Matriarchy, Matriarchy

By contrast, gyncocracy "rule of women" is in use since the 17th century, building on an actual Greek found in Aristotle and Plutarch. [1] [2] The near-synonyms matrifocal and matricentric "having a mother as head of the family or household" are of more recent coinage, first used in the mid 20th century. Matriarchy can be understood as the public formation, in which woman occupies ruling position in a family (a primary cell of society). Matriarchy term is nowadays even used to analyze female power - the culture where men have traditionally been raised to protect women being sacrificed in wars and providing for women in the most risky jobs (see gendereconomy.com).

The feminist scenarios of Neolithic matriarchy have been called into question and are not emphasized in third-wave feminism.

Joan Bamberger in her 1974 The Myth of Matriarchy argued that the historical record contains no reliable evidence of any society in which women dominated. Anthropologist Donald Brown's list of "human cultural universals" (i.e. features shared by all current human societies) includes men being the "dominant element" in public political affairs (Brown 1991, p. 137), which he asserts is the contemporary opinion of mainstream anthropology.

The mother and child created havoc inside Zeus. He had swallowed the goddess because a prophecy had been foretold that the child of Metis would become greater than her father. After suffering great discomfort and terrible headaches, Hephaestus split Zeus's head, allowing Athene, in full battle armour, to burst forth from his forehead, thereafter being described as "being 'born' of Zeus." The prophecy was later proven true, as Athene's worship, as goddess of both wisdom and the strategic aspect of battle, surpassed that of Zeus, king of Olympus.Robert Graves suggested that this myth displaced earlier myths in which Athene and her mother existed in established religious beliefs that had to change when a major cultural change introduced a patriarchy to replace a matriarchy, interpreting it symbolically.

Gender roles and the conflict of patriarch vs. matriarchy is a major theme in the Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan.

Source: Wikipedia > Matriarchy