In their purest form, “egalitarian matriarchies” place the mother principle at the center of culture and society. Their highest values are the love, care, and generosity they associate with motherhood. These values are not limited to women and girls. Boys and men are also encouraged to honor mothers above all, to practice the traits of love, care, and generosity, and to value them in others.
“Egalitarian matriarchal” societies are matrilineal which means that family membership and descent are passed through the female line. They are also usually matrilocal, which means that women live in their maternal home all of their lives. Family groups are usually extended rather than nuclear. Often there is a “big house” in which groups of sisters, brothers, and cousins live together with mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and great-aunts. In what I imagine to have been the original form of the system (still practiced by the Mosuo of the Himalayas), men also live in their maternal house, visiting their lovers at night, and returning home in the morning.
These societies practice small-scale agriculture. The women are owners and guardians of the land, which is held in common by maternal clans. They are also the guardians of the secrets of agriculture, food storage, and food preparation, which are passed down from mothers to daughters through songs, dances, rituals, and stories that celebrate the Earth as a great and giving Mother. The powers of women as birth-givers and as the guardians of the mysteries of the agricultural cycles are symbolically related to the powers of birth, death, and regeneration in nature and in all creative processes.
These social and cultural systems must have first developed at the beginning of the Neolithic era, when “woman the gatherer” first discovered the secrets of agriculture that allowed people to settle down and farm the land. If women discovered agriculture, then it makes sense that they would have been leaders in the first settled communities and guardians or owners of the land they farmed. They would have been the ones to build the first homes on or near the farmland. Sons as well as daughters would have been born in these early settlements.
The males of the families or clans continued to hunt. Over time they became responsible for building and heavy farm labor and for grazing flocks and seeking raw materials away from the settlement. It makes sense that they would be the ones to venture away from the community to gather information and to trade. In a recent documentary, Mosuo men stated that they don’t work as hard as women. This may not have been the case in the past. Today products and raw materials are brought in through the capitalist economy: traditional roles of traders are obsolete. Information gathering was an important part of trade expeditions: this is how new technologies spread rapidly in the Neolithic era; religious and cultural symbols were also shared by traders. Today there are books, newspapers, television, and the internet. Nor are Mosuo men involved in inter-clan negotiations in the People’s Republic of China.
From the division of labor in these societies, an egalitarian system of governance developed in which the elder women or grandmothers supervised the “internal” life of the house or clan. The “internal” domain included family and farm and all of the rituals surrounding birth, puberty, and death, as well as planting and harvesting. Women played central roles in creating and enacting all of these rituals. Through their expeditions and trade activities, elder men, the brothers of the grandmothers and uncles of the next generations, became responsible for the “external” relations of the clan, meeting people from other cultures when they were away from home, and welcoming visitors who arrived on their home territory.
Because of this division of labor, the elder men would have been the ones to meet and greet colonists and invaders and also to speak with storytellers, historians, and anthropologists, most often also men, who were interested in learning about their culture. If foreign men came from patriarchal cultures, they would have assumed that the men who met them were the leaders of their groups. The party line in the field of anthropology, which is followed by academics in other disciplines, is that “men wield the power” in matrilineal societies. I was disappointed to read this when I first started learning about matrilineal societies as a graduate student and to find it repeated in a recent article arguing that Minoan culture might have been matrilineal and matrilocal.
Those of us who have been socialized in patriarchal societies in which “men wield the power” cannot easily imagine alternative systems. When we begin to think about female power, we immediately conjure up pictures where “women wield the power” by going to war, keeping men as slaves, sexually abusing and raping them, and forcing them into subordinate positions. Such images are so abhorrent that we may conclude that patriarchy is not so bad after all. And this stops us from looking for or wanting to envision alternatives.
