Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and is dependent on female subordination.

Historically, the principle of patriarchy has been central to the social, legal, political, and economic organization of Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese cultures, and has had a deep influence on modern civilization.

Most forms of feminism characterize patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women.

Definition and usage

Etymologically, the word "patriarchy" literally means "rule of fathers", and historically, the term patriarchy was used to refer to autocratic rule by the male head of a family. However, in modern times, it more generally refers to social systems in which power is primarily held by adult men, and in which men oppress, exploit and dominate women.

History

Anthropological and historical evidence indicates that most prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were generally relatively egalitarian, and that patriarchal social structures did not develop until many years after the end of the Pleistocene era, following social and technological innovations such as agriculture and domestication. However, according to Robert M. Strozier, historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event" of the origin of patriarchy. Some scholars point to about six thousand years ago (4000 BCE), when the concept of fatherhood took root, as the beginning of the spread of patriarchy.

Domination by men of women is found in the Ancient Near East as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history". The hegemonic spread of patriarchy is linked with the Kurgan hypothesis, by now widely accepted among scholars.

The works of Aristotle viewed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous.

Egypt left no philosophical record, but Herodotus left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens. He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt a middle-class woman might sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents. Greek influence spread, however, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle.

From the time of Martin Luther, Protestantism regularly used the commandment in Exodus 20:12 to justify the duties owed to all superiors. ‘Honor thy father,’ became a euphemism for the duty to obey the king. But it was primarily as a secular doctrine that Aristotle’s appeal took on political meaning. Although many 16th and 17th Century theorists agreed with Aristotle’s views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. The patriarchal political theory is associated primarily with Sir Robert Filmer. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled Patriarcha. However, it was not published until after his death. In it, he defended the divine right of kings as having title inherited from Adam, the first man of the human race, according to Judeo-Christian tradition.

In the 19th Century, Sarah Grimke dared to question the divine origin of the scriptures. Later, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Grimke’s criticism of biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published The Woman's Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by Feminist theory, which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition.

Biological vs. social theories

Most sociologists reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that social and cultural conditioning is primarily responsible for establishing male and female gender roles. Patriarchy is seen by most feminists as a social construction, which can be overcome, by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.

According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation. Even in modern developed societies, however, gender messages conveyed by family, mass media, and other institutions largely favor males having a dominant status. Goldberg had critics among anthropologists. Concerning Goldberg's claims about the "feelings of both men and women" Eleanor Leacock countered that the data on women’s attitudes are “sparse and contradictory,” and that the data on male attitudes about male-female relations are “ambiguous.” Also the effects of colonialism on the cultures represented in the studies were not considered.

There is considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies. Although there are no known examples of strictly matriarchal cultures, there are a number of societies that have been shown to be matrilinear or matrilocal and gynocentric, especially among indigenous tribal groups. Some hunter-gatherer groups have been characterized as largely egalitarian.

See also

* Anti-feminism

Biblical patriarchy

Chinese patriarchy

Domestic violence

Domitius

Gender role

Homemaker

Kyriarchy

Masculinity

Matriarchy

Nature versus nurture

Patriarch

Rape

Sexual violence

Sociology of fatherhood

References

Further reading

Adeline, Helen B. Fascinating Womanhood. New York: Random House, 2007.

Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003.

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. (first USA edition, in translation)

Bornemann, Ernest. Das Patriarchat - Ursprung und Zukunft unseres Gesellschaftssystems, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991 (Original German edition 1975), ISBN 3-596-23416-6

Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Brizendine, Louann. The Female Brain. New York: Morgan Road Books, 2006.

Brown, Donald E. Human Universals. New York: McGraw Hill, 1991.

de Santillana, Giorgio & Hertha von Dechend. Hamlet's Mill: an essay investigating the origins of human knowledge and its transmission through myth. David R. Godine, publisher, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 1977. The effects of evolutionary theory on the study of culture, pp. 68–72.

Eisler, Riane. ' 'The Chalice and the Blade' '. Harper Collins, 1987.

Gimbutas, Marija. The civilization of the goddess: the world of Old Europe. Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1991.

Jay, Jennifer W. 'Imagining Matriarchy: "Kingdoms of Women" in Tang China'. Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996): 220-229.

Konner, Melvin. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. 2nd edition, revised and updated. (Owl Books, 2003). 560p. ISBN 0805072799 [first published 1982, Endnotes

Lepowsky, Maria. Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Mead, Margaret. 'Do We Undervalue Full-Time Wives'. Redbook 122 (1963).

Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. Palgrave MacMillan, 1999.

Moir, Anne and David Jessel. Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women.

Ortner, Sherry Beth. 'Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In MZ Rosaldo and L Lamphere (eds). Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 67–87.

Ortner, Sherry Beth. 'So, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In S Ortner. Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 173–180.

Pilcher, Jane and Imelda Wheelan. 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies. London: Sage Publications, 2004.

Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: A Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books, 2002.

Wood, Wendy and Alice H. Eagly. A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin. 128(5) (Sep. 2002):699-727.

External links

"Cattle ownership makes it a man's world". New Scientist (2003).

Women’s Status and War in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Reconsideration

Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Boston: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, 1792.

Pannekoek, Anton. Arguments based on natural science, when applied to social questions, must almost always lead to wrong conclusions..Marxism and Darwinism'', 1912.

Simone de Beauvoir. The Second Sex. Translated by HM Parshley. London: Penguin, 1972.

"Equality". In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 2001.

Category:Biology of gender Category:Cultural anthropology Category:Family Category:Fatherhood Category:Forms of government Category:Gender studies Category:Men Category:Sociology Category:Sociobiology Category:Feminism and society