Controversial Issue: The Birth of Patriarchy

[Xeviat]

I have to begin this discussion by saying I am a young adult white man, so my perspective on racism and sexism is probably colored by the fact that I've experienced little of it directed towards me. I am also focusing my literary studies on mythology, so I've also been studying old cultures through their mythology. It is from that angle that I wish to discuss the rise of male dominated societies. I feel that such a discussion could help us campaign builders to decide how and why their world's cultures develop the way they do.

I want to discuss why male dominated societies arose in the "developed" regions of the world. It seems interesting that it arose in societies far removed from each other. There is evidence in the mythology of different cultures that such male dominance wasn't always the case (Tiamat and Gaia were originally top deities in the Babylonian and Greek cultures, but they were supplanted by male deities later).

Since this event occurred in many societies, there must be a reason for it. I'm not saying it is right, just common. Is there research into this that I'm not aware of? Knowing the causes would help a setting designer create a female dominated society, or a more egalitarian society that is natural and not just so.

Any thoughts?

[Stargate525]

Any thoughts?

One baseless, evidence-less, but [to me] logical thought; it stems from our hunter-gatherer forebears.

The females, while no doubt just as capable of wielding a club, had to take care of the children, since men aren't equipped to do so. For that reason, they were kept at the camps, protected, and delegated to the 'home' chores; cooking, gathering, vacuuming the mammoth skin...

When the people began to settle into cities, I'm guessing this sociological role was a holdover. Since they were considered incapable of fighting, they were unable to take leadership roles as earliest ones were forced dictatorships; the strongest ruled until he was killed. This might also explain why (to my knowledge at least) all early matriarchal societies play the women as fierce combatants, or the society is militaristically-oriented. If you want a society that was non-combat matriarchal to arise naturally, I'd say you would have to remove breast-feeding, thereby allowing both male and female to take care of the youngling from the beginning.

I can't believe I just traced a core aspect of the dawn of civilization to women's breasts...

[Johnny Wraith]

As far as I know, the world was originally dominated by matriarchies and this went on until the First Agricultural Revolution. Once we hit that point, the power shifted towards males for the simple reason that more people were needed to tend the lands. See, in a patriarchy, the concern of the family unit is to create more and more descendants because they will be tools for the patriarch. This is in contrast to the matriarchy, where women, due to the fact, amongst others, that they don't particularly enjoy labor.. The focus is turned to having a smaller quantity of children but improving their quality of life.

Yes, women turned over their power to become practically slaves... Why would they? I think I read somewhere that this is because we have a community instinct, if you will, that drove our minds to change the norm. Some people say that this is happening once again, that we're shifting to matriarchies. Actually, if you see how women have turned from not being able to vote or having any rights to where they are now (e.g. Hillary Clinton) in more or less 50 years... Then you see how this theory isn't that far off.

[Hibou]

Please note that I'm NOT a professional or even spend a lot of time studying it, it's just discussion and maybe, maybe a bit of practicality

From what I understand there are two perspectives of societies (please note that I'm NOT a professional or even spend a lot of time studying it, it's just discussion and maybe, maybe a bit of practicality), there are two perspectives:

1) Males dominate societies (or used to) because in a world where being able to be physically active often, men (who develop more muscle mass in general, and maybe do it easier?) are more appropriate to these roles compared to women who can be restricted by childbirth and other situations, and eventually this would translate to the actual position of men and expand their role in a society.

2) The role of being a child-bearer and associated qualities actually is the reason for a matriarchy. Religious/spiritual/philosophical/what have you relation to childbirth and the creation of new life would give women a position over men in this case.

Again, I don't know how helpful or accurate this is. :/

[Elemental_Elf]

I believe patriarchy developed because of early Government's need to be '˜exclusive.' Males were physically stronger than females. Thus it was easy for men to slowly degrade women's rights and women's say until they had neither. Government then institutionalizes this by citing '˜religious scripture' and decreeing harsh punishments for women who act outside of a standardized mold. Of course Government doesn't stop with women, oh havens no, it then turns on the men and excludes the foreigners, the unfit, the infirm and the poor. Thus Government is only ruled by a privileged few men.