In 1981 anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday challenged these conventional views in her ground-breaking Female Power and Male Dominance. Examining all of the pre-urban societies documented in anthropological records, she discovered that societies that celebrated and valued female power were not female dominant but egalitarian. She also found that societies that celebrated and valued male power were almost always male dominant. They tended to develop in times of external threat (when men became warriors) or environmental crisis (when the female power of the earth was viewed as having failed the community). Though Sanday’s arguments are convincing, they failed to change that anthropological consensus that “men wield the power” in all human societies, including those that celebrate female power and are matrilineal and matrilocal.
What the consensus that “men wield the power” in matrilineal, matrilocal, and matrifocal societies does not recognize is the power women hold in the internal relations of the group. For example, in the Iroquois culture, the councils of female elders that managed the day to day life of the clan were just as important as the councils of male elders that through their “chief” met with European settlers and invaders. In fact, the councils of female elders were slightly more powerful than those of the male elders. Iroquois women could remove male leaders they did not approve of and reject decisions of the male council to go to war. This power of the female council did not mean that Iroquois women dominated Iroquois men. Rather it was an important check-and-balance ensuring that men’s councils could not unilaterally take actions that would negatively affect the internal relations of the clan.
What should we call societies such as these? Obviously we should continue using the terms “matrilineal” and “matrilocal” where they apply. But what term should we use to describe these cultures as a whole? Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas called the egalitarian societies of Old Europe “matrifocal” because she recognized that the term “matriarchal” is usually (mis)understood to mean female dominant; this decision did not protect her work from being criticized for its challenges to the patriarchal consensus.
Peggy Reeves Sanday redefines matriarchy as involving “cultural symbols and practices associating the maternal with the origin and center of growth processes necessary for social and individual life.” Heide Goettner-Abendroth defines matriarchy to mean “mothers at the beginning,” based on one of the meanings of the root word “arche,” while at the same time insisting that matriarchies are egalitarian.
I dared to use the “m” word after reading Peggy Reeves Sanday and Heide Goettner-Abendroth. I define egalitarian matriarchy as a society and culture organized around the mother principle of love, care, and generosity, in which mothers are honored and women play central roles, and in which men also have important roles and every voice is heard. My new suggestion is that the “m”word always be preceded by the “e” word, in other words that we not use “matriarchy” unmodified, but always write and speak of “egalitarian matriarchies” in order to make it clear that we are not talking about female-dominated societies. This will be my practice in the future.
*You can read more in Societies of Peace by Heide Goettner-Abendroth, in Women at the Center by Peggy Reeves Sanday, and in Daughters of Mother Earth and Iroquoian Women by Barbara Alice Mann. Or watch The Women’s Kingdom or other documentaries on the Mosuo.
Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer and educator currently living in Heraklion, Crete. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology, is on sale for $3.71 kindle on Amazon in May 2018. FAR Press recently published A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. Carol has been leading educational tours based on the religion and culture of ancient Crete for over twenty years. Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger.
feminismandreligion.com 
Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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Reblogged this on wireworkgemsdotnet and commented:
I’ve been struggling to find work on matriarchal societies, and grateful for this piece from Carol P Christ. Using the term egalitarian matriarchy seems wise.
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Thanks for this Carol; I’ve been looking for sources on this very subject.
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Does everyone know about the matriarchalstudies yahoo group?
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Thank you for this essay, Carol. “Egalitarian matriarchy” sounds like a reasonable term, although since reading Riane Eisler I’ve mentally used the word “matrifocal.”
When I read “Leaving Mother Lake,” which discusses such a society, I was dumbfounded. I hadn’t known that such societies still existed in modern times. It made me wish that western society could be the same, although such a social model would be entirely incompatible with our male-driven, corporate-ruled world.
Lately I’ve been wondering whether women will have time to reclaim our rightful place in society before we all disappear. It’s hard not to be pessimistic when there is so much horrible news every day.
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This makes a lot of sense and will save a lot of time straightening out the misunderstanding that inevitably happens anytime anyone tries to explain these societies without expressly stating that they are egalitarian from the beginning. I’m also struck by the importance of the role of elder women in these societies and how essential it is to make it known that there are very successful societies in which older women are honored and powerful. As I get older I increasingly experience how marginalized older women are in our own society and how damaging the loss of all this life experience and wisdom is to our collective decision-making, as well as, of course, to older women themselves.
