The Deep Structure of Matriarchal Society. Findings of Modern Matriarchal Studies

Heide Goettner-Abendroth

(Lecture given at the “Second World Congress on Matriarchal Studies” 2005, San Marcos, U.S.A.; it has been published in the Congress proceedings: “Societies of Peace. Matriarchies Past Present and Future”, Toronto/Canada 2016, Inanna Publication, York University) 

Introduction

Even though I have dedicated my work to anthropological research for the past ten years, I am not an anthropologist, but rather a European philosopher. When I began doing research on matriarchal societies, I started in my own culture and investigated the social and mythological patterns of pre-patriarchal times in early history. This task required undertaking a deep criticism of patriarchy.

But I could not go on confining my study to Europe, because on this continent these cultures have been completely destroyed. We have only fragments and distorted remnants, and these are not sufficient to reconstruct the full picture of matriarchal societies. So I decided to familiarise myself with the anthropological research that had been done on this topic. In these sources I found the same prejudices about matriarchal cultures as I had in historical research, and this led me to broaden my criticism of patriarchal ideology. 

Using critical analysis and cross-cultural studies, I uncovered a more complete picture of matriarchal societies, and developed the full definition that I now use in my research on matriarchies. This explication is much more than a simple definition. It set out the deep structure of the social form called “matriarchy.” It is not a theory set in stone, but is rather of an intellectual tool that can be used to uncover matriarchal structures in cultures both past and present. And it is a hybrid methodology that includes historical and anthropological research as well as all the other relevant disciplines. These logically have to be used together to cover  such a huge field. 

Even though I was occupied with studying still existing matriarchal societies, I never intended that my results should speak for indigenous peoples, nor would I pretend that my analysis of the deep structure of this type of  society  could be applied to all indigenous societies. This task can only be fulfilled by years of field work in many corners of the world, and can best be done by indigenous researchers into their own societies. My work can only function as an auxiliary tool, one that might support indigenous researchers to further research the deep structures of their own cultures, and to speak about them in their own, non-patriarchal, terminology.

The Deep Structure of Matriarchal Society

The research findings of Modern Matriarchal Studies contradict the ideology of universal male dominance and universal patriarchy. Modern Matriarchal Studies is concerned with investigating and presenting non-patriarchal societies: those that have existed in the past and those that are, to some degree, still with us now. All over the world today, indigenous peoples in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific area foster traditional cultures that show matriarchal patterns. These patterns are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women somehow ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it– rather they are, without exception, egalitarian societies. Hierarchies, classes and the domination of one gender by the other are all unknown to them. They are societies that are free of domination, but are stabilized by certain guidelines and codes. 

With matriarchies, equality does not mean a mere levelling of differences. The natural differences between the genders and the generations are respected and honoured, but the differences don’t lead to hierarchies, as is common in patriarchy. The different genders and generations each have their own value and dignity, and through a system of complementary activities they are dependent on each other.

We can see it at all levels of society: the economic level, the social level, the political level, and also the cultural level, which includes their worldviews and faiths. More precisely, matriarchies are societies with complementary equality, where great care is taken to provide a balance. This applies to the balance between genders, among generations, and between humans and nature; it creates an attitude of peacemaking. And this is what makes matriarchies so attractive to those looking for a new philosophy and a new vision to support the creation of a just and peaceful society.

Based on case-by-case cross-cultural research, I have outlined the structures and guidelines that function across all levels of matriarchal societies. In that way, the deep structure of matriarchal society emerged, and this is what I now want to tell you about. I refer to the four different levels of each society: the economic level, the level of social patterns, the level of political decision making, and the cultural level.

At the economic level, matriarchies are most often agricultural societies, but not exclusively so. According to a system that is identical with the kinship lines and the patterns of marriage, goods circulate as presents. This system prevents goods from being accumulated by one special person or one special group, on the contrary, it is one of mutual aid. Thus, the principles of economic equality are consciously maintained, and the society stays non-accumulating and egalitarian. 

They enjoy perfect mutuality: for every advantage or disadvantage in terms of acquiring goods is mediated by social guidelines. For example, at the village festivals, wealthy clans invite all the inhabitants to be their guests. These wealthy clan members organize the banquet, the rituals, the music and dances of one of the annual festivals, and they give away their wealth as a pure gift to all their neighbors. They don’t gain anything by it but honor. At the next festival another lucky clan will outdo itself by inviting everybody in the village or neighborhood, and will entertain them all and give out presents. Since this is the general attitude, matriarchal economy can be called a “gift economy” in the true sense (as Genevieve Vaughan has formulated it), and it is based on the value of motherliness.

Therefore, on the economic level matriarchies create a balanced economy, which is the ground for peace. Due to these features, I define them at this level as societies of economic reciprocity, based on the circulation of gifts. 

At the social level, matriarchal societies are founded on motherhood and are based on the clan.

Motherhood is the most important function in each society, for mothering creates the new generations that are the future of society. But it is necessary to clarify two points here:

1. In matriarchies, it is not necessary to be a biological mother in order to be acknowledged as a woman, because matriarchies practice the common motherhood of a group of sisters. Each individual sister does not necessarily have children, but together they are all “mothers” of any children that any of them have. This motherhood is founded on the freedom of women to decide on their own about whether or not to have biological children.

   
   

2. In matriarchies, mothering, which originates as a biological fact, is accorded such great importance that it is transformed into a cultural model. This model is much more appropriate to the human condition than the way patriarchies conceptualize and use motherhood. Of course, patriarchies depend on motherhood just as much as any culture does, but it contrives to make the importance of motherhood invisible. This ends up making women, and especially mothers, into slaves. 

