a ruling voice in any family council or discussion]."
Gabb, William Moore (1875). "On the Indian tribes and languages of Costa Rica". American Philosophical Society Proceedings 14: 483–602.
Çatalhöyük (main entry Çatalhöyük)
"The archaeological evidence of female oriented ritual at Catal Hüyük is no more a substatial demonstration of matriarchy than some future excavations of a contemporary shrine of La Virgin de Guadalupe (or some other cult of the Madonna) might uncover."
Webster, Steven (1973). "Was it Matriarchy?". New York Review of Books: 37–38.
Chambri (main entry Chambri previously spelled Tchambuli)
"Nowhere [in Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies] do I suggest that I have found any material which disproves the existance of sex differences [in Tchambuli Society]. ... This study was not concerned with whether there are or are not actual and universal differences between the sexes, either quantative or qualitative."
Mead, Margaret (1937). "Letter". The American Anthropologist 39: 558-561.
"All the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed. ... men everywhere have been in charge of running the show. ... men have been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home."
Mead, Margaret (1973). "Review of Sex and Temperament in Three Primative Societies". Redbook October: 48.
Filipinos (and Filipinas, main entry Philippines)
"This combination of patterns has brought the Filipino woman to a point where, although denied some of the adventurous freedom of the male, she may be even better prepared for economic competition. The acceptance of the boredom of routine work may be seen as part of 'patient suffering' which is said to characterize the Filipino female to a greater extent than the male. Her responsibile role in the household means that the wife is charged with practical affairs while the husband is concerned to a greater extent with ritualistic activity which maintains prestige."
Hunt, CL (1965). "Female Occupational Roles and Urban Sex Ratios in the United States, Japan, and the Philippines". Social Forces 43: 144.
Gahuku-Gama (main entry Fore people)
"At marriage a Fore woman ... is expected to be ... an obedient spouse, a prolific childbearer, and generous with gifts of food to her affines and her husband's friends."
Glasse (Lindenbaum), Shirley (1963). The Social Life of Women in the South Fore. Port Moresby: Department of Public Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1.
What is tastefully left out of this description is that food sometimes consisted of recently deceased members of the tribe. A disease called kuru, probably spread by this canibalism, affected more women, children and elderly than men. [Note again that anthropologists provide scientific observations not moral judgements.]
Hopi (main entry Hopi)
"It seems that brothers are assumed to be senior to sisters, and entitled to respect as such, in the absence of evidence to the contrary."
Freire-Marreco, Barbara (1914). "Tewa Kinship Terms from the Pueblo of Hano, Arizona". American Anthropologist new series 16: 269–287.
"Within the family, the mother's brother, or, in his absence, any adult male of the household or clan, is responsible for the mainenance of order and the discipline of younger members."
Dozier, Edward P (1954). "The Hopi-Tewa of Arizona". American-Archaeology and Ethnology 44: 339.
Iban (main entry Iban people)
"Typically, every bilek family has as its head a man who is responsible for the general management of the farm." (page 81)
The original ethnography is cited in Whyte, William King (1978). The Status of Women in Pre-Industrial Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
"The tuah rumah is the administrator and custodian of adat, Iban customary law, and the arbiter in community conflicts. He has no political, economic, or ritual power. Usually a man of great personal prestige, it is through his knowledge of custom and his powers of persuasion that others are induced to go along with his decisions. Influence and prestige are not inherited. The Iban emphasize achievement, not descent."
Quote from Martin J Malone's cultural summary drawn from sources including:
Gomes, Edwin H (1911). Seventeen years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: a record of intimate association with the natives of the Bornean jungles. London: Seeley.
The main Wikipedia entry above includes a short recent history of colonial politics and wars involving the Iban, up to the co-operation between Iban and Australians against Japanese in World War II.
The film, The Sleeping Dictionary, is set among the Iban.
Imazighen (also known as Berbers)
"Nuclear families are reported to be independent social groups only among the Mzab. Elsewhere they are aggregated into patrilocal extended families, each with a patriarchal head."
Murdock, George Peter (1959). Africa: Its people and Their Cultural History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 117.
Iroquois (main entry Iroqois)
"The Indian regarded woman as the inferior, the dependent, and the servant of man, and from nurturance and habit, she actually considered herself to be so."
Morgan, Lewis Henry (1901). League of the Ho-Dêé-No-Sau-Nee or Iroquois. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 315.
"Ruling over the League was a council of 50 chiefs known as sachem[s] or lord[s]."
