Matriarchy vs Patriarchy

Elfriede Ammann
4 min readJan 23, 2020

Most of the evidence for female equality in societies derives from matrilineal, matrilocal societies, which are historically transitional and currently vanishing. […] Patrilineal descent does not imply subjugation of women nor does matrilineal descent indicate matriarchy. […] Matrilineal societies have been unable to adapt to competitive, techno-economic systems and have given way to patrilineal societies. […]
The case against the universality of prehistoric matriarchy seems quite clearly proved by the anthropological evidence. […] Those who define matriarchy as a society where women dominate over men […] cannot cite anthropological, ethnological, or historical evidence. They rest their case on myth and religion. […] I would conclude that
no matriarchal society has ever existed.
Gerda Lerner, Ph.D. (1920–2013) Austrian US American professor emeritus of history, University of Wisconsin-Madison, pioneer of women’s history, teacher, author, The Creation of Patriarchy, pp. 30–31, Oxford University Press, 1986, 1st paperback edition 22. October 1987

Currently we live in a transition phase from one age (era) to another.
The domination system (patriarchy) is waning whereas the partnership system is rising (from the ashes).

The domination system is predominantly left brained.
The partnership system is predominantly right brained.

Characteristics of the domination system

  • ♦ Authoritarian and inequitable social structure
    ♦ Authoritarian and inequitable economic structure
  • ♦ Rigid male dominance
    ♦ Subordination of women and “femininity” to men and “masculinity”
    ♦ Devaluation by both men and women of anything stereotypically
    considered “feminine,” including care and caregiving
  • ♦ Prominent emotion of fear
    ♦ High degree of humiliation, abuse and violence
  • ♦ Acceptance / idealization of violence as a means of
    imposing one’s will on others
  • Beliefs andstories that justify and idealize domination and violence

Characteristics of the partnership system

  • ♦ Democratic and economically equitable egalitarian
    structure in both the family and state or tribe
  • Equal valueing of males and females
    ♦ Equal partnership between women and men
    ♦ High regard for stereotypical feminine values, care and
    caregiving by women, men, and economic policy
  • ♦ Mutual respect and trust
  • ♦ Low degree of abuse and violence
    Rigid rankings of domination unneccessary
    ♦ Beliefs and stories that give high value to empathic and caring relations

Source (SpiritualWiki):
Domination system ⇔ partnership system — Riane Eisler

Characteristics and outlooks of predominantly left brain societies ⇔ balanced brain societies

Paternal culture ⇔ Maternal culture
Fabricated PATRIX ⇔ naturally emerging MATRIX

  1. History ⇔ Eternity
  2. Linear timeCycles of time
  3. ScienceArt, play
  4. RationalityMagic, synchronicity, symbology
  5. Dogma ⇔ Ritual
  6. Waking reality ⇔ Broadened states of consciousness
  7. Left brain (outside) ⇔ Right brain (inside / insight)
  8. Right side of the body ⇔ Left side of the body

Source (SpiritualWiki):
Key features of patriarchy ⇔ matrilinear societies

Women ⇔ domination politics
Fraternity = patriarchy

  • I do think that women could make politics irrelevant by some kind of spontaneous cooperative action, the like of which we have never seen, which is so far from people’s ideas of state structure and viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy but what it really represents is very subtle forms of inter-relation which does not follow a hierachical pattern which is fundamentally patriachal. The opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity. I think it is women who are going to have to break the spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation.
    Germaine Greer (*1939) Australian academic, major feminist, journalist, author, The Female Eunuch, 1970

The US American director of the Orgone Biophysical Research Lab James DeMeo, Ph.D. concluded the following:

  • About 6000 years ago a huge area (Saharasia), originally a fertile region stretching from the west coast of Africa to China, started to dry up. After a major climate-shift from wet grassland-forest conditions towards harsh desert conditions began around 5000 BCE, there was a slow but great change, so great that nothing we know of human cultural evolution is comparable. There had been pockets of patriarchal-authoritarian and violent social conditions showing up about 1,000 years before, but it was only around 4000BCE that it started to be common, with constant warfare, large-scale social oppression/inequality and male domination.
    Before around 4000 BCE, humans were democratic, egalitarian, sex-positive, pleasure-oriented, non-violent Goddess-worshiping “matrists.”
    Over the next 10–20 generations certain matrist groups morphed into “patrists”: violent, sexually-repressive, misogynistic, sadistic, male-dominated high-god worshipers with painful and traumatic child rearing techniques.
    Conclusion: The more sexually violent and misogynistic a society is, the more dysfunctional it is.
    Literature: Saharasia. The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World, Natural Energy Works, 1st edition 28. January 1998, revised paperback edition 1. January 2006, 20. May 2011

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Elfriede Ammann

curator / author of the bilingual data collection SpiritualWiki (2006-now) social work • metaphysics • interpreter • translator • writer • INFP