Patriarchy and Matriarchy in the Ancient World

Today, as in the past, men generally hold political, economic, and religious power in most societies. This dominance is due to patriarchy, a system whereby men largely control women and children, shape ideas about appropriate gender behavior, and generally dominate society. Many people assume that patriarchal social organization springs from some innate characteristic of the human species, symbolized by the common expression that this is a “man’s world.” But the situation is more complex historically.

THE PROBLEM

The prevalence of patriarchy raises three important questions. First, was there ever a time when women held equal power and status to men? Second, was matriarchy, in which women enjoy social and political dominance, ever common? And third, assuming women once enjoyed a higher status in society, can we identify a particular period when patriarchy triumphed? These questions spark heated scholarly debates.

THE DEBATE

The first question is the easiest to answer. Historians are reasonably sure that, among many peoples, women had greater equality with men during the Stone Age. The small, closely knit societies, like the !Kung of southern Africa, were often egalitarian, had weak leaders, and had little private property to fight over. But, despite a rough equality due to women’s ability, essential for a society’s survival, to gather food and medicinal herbs, there is little evidence that many prefarming societies allowed women more publicly recognized authority than men. Some peoples who practiced simple farming, such as the Iroquois, Cherokee, Hopi, and Zuni in North America, gave women considerable influence within a matrilineal culture, even if men usually had ultimate decision-making power.

In response to the second question, some scholars have argued that a “golden age of matriarchy” existed before the rise of urban societies and states in Europe and the Middle East, and perhaps also in India, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Americas. Supporters of the ancient matriarchy thesis point to the many figurines of females, many perhaps of goddesses, unearthed at archaeological sites worldwide. They believe that goddess worship correlated with high female status and that women were cherished for giving birth and nurturing the young, which gave them a connection to the earth and spirits. Patricia Monaghan identifies more than 1,500 different goddesses worldwide, representing everything from mother to warrior.

Perhaps the most debated recent studies are by Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, whose writings, based on discoveries at sites such as Çatal Hüyük in Turkey, the Minoan palace at Knossos, and Stonehenge, portray ancient people in Europe and Anatolia as egalitarian and peaceful farmers led by influential women. These female-oriented societies, she says, were destroyed around 3500 B.C.E. by more violent Indo-European nomads from Central Asia, who brought patriarchy with them. From then on, patriarchy spread across Europe. Similarly, Riane Eisler and Judith Lorber describe ancient, goddess-worshiping farming cultures in eastern and southern Europe, where men and women ruled equally, with no war or inequalities of wealth. And like Gimbutas, they contend that Indo-European newcomers imposed male governments on these earlier societies.

Most scholars dispute the views of Gimbutas, Eisler, and Lorber about ancient matriarchies and equal status for each gender. For example, Lotte Motz, Lucy Godison, and Christine Morris argue that goddess worship theories are unproven. Motz claims that female images are no more common in early Europe than those of men and animals. Furthermore, the figurines may have been used in fertility rites rather than revered as spiritual forces. Motz and Cynthia Eller also suggest that mother goddess theories reflect not ancient realities but modern political and cultural attitudes, including a feminism that challenges patriarchy and biases about women’s roles. Nor can we assume, such critics say, that worshiping female deities, if it happened, actually gave real power to women. After all, the patriarchal ancient Mesopotamians and Greeks worshiped various female deities, including a goddess of love, and many modern patriarchal cultures, including the Chinese, Japanese, Hindu Indian, and Yoruba, have female deities in their pantheons. Many Europeans have revered the Virgin Mary over the past two millennia, but men have still dominated European society.

If the notion of ancient matriarchies transformed by force into patriarchies cannot be proven, we are still left with the third question, how and when did patriarchy emerge? Anthropologist Sherry Ortner argues for a slow but inevitable transition from the egalitarianism of food collecting to male domination in the early cities and states. To Ortner, patriarchy was a product of technological and social upheavals rather than a will to power by aggressive men. Childbearing played a role because, while women stayed home having and raising children, men could travel and engage in more paid work and governmental, leisure, and religious activities, as well as warfare. That led to the gender stereotypes of women in unpaid work at home and men at paid work elsewhere. Also arguing for a gradual change, anthropologist Elizabeth Barber contends that farming people needed products, such as metal ores, that had to be gained through long-distance trade. This gave power to the more mobile and physically stronger men, who could travel to distant places and transport the heavy cargoes home. To be sure, knowledge of cloth making and the fiber arts gave women importance in ancient societies, since men also used products such as clothing and blankets; nevertheless, patriarchy emerged gradually as society slowly changed and began to reward strength and mobility.

There is considerable evidence that men increased their power over women in many early urban societies. Historian Gerda Lerner analyzed male power in the Mesopotamian city-states, where kings or male assemblies ruled. Law codes such as Hammurabi’s favored men, and only women could be divorced or sold into slavery for adultery. Laws also restricted women’s freedom of movement and treated them as private property. By this time, Lerner argues, gods had become more important than goddesses, and male power was legally recognized and sanctioned by religion.

EVALUATING THE DEBATE

What, then, was the status of women in ancient societies? The weight of scholarship favors those who doubt that full-blown matriarchal societies were once widespread. But few societies have ever been entirely controlled by the activities or wishes of men. Until recently historians and archaeologists have neglected the role of women. When we study ancient societies, we may unknowingly be influenced by modern patriarchal attitudes, since these are prominent in today’s culture. We are more likely to study kings and wars than the beginnings of herbal medicine, cloth production, and the role of women as negotiators in community disputes. We have not heard the last word from scholars on the question of ancient matriarchies and patriarchies, but their disputes have made us more aware of the role of women in history.

Extra Credit Questions: Each of these questions will require at least one paragraph, place your response in the Extra Credit Drop Box for Week 4

1. Why can the worship of a mother goddess be understood in different ways?

2. Why do we need to understand patriarchy to comprehend world history?