Editing Matriarchy (section)

== Definitions, connotations, and etymology ==
According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (''OED''), matriarchy is a "form of social organization in which the mother or oldest female is the head of the family, and descent and relationship are reckoned through the female line; government or rule by a woman or women."<ref name="OED-matriarchy">''Oxford English Dictionary'' (online), entry ''matriarchy'', as accessed November 3, 2013{{Subscription or libraries}}.</ref> A popular definition, according to James Peoples and Garrick Bailey, is "female dominance".<ref name="HumanityIntroCulturAnthro-9ed-p259col1">{{harvp|Peoples|Bailey|2012|p=259}}</ref> Within the academic discipline of [[cultural anthropology]], according to the ''OED'', matriarchy is a "culture or community in which such a system prevails"<ref name="OED-matriarchy" /> or a "family, society, organization, etc., dominated by a woman or women" without reference to laws that require women to dominate.<ref name="OED-matriarchy" /> In general anthropology, according to William A. Haviland, matriarchy is "rule by women".<ref name="Anthro-Haviland-8ed-p579col1">Haviland, William A., ''Anthropology'' (Ft. Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 8th ed. 1997 ({{ISBN|0-15-503578-9}})), p.&nbsp;579.</ref> According to Lawrence A. Kuzner in 1997, [[Alfred Radcliffe-Brown|A. R. Radcliffe-Brown]] argued in 1924 that the definitions of matriarchy and patriarchy had "logical and empirical failings (...) [and] were too vague to be scientifically useful".<ref>Kuznar, Lawrence A., ''Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology'' (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press (div. of Sage Publications), pbk. 1997 ({{ISBN|0-7619-9114-X}})).</ref>

Most academics exclude egalitarian nonpatriarchal systems from matriarchies more strictly defined. According to [[Heide Göttner-Abendroth]], a reluctance to accept the existence of matriarchies might be based on a specific culturally biased notion of how to define matriarchy: because in a [[patriarchy]] men rule over women, a matriarchy has frequently been conceptualized as women ruling over men,<ref name="MatriarchalSocDefTheory">{{cite web | last = Göttner-Abendroth | first = Heide | author-link = Heide Göttner-Abendroth | title = Matriarchal Society: Definition and Theory | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130419055107/http://www.gift-economy.com/athanor/athanor_005.html| archive-date = 19 April 2013 | url = http://www.gift-economy.com/athanor/athanor_005.html }}<br />
::''See also'' Sanday, Peggy Reeves, [http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100164210 Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy] (Cornell University Press, 2002) ("matriarchies are not a mirror form of patriarchies but rather ... a matriarchy "emphasizes maternal meanings where 'maternal symbols are linked to social practices influencing the lives of both sexes and where women play a central role in these practices{{'"}}).{{Page needed|date=December 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last = Göttner-Abendroth | first = Heide | author-link = Heide Göttner-Abendroth | title = Matriarchal studies: Past debates and new foundations | journal = [[Asian Journal of Women's Studies]] | volume = 23 | issue = 1 | pages =  2–6 | doi = 10.1080/12259276.2017.1283843 | date = 2017 | s2cid = 218768965 }}</ref> while she believed that matriarchies are [[egalitarian]].<ref name="MatriarchalSocDefTheory" /><ref>Lepowsky, M. A., ''Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society'' (U.S.: Columbia University Press, 1993).</ref>

