Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?
Goddess in Training (rrosen@lark.cc.ukans.edu)
27 Jul 96 04:22:02 CDT
cougar@cathouse.com wrote:
: rrosen@lark.cc.ukans.edu (Goddess in Training) wrote:
: >cougar@cathouse.com wrote:
: >: Well, while there are tons of myths about matriarchy, I can find
: >: little reference to actual matriarchy societies...however, I know that
: >: they have existed and will exist.
: >
: >How do you know this? Not suspect it, mind you, but actually *know* this?
: >
: Know: To perceive directly with the senses or the mind
: knowledge: familiarity, awareness, or comprehension acquired by
: experience or study.
: I KNOW because I have seen through study and experience. I am doing
: backward tracking research to find credible sources now. I have
: already posted one such source.
Erm, you just said you had no evidence. So how do you *know* this instead
of just *believing* this? You claim you have studied and experienced
matriarchy, yet your "sources" are apparently not credible, according to
your own admission. This doesn't sound like knowledge to me. It sounds
like an opinion or belief.
: FWIW, I could easily reverse your folks logic and say there's NO
: evidence of a Patriarchy ever having existed. There isn't any more
: evidence for a patriarchy. All monarchy is based on male OR female
: ascension. Dictatorships are dictatorships, not patriarchy (using
: your definitions) So in a sense you are correct. There is little or
: no evidence of EITHER a patriarchy or matriarchy.
: What a worthless discussion.
Actually, that's exactly what I would argue. The terms "matriarchy" and
"patriarchy" are both ambiguous and fairly loaded. They're not very
useful in describing the power structure of most human societies, since
most human societies are much too complex to be reduced to either a true
matriarchy or a true patriarchy. There's a fair amount of feminists who
use the word "patriarchy" as a sort of synonym for society-sanctioned
male domination and/or sexism, instead of in the literal sense of "rule
by fathers."
: >Children belong to the family of the mother, they are
: >: not even seen as relatives of the father! He is not obliged to
: >: take care of his children, that is the task of the eldest brother of
: >: the wife. Every man is obliged in the first place to take care of
: >: the children of his sister(s).
: >
: >So a male still helps provide for the children? That doesn't make it
: >either patriarchal or matriarchal. Who has the political power in this
: >sytem? The men or the women?
: By your definitions, the only society that could be EITHER must kill
: off the other sex. What a rediculous idea.
I'm not sure where this follows from what I said. I merely asked who had
the political power in the society--men or women or a mix of both? If
it's a mix, who is in the majority? I'm not sure where you got the idea
of killing off either sex from this quetion.
: >: When a Minangkabau man and woman marry, they do not form a family in
: >: our sense of the word. The woman keeps on living
: >: with her family, and when the pair gets children, they stay with her.
: >: Sometimes the husband lives with his wife in her family's
: >: house, sometimes he only visits his wife.
: >
: >Again, forming a family in a different way from ours does not make it
: >matriarchal.
: >
: >: Matriarchy makes the women independent of the men.
: >
: >The women may be independent of their husbands under this system, but it
: >doesn't sound like they are independent of *all* men, and they sound
: >distinctly dependent on their brothers.
: I think you need to read the information more carefully. The brother
: is OBLIGATED to care for the children. That creates INDEPENDANCE for
: the women.
It's not independence if the women require their brothers' help,
regardless of whether or not the brothers are obligated to provide such
help. OTOH, none of us are completely independent and we are all to some
degree dependent on each other.
--'--,-{@ --,--'-{@ --'--,-{@
Renee Rosen
rrosen@lark.cc.ukans.edu "Was I a witch?
Goddess in Training In the dark days, I heard
Astrud and Astarte on irc voices . . ."
http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~rrosen --Art Bears
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