From Marlene M Martin's cultural summary, which draws upon the text quoted above.
Two interesting thing about this society are that the chiefs were elected, not hereditary, and that the voters were exclusively female.
See also: Richards, Cara B (1957), "Matriarchy or Mistake: The Role of Iroqois Women Through Time", Cultural Stability and Cultural Change, New York: American Ethnological Society. Randle, Martha C (undated). "Iroqois Women, Then and Now". Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 149.
The main Wikipedia entry also provides enough circumstatial evidence to suggest what the anthropologists reported – the Iroqois were a matrilineal but patriarchal people.
Jivaro (see Jivaro)
"On relations between husband and wife it may be proper to say that it is regulated according to the principle 'the man governs, but the woman holds sway'."
Karstan, R (1935). The Headhunters of Western Amazonia:The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru. Helsingfors: Finska Vetenskaps-societeten Helsingfors, 254.
Kenuzi
"The subservient position of women was determined by the Islamic religion." (page 133)
"Women influence their husbands, but [their husband's] decisions are decisive." (page 89)
The original ethnographies are cited in: Whyte, William King (1978). The Status of Women in Pre-Industrial Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
It is also worth noting that in this society, girls are married before puberty (Godard, 1867), by adult men who inspect them manually for virginity (Kenedy, 1970). Female circumcision is later performed at puberty to ensure chastity (Barclay, 1964). [Once more we note that niether the anthropologists who report such practices, nor those who cite them, nor this article endorse these things in any way. These practices are mentioned only to explain why most scholars do not consider this society matriarchal.]
Kibbutzim (main entry Kibutz)
"Some women serve as secretaries of kibbutzim, very few as treasurers; women as economic directors are still a rarity. Experience in the internal positions of power is the stepping stone to external positions of power. There has been one woman national secretary of a kibbutz federation. The kibbutz federations usually send into national politics one token woman at a time."
Agassi, Judith Buber (1989). "Gender Equality: Theoretical Lessons from the Israeli Kibbutz". Gender and Society 3: 160-186.
!Kung (main entry !Kung people)
"N≠issa's descriptions ... of her relationship with her husband, Tashay, suggest that relations between the sexes are not egalitarian, and that men, because of their greater strength, have power and can exercise their will in relation to women. This confirms Marshall's (1959) finding that men's status is higher than women's."
Shostak, Marjorie (1976), "A !Kung Woman's Memories of Childhood", in Lee and De Vore, Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
"The dominant impression one gets from accounts of patrilocal bands is one of semi-isolated, male-centered groups, encapsulated within territories."
Lee, Richard B (1976), "!Kung Spacial Organization", in Lee and De Vore, Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
"There are inherited positions, such as the 'headman'."
Marshall, Lorna (1976). The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, 125.
"Raising 2 or 3 children to competent maturity—the life's work of a successful woman—has typically required hard decisions about priorities, attentive management of social relations, ingenuity, luck, and decades of hard labor."
Fielder, Christine; Chris King (2004). Sexual Paradox Complementarity, Reproductive Conflict, and Human Emergence. ISBN 1-4116-5532-X.
Maliku (also known as Minicoy Island)
"Maliku seamen then had small colonies in Burma, near Rangoon, and on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Nowadays, the men prefer to work on cargo ships owned by national and international shipping companies. Their 'Minicoy Seamen's Association' shifted from Calcutta to Bombay, where they teach the young men and supply employment."
"Until 1960, all the villages selected an additional authority, the rahubodukaka (lit. the country's big brother), who was in charge of the rahuge (lit. house of the country). He and the rahuweriñ (lit. ruler of the country), a boduñ selected by the boduñ and niamiñ [high status groups], were responsible for all the affairs concerning the whole island and the access to the southern part for collecting firewood and coconuts."
Kattner, Ellen (1996). "Union Territory of Lakshadweep: The Social Structure of Maliku". Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter 10.
Minangkabau (main entry Minangkabau)
"In spite of the nominal 'matriarchate', Van Hasselt claims that the women are really the servants of the men. They not only prepare the meals of the men in their family, but they also serve them first, later eating with the children."
Paraphrase of:
Hasselt, AL van (1882), "Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra", in PJ Veth, Midden-Sumatra, Leiden
"The women have not the legal right to make a contract, not even to dispose of themselves in marriage."
Both quotes from:
Loeb, EM (1934). "Patrilineal and Matrilineal Organization in Sumatra: The Minangkabau". The American Anthropologist 36: 49.
