🔗 Share this article

One persistent notion suggests that in certain earlier periods of human history, females enjoyed equal status to men, or even dominated, resulting in happier and more peaceful societies. Subsequently, the patriarchy arose, bringing ages of strife and subjugation.

The Origins of the Matriarchy vs. Patriarchy Discussion

The concept of matriarchy and male-led societies as diametrically opposed—with a decisive switch between them—was seeded in the 1800s via socialist thought, entering anthropological studies with little evidence. From there, it spread into popular consciousness.

Anthropologists, by contrast, were often less convinced. They documented great variation in gender relations across human societies, including modern and historical ones, and some suspected that such variety had been the standard in ancient times too. Confirming this proved difficult, in part because identifying physical sex—let alone social gender—frequently proved tricky in ancient remains. But about two decades back, that changed.

A Revolution in Genetic Analysis

This much-touted ancient DNA revolution—the capacity to recover DNA from ancient bones and study it—meant that suddenly it became possible to determine the sex of ancient individuals and to trace their kinship ties. The chemical makeup of their skeletal remains—particularly, the ratio of isotopes found there—revealed whether they had resided in various locations and experienced dietary changes. The picture coming to light due to these advanced methods shows that variety in gender relations had been very much the rule in prehistory, and that there was not a clear turning point when one system gave way to its opposite.

Hypotheses on the Rise of Patriarchal Systems

One influential idea, actually credited to Engels, proposed that humans were egalitarian before agriculture expanded from the Middle East about 10,000 years ago. With the more sedentary way of life and accumulation of resources that agriculture introduced came the necessity to defend that property and to set rules for its succession. As populations grew, men took over the leading groups that developed to manage these matters, partly because they were better at fighting, and wealth passed to the paternal lineage. Men were additionally inclined to remain in place, with their female mates moving to live with them. Women’s subordination was often a consequence of these shifts.

An alternative theory, put forward by researcher a Lithuanian scholar in the mid-20th century, held that female-oriented societies dominated for longer in the continent—up to 5,000 years ago—when they were toppled by incoming, patriarchal nomads from the plains.

Evidence of Matrilineal Societies

Matrilinearity (where wealth is inherited through the mother’s side) and female-resident patterns (where women stay together) frequently go together, and both are linked with higher female status and authority. In 2017, U.S. geneticists reported that for over 300 years around the 900s AD, an high-status matrilineal group lived in a canyon site, in what is now the southwestern U.S.. Then, in a recent study, Asian researchers reported a matrilineal agricultural community that flourished for nearly as long in eastern China, over 3,000 years earlier. Such discoveries add to others, suggesting that matrilineal societies have been present on all populated continents, at least from the advent of farming forward.

Power and Autonomy in Prehistoric Societies

But, though they enjoy higher status, females in matrilineal societies may not hold decision-making power. That generally remains the domain of men—just of women’s brothers rather than their husbands. And since ancient DNA and chemical traces don’t reveal a great deal about female agency, gender power relations in ancient times continue to be a subject of debate. Indeed, such research has forced scholars to consider what they understand by power. Suppose the wife of a king influenced his entourage via patronage and informal networks, and his decisions through counselling, did she hold less influence than him?

Experts have identified several instances of couples sharing power in the bronze age—the era after those nomads came in Europe—and later historical records confirm to high-status women shaping policies in similar manners, continents apart. Perhaps they did so in earlier times. Women exerting indirect influence in patriarchal societies could have predated Homo sapiens. In his 2022 book about sex and gender, a titled work, ape expert a noted scientist described how an dominant female chimp, a named individual, chose a successor to the alpha male—her superior—with a kiss.

Factors Shaping Sex Roles

In recent years another aspect has emerged. Although the theorist may have been generally correct in linking property with patrilinearity, additional elements shaped sex roles, as well—such as how a society sustains itself. In February, international scientists found that traditionally matrilineal villages in a highland region have become more gender-neutral over the past several decades, as they transitioned from an farming-based system to a trade-focused one. Struggle also has a role. While matrilocal and patrilocal societies are just as prone to conflict, notes researcher a Yale expert, internal strife—rather than war against an external enemy—prods societies towards patrilocality, because warring clans prefer to have their sons close.

Females as Hunters and Leaders

Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that women engaged in combat, pursued game and served as spiritual leaders in the ancient world. No role or role has been barred to them always, everywhere. And though women leaders may have been rare, they were not absent. New genetic analyses from an Irish university demonstrate that there were at least pockets of female-line descent throughout the British Isles, when ancient groups dominated the land in the iron age. Combined with archaeological evidence for women fighters and Roman descriptions of female tribal chiefs, it appears as if Celtic women could wield direct as well as indirect power.

Modern Matrilineal Societies

Matrilineal societies persist nowadays—a Chinese group are one case, as are the a Native American tribe of Arizona, descendants of those Chaco Canyon clans. These communities are declining, as national governments assert their male-dominant muscles, but they act as testaments that certain extinct societies leaned closer to sex parity than many of our present-day ones, and that every culture have the potential to evolve.