Can You Imagine a Society of Peace? by Carol P. Christ

As war and the fruits of war, including hatred and the desire for vengeance, threaten our human community, I take this opportunity republish a vision of a Society of Peace. If we cannot imagine a Society of Peace, we will never be able to create one. Can you imagine that:

As a child, you would not have to fight with your sisters or brothers for your father’s or your mother’s attention. You would not have one mother but many as you would be raised in a large extended family. Both girls and boys would be equally loved and cherished by their mothers and grandmothers and by their uncles and great-uncles. Both girls and boys would know that they would always have a place in the maternal clan. As a boy or a girl you would never have to “separate from” or “reject” your mother in order to “prove yourself as an individual” or in order to “grow up.” You could grow up without severing the bond with the ones who first loved you and first cared for you.

You would be raised in a large family with sisters and brothers and cousins, all of whom you would consider your siblings. You would never feel lonely. You would not be taught to compete with your siblings. You would never be hit by or hit others, because violent behaviors would not be considered appropriate in families.

When you got old enough to have sex, you could have all the sex you wanted. You would learn that the purpose of sex is pleasure and enjoyment. When you or your partner no longer wanted to have sex with each other, you could separate and find other partners.

There would be no need for families to worry about their children’s interest in sex. As all children have mothers and as all mothers have homes in their maternal clans, there would be no “illegitimate children,” no “bastards,” no “loose women,” no “sluts,” and no “whores.” As sex would be free, there would not be any need for prostitution.

Children born of sexual relationships would find their home in their maternal family. Mothers would be helped in the raising of children by their sisters and brothers, by their mothers and grandmothers, and by their aunts and uncles. A young woman pregnant or with a child would never be cast out, nor would she ever be expected to “make it on her own.”

With so much help, women would be able to work “outside the home” in the communal fields along with their kin. Mothers would not be “cooped up” or “closed in” with children. “The problem with no name” described by Betty Friedan would not exist. Mothers who were not dominated, lonely, or depressed, would not feel any need to “take their unhappiness out” on their children.

A young man would not be responsible for “providing for” his children, as this would be the responsibility of the mother clans. A young man would contribute to his clan and would help his sisters and female cousins to care for their children. These children would look up to him as their male “role model.” Men might work with their mothers and sisters in the fields or undertake building projects or take charge of trading with other clans near and far.

Whether you were a girl or a boy, a man or a woman, you would always know that you were loved. You would be taught to be loving and generous and to care for others. You would not be taught to compete with others, to gloat, or to hoard. If you had a skill, you would be encouraged to develop it, but you would not be encouraged to think you were better than others because you could do something they could not.

As a girl or a boy, a young woman or a young man, you would be taught to respect your elders, especially the oldest grandmothers and great-uncles. However, even they would not “lord it over” you, because your clan would have well-developed democratic systems of consensus which would allow everyone’s voice to be heard before any major decisions were made.

Surely there would have been conflicts, jealousies, and misunderstandings in societies of peace.  But when conflicts occurred, they would not have been resolved by violence as everyone would have been taught that sharing and generosity of spirit are the best ways  to resolve conflict. No one would go to boot camp in order to be trained to kill. There would be no armies.

Societies of peace are so far from our own, and so uncannily attractive, that many people would prefer to think that they have never existed. Yet societies of peace have existed on every continent of the planet. They exist today in various degrees among the Iroquois, the Zapotecs , the Kuna, the Shipibo, the Samoans, the Asante, the Khoisan, the Tuaregs, the Berbers, the Khasi, the Minangkabau, the Mosuo, and others.*

I don’t know about you, but I would love to live in such a society.  I love to imagine everyone on earth living in societies of peace where the values love, sharing, and generosity are understood to be the highest values. The “golden age” does not have to remain in our past. I dream that we can bring it into the future.

Imagine all the people living life in peace…

And please don’t dismiss these words as no more than a romantic fantasy. To do so is to play into the hands fo those who want us to believe that violence, domination, warfare, and hatred of the other are “in the nature of things.”

*This vision is based on the work of Heide Goettner-Abendroth who states that matriarchal societies have four characteristics in common:

1) They usually practice small-scale agriculture and achieve equality through gift-giving as a social custom.
2) They are egalitarian, matrilocal, and matrilineal. Women and men are defined by their connection to the maternal clan which holds land in common.
3) They have well-developed systems of consensus decision-making that insure that everyone’s voice is heard and considered.
4) They honor principles of care, love, and generosity which they associate with motherhood and teach both genders to express. They often view the Earth as a Great Mother.

Carol P. Christ leads the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (facebook and twitter).  Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions. Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology with Judith Plaskow will be released in June 2016 by Fortress Press, while A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess will be published in the spring by FAR Press. Explore Carol’s writing. Photo of Carol by Andrea Sarris.

Author: Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ is a leading feminist historian of religion and theologian who leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, a life transforming tour for women. www.goddessariadne.org View all posts by Carol P. Christ