I'm not an expert but that's generally how I see it.

[Polycarp]

It's hard to see patriarchy as anything other than a historical inevitability.  There are no known matriarchies, and no archaeological evidence that there was some kind of neolithic matriarchal phase in which women ruled.  Why this is is unclear, considering that the biological differences between men and women - especially mental ones - are still poorly known.

[Elemental_Elf]

It's hard to see patriarchy as anything other than a historical inevitability.  There are no known matriarchies, and no archaeological evidence that there was some kind of neolithic matriarchal phase in which women ruled.  Why this is is unclear, considering that the biological differences between men and women - especially mental ones - are still poorly known.

I remember watching a show in my History of Inner Eurasia class that said that Amazons were based off of real life female Steppe nomads who, obviously, ran a matriarchal society. Their evidence was sketchy, relying on a few burial mounds where the women were buried with many of their possessions while the men were not.

But even if the society was in fact matriarchal, one example from thousands is a rare exception rather than a rule.

[Haphazzard]

Well, I don't know much about ancient governments (whether they were or weren't ruled by women at any point), but I do know that men DO build muscle mass faster than women do, and are not equipped to feed a child milk.  Psycologically, people don't enjoy changing much.  So, when it makes sense for the woman to stay at home and care for the child (JUST as important as collecting food), why change it when you start choosing seats of power?  Perhaps they started out by believing that caring for the child, collecting food, and running the people were all of equal importance, but power and greed corrupted them (as it always does) into making running the government the only "important" job.  Any "importance" in other jobs was just to keep the people from revolting.  

That's my one cent.  It'd be two, but the biological facts are all I have as solid evidence.  The rest is merely speculation based on...observations.

[Polycarp]

But even if the society was in fact matriarchal, one example from thousands is a rare exception rather than a rule.

The evidence I've heard of that was basically just some women buried with weapons.  It's hard to extrapolate that into credible evidence of a whole tribe of them, or that women ruled, especially when those finds have been interpreted by people whose avowed purpose in going there to find evidence of Amazons.  People tend to see what they want to see, especially with scant archaeological evidence.

[Xeviat]

I believe that some Native American civilizations were Matrilineal (families follow the mother), but I'm not certain that implies female domination.

I like Argantes observation; women won't want to have a million kids. A patriarch can always have as many wives as he can handle, and thus have tons of kids (I saw a program on National Geographic that showed that 50% of Mongolian men have the same genetic marker on their Y chromosome, a marker that can be traced back to the time of Ghengis Khan, showing that a Mongolian belief that they're all descended from the Khan could be partially true).

So it might be feasible for an egg laying culture to be matriarchal easily, or a society where child birth is less dangerous?

I'm 100% on board with making cultures in my setting more varied; the women players in my group do not like being constantly mistreated and looked down upon. My concern is putting believable reasoning why societies would be any different from what we're familiar with here.

Thanks for the discussion. Keep it coming.

[LordVreeg]

Gamete theory pretty much espouses the idea that at the root of most of our behaviors is a urge to propogate the world with our chromasomes and limit the survival of competing chromasomes.

There are whole books on this dry subject, but the the matrilinial societies to patriachal societies continuum is kind of inevitable.  By this theory, it is only culture that bonds a man to one woman, whearas the best stratagy for a male to pass on as much chromasomes as possible is to create a HArem where he can keep as many woman as possible popping out babies and also keep other males from impregnating these woman.  
A female, on the the other hand, can only search out and try to find a single mate that has the best genetic material to bond with and that will be best able to protect their young.
Xeviat's comment ties directly onto gamete theory.

There is also the more brutal truth: that men have babies when they want to, whereas it can (and was historically) be forced on women.