[[File:Margot-adler-2004.jpg|thumb|Margot Adler (2004)]]
The word matriarchy, for a society politically led by women, especially mothers, who also control property, is often interpreted to mean the general opposite of patriarchy, but it is not an opposite.<ref>Compare, in ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (online), entry patriarchy to entry ''matriarchy'', both as accessed November 3, 2013.{{Subscription or libraries|sentence}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Eller|1995|loc=pp.&nbsp;161–162 & 184 & n.&nbsp;84}} (p.&nbsp;184 n.&nbsp;84 probably citing Spretnak, Charlene, ed., ''Politics of Women's Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power Within the Feminist Movement'' (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1982), p.&nbsp;xiii (Spretnak, Charlene, ''Introduction'')).</ref><ref>{{harvp|Goettner-Abendroth|2009a|pp=1–2}}</ref> According to Peoples and Bailey, the view of anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday is that matriarchies are not a mirror or inverted form of patriarchies but rather that a matriarchy "emphasizes maternal meanings where 'maternal symbols are linked to social practices influencing the lives of both sexes and where women play a central role in these practices{{'"}}.<ref>{{harvp|Peoples|Bailey|2012|pp=258–259}}</ref> Journalist [[Margot Adler]] wrote, "literally,&nbsp;... ["''matriarchy''"] means government by mothers, or more broadly, government and power in the hands of women."<ref>{{harvp|Adler|2006|p=193}} (italics so in original)</ref> [[Barbara Love]] and Elizabeth Shanklin wrote, "by 'matriarchy,' we mean a non-alienated society: a society in which women, those who produce the next generation, define motherhood, determine the conditions of motherhood, and determine the environment in which the next generation is reared."<ref>{{harvp|Love|Shanklin|1983|p=275}}</ref> According to [[Cynthia Eller]], "'matriarchy' can be thought of&nbsp;... as a shorthand description for any society in which women's power is equal or superior to men's and in which the culture centers around values and life events described as 'feminine.'"<ref>{{harvp|Eller|2000|pp=12–13}}</ref> Eller wrote that the idea of matriarchy mainly rests on two pillars, romanticism and modern social criticism.<ref>{{harvp|Eller|2011}} {{Page needed|date=October 2013}}</ref> With respect to a [[#Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages|prehistoric matriarchal Golden Age]], according to Barbara Epstein, "matriarchy&nbsp;... means a social system organized around matriliny and goddess worship in which women have positions of power."<ref>{{harvp|Epstein|1991|loc=p.&nbsp;173 and see p.&nbsp;172}}</ref> According to Adler, in the Marxist tradition, it usually refers to a pre-class society "where women and men share equally in production and power."<ref name="DrawDnMoon-2006-p194">{{harvp|Adler|2006|p=194}}</ref>

According to Adler, "a number of feminists note that few definitions of the word [matriarchy], despite its literal meaning, include any concept of power, and they suggest that centuries of oppression have made it impossible for women to conceive of themselves with such power."<ref name="DrawDnMoon-2006-p194" />

Matriarchy has often been presented as negative, in contrast to patriarchy as natural and inevitable for society, and thus that matriarchy is hopeless. Love and Shanklin wrote:
<blockquote>When we hear the word "matriarchy", we are conditioned to a number of responses: that matriarchy refers to the past and that matriarchies have never existed; that matriarchy is a hopeless fantasy of female domination, of mothers dominating children, of women being cruel to men. Conditioning us negatively to matriarchy is, of course, in the interests of patriarchs. We are made to feel that patriarchy is natural; we are less likely to question it, and less likely to direct our energies to ending it.<ref>{{harvp|Love|Shanklin|1983}}</ref></blockquote>

The Matriarchal Studies school led by Göttner-Abendroth calls for an even more inclusive redefinition of the term: Göttner-Abendroth defines ''Modern Matriarchal Studies'' as the "investigation and presentation of non-patriarchal societies", effectively defining matriarchy as non-patriarchy.<ref>[http://www.second-congress-matriarchal-studies.com/goettnerabendroth.html ''Introduction'', in ''Second World Congress on Matriarchal Studies''].</ref> She has also defined matriarchy as characterized by the sharing of power equally between the two genders.<ref>[http://matriarchy.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=83 DeMott, Tom, ''The Investigator'' (review of Bennholdt-Thomsen, Veronika, Cornelia Giebeler, Brigitte Holzer, & Marina Meneses, ''Juchitán, City of Women'' (Mexico: Consejo Editorial, 1994))], as accessed Feb. 6, 2011.</ref> According to Diane LeBow, "matriarchal societies are often described as&nbsp;... egalitarian&nbsp;...",<ref>{{harvp|LeBow|1984}}</ref> although anthropologist Ruby Rohrlich has written of "the centrality of women in an egalitarian society."<ref>{{harvp|Rohrlich|1977|p=37}}</ref>{{Efn|[[Feminist anthropology]], an approach to anthropology that tries to reduces male bias in the field}}