In matriarchal societies, people live together in large kinship groups formed according to the principle of matriliny; that is, kinship is acknowledged exclusively in the female line. The clan’s name, and all social positions and political titles, are passed on through the mother’s line. Such a matri-clan consists at least of three generations of women and the directly related men who are the brothers of each generation of women. Generally, the matri-clan lives in one big clan-house. The women live there permanently, because daughters and granddaughters never leave the clan-house of their mother when they marry. This is called matrilocality.

What is most important is the fact that women have the power of disposition over the goods and the houses of the clan, especially over the sources of nourishment: fields and food. All the goods are given to the clan mother, the matriarch, and she distributes them equally among the members of the clan. This characteristic feature, besides matrilinearity and matrilocality, grants women such a strong position that these societies are “matriarchal” (and not merely matrilineal). Here again we can see the value of motherliness, which is a source of peace for the whole society. 

The different clans are connected to each other by marriage patterns, especially the system of reciprocal marriage between two clan groups. Marriage between two clans is not marriage between individuals, but rather a communal marriage. It is an ancient custom of bonding between two clans, and it makes good sense as a system of mutual aid.

The married people do not leave the houses of their mothers, but stay in their own matri-clans. In places where the most ancient patterns are still in use, men practice so-called “visiting marriage,” going to their lover’s or spouse’s clan house to meet them. But there they are guests only over night, and they must leave in the morning. They have no rights and duties with regard to the children of their spouses, but instead they have rights and duties in the houses of their own mothers, and act as “social fathers” for the children of their own sisters. 

Due to additional patterns of marriage between all clans, everyone in a matriarchal village or neighborhood of a town is related to everyone else by birth or by marriage. These nets of relationship are intentionally produced to form a “big family” of the people, where everybody is “mother” or “sister” or “brother” to all, which means, creating bonds of love and care among equals. Therefore, I define matriarchies as non-hierarchical, horizontal societies of matrilineal kinship.

The decisive factor for a society of peace is the process of taking political decisions. In matriarchal societies, political practice follows the principle of consensus, which means unanimity for each decision. They are well organized to actualize this principle, and again it starts along the lines of matriarchal kinship. In the clan-house, women and men meet in a council where domestic matters are discussed. Everybody has only one vote, even the matriarch, and no member of the household is excluded. After thorough discussion, each decision is taken by consensus. This is the basis for real equality.

The same is true for the entire village. When matters concerning the whole village are to be discussed, delegates from every clan-house meet in the village council. These delegates can be the matriarchs of the clans, or the brothers and sons they have chosen to represent the clan. No decision concerning the whole village may be taken without the consensus of all clan houses. This means, that these delegates do not make decisions themselves; they simply communicate the decisions that have been made in their clan houses. They maintain the communication system of the village and move back and forth between the village council and the clan houses until the whole village reaches consensus. 

The same applies at the regional level. Delegates from all villages meet to discuss the decisions of their communities in the regional council. Again, the delegates function only as bearers of communication. The delegates of the villages move between the village council and the regional council back and forth, and the delegates of the clan houses likewise between the village council and the clan houses, until all individuals of the region have reached consensus. The source of all the politics are the clan houses where the people live, and in this way, a true “grass roots democracy” is put into practice. Of course, the foundations for this political system are the economy of reciprocity, based on gift giving, and the “big family” of a society of matrilineal kinship.  

Therefore, from the political point of view, I call matriarchies egalitarian societies of consensus. These political patterns do not allow the accumulation of political power. In exactly this sense, they are free of domination: They have no class of rulers and no class of suppressed people; that is, they have no “enforcement bodies” like warriors, police, controlling and punishing institutions, which are necessary to establish domination.

But such a societal system would not function as a whole if there were not a deep, supporting and all-permeating spiritual attitude. This is the case with all matriarchies. For, at the spiritual and cultural level, matriarchal societies do not have religions based on a God who is invisible, untouchable, and incomprehensible - but omnipotent -, in contrast to whom the created world is devalued as “dead matter”. To the contrary: in matriarchy, divinity is immanent, for the whole world is regarded as divine – as feminine divine. This is evident in the widely held concept of the universe as the Great Goddess who created everything, and of the earth as the Great Mother who brings forth everything living. And everything is endowed with divinity, each woman and man, each plant and animal, the smallest pebble and the biggest star.

In such a culture, everything is spiritual. In their festivals, following the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of life, everything is celebrated: nature in its manifold expressions; the different clans with their different abilities and tasks; the different genders and the different generations in their specific dignities; following the principle: “Diversity is wealth.” There is no separation between sacred and secular, so all the everyday tasks – such as sowing and harvesting, cooking and weaving, building a house, and making a journey – also have ritual significance. Thus in an all-permeating sense, these societies are sacred ones. And if nature is regarded as holy, including the whole earth and the cosmos, then humans worship nature and live in peace with Her, too, in order to best ensure their own welfare.

Therefore, on the spiritual level, I define matriarchies as sacred societies and cultures of the Goddess. 

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From this outline of modern Matriarchal Studies it has become clear, that it deals with knowledge about non-patriarchal, egalitarian social, political and cultural patterns, which are basically peaceful. This knowledge is urgently needed in this late phase of globally destructive patriarchy. 

Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that matriarchal patterns have great significance for both present and future societies. This is because matriarchies are not abstract utopias, constructed according to philosophical concepts that can never be implemented. On the contrary, they have existed throughout long historical periods until today. They embody an enormous amount of intellectual creativity and practical experience, and belong indispensably to humankind’s cultural store of knowledge. Their precepts show how life can be organized in such a way that it is based on needs, is non-violent, and is simply humane. Thus, matriarchies can be our guiding light towards a just and peaceful world-society.  

Relevant Literature of Heide Goettner-Abendroth

             (see www.goettner-abendroth.de)