There were matriachal societies, but they were generally tribal, and once a certain size of tribe number isa reached, the male's ability to contest with other males physically and protect the tribal group normally supercedes any other leadership trump card.  A male's testosterone (the hormone governing muscle development) prodcution outstrips weven the most athletic woman's dramatically (which is one of the main reasons that most archeologists discount the amazon theories), as does our adrenal gland output in times of stress.  
Please note that these are historcal reasons for male-dominated leaderships; by the same token women have dramatic multitasking advantages and longevity advanatges that time has only increased.

I also need to mention to Xeviat's point of the female-to-male head god issue, that I think both are by-products of male domination, as things in the anciant world move from tribal to acculturated, you will also notice scriptural changes expressly placed to keep woman in a subjagated role, similar to the Bibles change the same way.

Lastly, based on what I have read in this thread and my take on that, were I designing a setting with some matriarchal elements, the easy way is to create a biological mechanism that allows women to be impregnanted only if they want to.
I'd also find it very cool to have a set of moon magic available only to women, magic that is fate oriented, that allows them to influence big-picture stuff.  That might spur on some real changes in the way things were done... :shy:  

[Xeviat]

Very interesting Vreeg. It's kind of sad when we can look at our lives as just DNA trying to replicate itself (one of several reasons I HAVE to have faith in my life).

I was thinking about different animals and how there are many animals where the female chooses its mate; males of many animal species don't force themselves upon females (though there are those that do; I'm looking at you ducks ...). A sapient species with very defined fertility and a biological mechanism for storing sperm would lead to more choice.

Likewise, I think a world of magic could lend things to develop differently; a thought that hadn't come to my mind until the last two comments of your post Vreeg. On Earth, men do have the physical advantages testosterone and such afford them, but in a magical world muscle isn't the only source of power.

I can easily envision a society where men have no part of child rearing. The society would be matrilineal, with females heading households. Men would make up the bulk of the military forces, while women would make up the bulk of the priesthood. In our world, this would eventually lead to the military taking control, but in a magical world the priests would have power to match as well.

The only issue is in birth numbers. A single male can father many children, where a woman can only have 1 a year. But ... this doesn't really change. In previously said matriarchal society, perhaps there wouldn't be marriages. Men aren't needed to provide for a woman's children, only protect (as men are the military). Thus, with no possessiveness in relationships, I could easily see great warriors fathering the children of many women; the women are empowered with the ability to choose their children's fathers, and with no possession in relationships there would be nothing keeping several women from choosing the same man.

There, some creation has been done.

[Tybalt]

I agree with much of what Vreeg has said, but there's another side to it.

Oddly enough both sexes in a sense suffer socially. In a way the Old Testament points this out rather well. While women and children are often depicted as having to submit to the will of men, men by contrast are just as much of a social resource to be expended, just in a different way. Men are more likely to be required to struggle to socially succeed in gathering resources, demonstrating fighting ability and authority in almost every kind of society that exists. Men are much more likely to have to fight in wars. While it's true that a man can have relations with lots of women this is usually reserved for men who are either very daring or else are very powerful. The odd thing is that this works--not so much in producing a really compassionate or intelligent society as producing one that is capable of expansion and gathering of its own strength.

Something else to consider: traditionally people married younger than they do in our culture and people tended to have a lot more children with the idea in mind that most of them just plain wouldn't survive. Has anyone noticed how roughly around the time of the 18th century through to the mid twentieth that families in western society began to grow dramatically in terms of the sheer numbers of them? Improved living conditions, better medecine inevitably made it possible to have bigger families. We have changed in some significant ways culturally--girls as young as 12 or 13 no longer marry as a general rule, and people tend to choose (due to effective birth control methods being generally available) how many children they want. Without such developments, without such choices patriarchal society is almost inevitable.

[sparkletwist]

I'm pretty cynical, but I think it has to do with men being physically strong and women being sexually desirable.