Matriarchy is also the public formation in which the woman occupies the ruling position in a family.<ref name="OED-matriarchy" /> Some, including [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan|Daniel Moynihan]], claimed that there is a matriarchy among Black families in the United States,<ref>[http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/webid-meynihan.htm Office of Policy Planning and Review (Daniel Patrick Moynihan, principal author), ''The Negro Family: The Case For National Action'' (U.S. Department of Labor, 1965)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428151006/http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/webid-meynihan.htm |date=April 28, 2014 }}, esp. [http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/moynchapter4.htm ''Chapter IV. The Tangle of Pathology''], authorship per [http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/webidrpage.htm ''History at the Department of Labor: In-Depth Research''], all as accessed November 2, 2013.</ref>{{Efn|[[Black matriarchy]], the cultural phenomenon of many Black families being headed by mothers with fathers absent}} because a quarter of them were headed by single women;<ref>{{harvp|Donovan|2000|p=171}}, citing Moynihan, Daniel, ''The Negro Family: The Case for National Action'' (1965) ("In this analysis Moynihan asserted that since a fourth of black families were headed by single women, black society was a matriarchy&nbsp;.... [and t]his situation undermined the confidence and 'manhood' of black men, and therefore prevented their competing successfully in the white work world.") and citing [[bell hooks|hooks, bell]]<!-- Keep the lower case for bell hooks' name. -->, either ''Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism'' (Boston: South End, 1981) or ''Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center'' (Boston: South End, 1984) (probably former), pp.&nbsp;181–187 ("freedom came to be seen by some black militants as a liberation from the oppression caused by black women"), hooks, bell, pp.&nbsp;180–181 ("many black men 'absorbed' the Moynihan ideology, and this misogyny itself became absorbed into the black freedom movement" and included this, "Moynihan's view", as a case of "American neo-Freudian revisionism where women who evidenced the slightest degree of independence were perceived as 'castrating' threats to the male identity"), and see hooks, bell, p.&nbsp;79.</ref> thus, families composing a substantial minority of a substantial minority could be enough for the latter to constitute a matriarchy within a larger non-matriarchal society with non-matriarchal political dynamics.

Etymologically, it is from [[Latin]] ''māter'' (genitive ''mātris''), "mother" and [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] ἄρχειν ''arkhein'', "to rule".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=matriarchy |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=matriarchy |dictionary=[[Online Etymology Dictionary]]}}</ref> The notion of matriarchy was defined by [[Joseph-François Lafitau]] (1681–1746), who first named it ''ginécocratie''.<ref>[[Edvard Westermarck]] (1921), [https://archive.org/details/historyofhumanma03westuoft ''The History of Human Marriage'', Vol. 3], London: Macmillan, p. 108.</ref> According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary|OED]]'', the earliest known attestation of the word matriarchy is in 1885.<ref name="OED-matriarchy" /> By contrast, [[:wikt:gynecocracy|gynæcocracy]], meaning 'rule of women', has been in use since the 17th century, building on the Greek word {{Lang|grc|γυναικοκρατία}} found in [[Aristotle]] and [[Plutarch]].<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aentry%3D%237148 Liddell, Henry George, & Robert Scott, ''An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon'', for ''γυναικοκρατία''].</ref><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2323035 Liddell, Henry George, & Robert Scott, ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', for ''γυ^ναικο-κρα^τέομαι''].</ref>

Terms with similar etymology are also used in various social sciences and humanities to describe matriarchal or ''matriological'' aspects of social, cultural, and political processes.{{Citation needed|date=June 2016}} Adjective ''matriological'' is derived from the noun ''matriology'' that comes from Latin word ''māter'' (mother) and Greek word λογος (''logos'', teaching about).{{Citation needed|date=June 2016}} The term matriology was used in theology and history of religion as a designation for the study of particular motherly aspects of various female deities.{{Citation needed|date=June 2016}} The term was subsequently borrowed by other social sciences and humanities and its meaning was widened in order to describe and define particular female-dominated and female-centered aspects of cultural and social life.{{Citation needed|date=June 2016}} The male alternative for matriology is patriology,{{Citation needed|date=June 2016}} with patriarchy being the male alternative to matriarchy<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Classical Tradition|last=Grafton|first=Anthony|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2013|isbn=9781782684039|location=Cambridge}}</ref>{{Pages needed|date=September 2017}}.