More recently, Peggy Reeves Sanday observed the following:
"The Minangkabau are guided by a hegemonic idealogy called adat, which legitimizes and structures traditional political and ceremonial life." [Page 146]
"Thus, the Minangkabau make a distinction between female/weak and male/strong ..." [Page 149]
"In the specifics of male and female role definition, adat [sic] ideology is decidedly androcentric." [Page 150]
"First there are the ninik mamak, the men who have the authority to decide in accordance with adat law. The ninik mamak have authority over their nephews and nieces. [The ninik mamak] are the heads of the clan in the villages." [Page 151]
Sanday, Peggy Reeves (1990), "Gender in Minangkabau Ideology", in PR Sanday and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough, Beyond the Second Sex, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
Mohammad Hatta, the first vice president of Indonesia, was a Minangkabau.
Mosuo (main entry Mosuo)
The Mosuo society is clearly both matrilineal and matrilocal, but not apparantly technically matriarchal. The Mosuo are a fascinating people, and the Wiki article is very informative. More information regarding the Mosuo as matriarchal, patriarchal or neither will be added here once it is located.
Nayar (main entry Nair)
"The Karanavan [mother's brother] was traditionally unequivocal head of the group... . He could command all other members, male and female, and children were trained to obey him with reverence." Gough, E Kathleen (1954). The Traditional Kinship System of the Nayars of Malabar (manuscript). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Social Science Research Council Summer Seminar on Kinship,Harvard University.
Quoted in:
Stephens, William N (1963). The Family in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 317.
Tlingit (main entry Tlingit)
"The rank of chief ... passes from uncle to nephew."
Kraus, Aurel (1956). The Tlingit Indians. Seattle: Washington University Press, 77.
The excellent Wikipedia main entry provides a clear and detailed report of the matrilineality, matrilocality and patriarchy of this society.
Vanatinai (main entry Vanatinai)
"Almost all sorcerers on Vanatinai, who often exercise political and economic control over their neighbors, are male. ... No Vanatinai women have ever been elected as a Local Government Councillor."
Lepowsky, Maria (1981). Fruit of the Motherland: Gender and Exchange on Vanatina, Papua New Guinea. Berkley: Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, 469–470.
Wemale
Traditional origin of headhunting:
"Then Latulisa [war chief and leader of the baileo] himself went to his sister who, at the time, was weaving a kanune [skirt], and he cut off her head. He hung up the head in the baileo [men's house] which now was nicely decorated. From that time on people practiced headhunting."
Traditional story of war starting as game of "tag", eventually the losers took revenge by killing:
"From that time on war was waged with weapons, and there was headhunting. It was agreed that women should never again fight."
Translated from German original:
Jensen, Adolf E (1939). Hainuwele: Volkserzählungen von der Molukken-Insel Ceram. Leipzig: Frobenius Institute.
Later commentary:
"[The Wemale men] filled-in their deficit as providers with ceremonial authority and with the terror of headhunting and cannibalism."
"Wemale men were obsolescent hunters who annually sacrificed a female Hainuwele [coconut girl] victim. Surely, they did not do so only because the mythical origin of tubers involved the death of a female dema deity, but also because the obsolescent hunters competed with their women for status."
Luckert, Karl W (1990). "Hainuwele and Headhunting Reconsidered". East and West: 261-279.
Woorani
"Kaempaede [a male] was, in short, the patriarch."
Man, John (1982). Jungle Nomads of Ecuador: The Woorani. Amsterdam: Time Life Books, 65.
"It is true that leadership does exist, but it is situational by nature. A man becomes a leader for a specific event, and when that event has passed, his cloak of leadership disappears."
Yost, James A (1981). "People of the Forest: The Woorani". Ecuador Ediciones Libri Mundi: 109.
Yegali
This Madagascan tribe was mentioned in the textbook cited below. Hodges told Goldberg he'd heard about them from Donald Blender, but Goldberg and Hodges could find no evidence of them in any other academic literature.
Hodge, Harold (1971). Conflict and Consensus. New York: Harper and Row, 77.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Cattle ownership makes it a man's world New Scientist (1. October 2003): Early female-dominated societies lost their power to men when they started herding cattle, a new study demonstrates
- Debate Between Mark Ridley and Steven Goldberg on the The Inevitability of Patriarchy
[edit] References
- Brown, Robert. (1991). Human Universals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
- Mead, Margaret. (1950). Male and Female, Penguin, London.