Women have their own sexual desires, too, of course, but the number of men who want to have sex with a given woman is typically greater than the number of women who want to have sex with a given man. Unless that man is Brad Pitt, or something. He didn't exist back in the dawn of patriarchy, though, so work with me here. The point is, women could be choosy with their mates. It works in the rest of the animal kingdom too, so why not humans?

The problem is, men started not to like this. Especially the men that weren't getting any. Rather than come up with better dances, though, they realized that they could just take what they wanted. They were stronger, after all! Actually, it's not like they had a meeting and got together and sorted all this out. After all, another thing that animals like to do is fight over mates. So, if two men both came upon a woman they liked, before one of them got to overpower her and take what they wanted, they had to fight each other first.

This rather unpleasant approach is fine for a bunch of apes, but, humans really did want to try harder. Some astute man figured out that instead of fighting all of these other guys one by one for the right to rape some woman who didn't really want it anyway, instead, he'd get a bunch of his friends together, team up, fight off all of the would-be perverts, rapists, and whatnot, and then the local womenfolk would be so appreciative they'd be able to hook up whenever they liked.

Some of the women were, of course. Some recalcitrant sorts weren't. In fact, with a bit of stability and no one trying to rape them, they realized they could have something good going on here. Unlike female animals, who were still impressed with silly dances and big strong males beating the crap out of each other, human females figured out they could compromise perhaps a little on who they would mate with if there was something else thrown in to sweeten the deal. The world's oldest profession was born! Along with the industry that kept cranking out those stupid "I have the pussy so I make the rules" t-shirts.

The men didn't like this one bit. They'd done all the fighting, after all. They were in charge! Using brute force to make someone do what you want, that was perfectly acceptable, but using feminine wiles, that was just wrong! They weren't about to just start randomly grabbing and raping and fighting over women again, though. The women would probably just exploit that, pitting them against each other, and whatnot, and then they'd definitely be in charge. None of them wanted that, and it was around this time the phrase "bros before hoes" was first uttered.

They decided that it was better to make women ashamed of their sexuality, so that's what they started doing. Women were regarded as being unable to control their desires unless kept in check. (It was really the men around them who lost control...) Pornography, prostitution, and whatnot-- that's not stuff that respectable women did. Good women got married, to the man that their father (another man!) told them to. Female sexuality was maligned, unless of course it was actually a man in control of it. Deprived of their source of power, women fell into line.

Thus was the birth of the great institution of patriarchy! Or something. ;)

[LordVreeg]

Very interesting Vreeg. It's kind of sad when we can look at our lives as just DNA trying to replicate itself (one of several reasons I HAVE to have faith in my life).

I was thinking about different animals and how there are many animals where the female chooses its mate; males of many animal species don't force themselves upon females (though there are those that do; I'm looking at you ducks ...). A sapient species with very defined fertility and a biological mechanism for storing sperm would lead to more choice.

Likewise, I think a world of magic could lend things to develop differently; a thought that hadn't come to my mind until the last two comments of your post Vreeg. On Earth, men do have the physical advantages testosterone and such afford them, but in a magical world muscle isn't the only source of power.

I can easily envision a society where men have no part of child rearing. The society would be matrilineal, with females heading households. Men would make up the bulk of the military forces, while women would make up the bulk of the priesthood. In our world, this would eventually lead to the military taking control, but in a magical world the priests would have power to match as well.

The only issue is in birth numbers. A single male can father many children, where a woman can only have 1 a year. But ... this doesn't really change. In previously said matriarchal society, perhaps there wouldn't be marriages. Men aren't needed to provide for a woman's children, only protect (as men are the military). Thus, with no possessiveness in relationships, I could easily see great warriors fathering the children of many women; the women are empowered with the ability to choose their children's fathers, and with no possession in relationships there would be nothing keeping several women from choosing the same man.

There, some creation has been done.

in terms of a society as a whole, I can imagine a great many possibilities with a few 'power-shifting' adjustments.  If you work hard to swing the balance right into the middle, you'll be able to have a variety of governments and cultures with realistic shifts.