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I have loved the Mosuo culture ever since I first learned about it, years ago. Thanks for spreading the word about a different, more peaceful way to structure society.
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Thanks, Carol. This is the best short explanation of these societies and why they were misinterpreted, that I have seen. My only hesitation is that a ten-syllable title is unlikely to catch on in popular imagination. Surely among us we can come up with a shorter one. Egalmat doesn’t quite do it.
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Thank you for this precise definition and description. It’s important for all of us to know that Egalitarian Matriarchy has existed, does exist, can exist, and we hope will exist.
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Thanks, Carol, for this concise description of egalitarian matriarchies. I agree that attaching the adjective “egalitarian” to this concept will clear up many misconceptions.
In mid-March I attended the Modern Matriarchal Studies Day (which immediately followed the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology conference, which included talks by several indigenous women from egalitarian matriarchal cultures). Heide Göttner-Abendroth (founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies) spoke via Skype, Genevieve Vaughn talked about the gift economy, the economy based on the original maternal gift of life, and Lydia Ruyle’s niece spoke about Lydia’s life and the 350 “girls” (goddess banners) she flew all over the world. Although this year it didn’t include much from indigenous women themselves (in the past, it has), it was still a wonderful day, and worthwhile just for Gen Vaughn’s talk, which was brilliant.
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Carol, this is a truly enlightening/educational essay and one close to my heart because I have been afraid to use the word matriarchy to describe female centered cultures for fear of being mis-understood. Matriarchy seems to imply patriarchy in reverse.However, after reading your essay and writing down your definition of an egalitarian matriarchy I feel liberated from my former constraints. Your definition/clarification of what constitutes an egalitarian matriarchy is so clear and concise (not to mention, respectful of men) that I think it would be hard to misunderstand… and I really like what you say about preceding the use of the m word with the e word… thank you so very very much!
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Men never been sorry to not be egalitarian. The facts of HISstory PROVE that HERstory was NOT a mirror image of patriarchy. We are not responsible for adding the “egalitarian” word on it to prove we aren’t “feminazi’s”. Please see my video on Youtube called “Matriarchy vs. Patriarchy: CASE CLOSED” and share it widely! Problem solved!
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I founded the Womens’ Council 13.20 on facebook. There is a template of a blueprint for the 21st century where we bring in a truly egalitarian society. First we adopt a cyclical calendar (the 13 moon calendar), use a sovereign-issued currency (NumeroSet is recommended) and incrementally reduce our pollution/water/wastage footprint.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/womens-council/womens-council-draft-constitution/1557780301143403/
To download the simplified 13 moon calendar: https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenscouncil13.20/permalink/2248887845365975/
Feel free to ask anything.
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Being matriarchal, its impossible by definition to be egalitarian. It may be more or less benevolent toward men or non mothers but egalitarian no. Some people confuse matriarchy with anarchy, which are two very different things.
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“Iroquois women could remove male leaders they did not approve of and reject decisions of the male council to go to war. This power of the female council did not mean that Iroquois women dominated Iroquois men. Rather it was an important check-and-balance ensuring that men’s councils could not unilaterally take actions that would negatively affect the internal relations of the clan.”
Did the male council also have similiar power over the female council the same way the female council did? If not, how is this not female domination over males? How can this be a “check-and-balance”? A check-and-balance is a system where each branch of government has the ability to amend or veto acts of another branch so as to prevent any one branch from having too much power. I understand that female councils needed to have that ability to prevent male councils from having too much power, but for it to be a check-and-balance, this ability to stop or limit the power of the other council has to go both ways too. Male councils should also have the ability to remove female leaders they don’t approve of or any other form of power that stops or limits the power of the female council. If they didn’t have that, then I don’t know how you could call it a check-and-balance. I don’t know how you could call this anything but Iroquois women dominating Iroquois men.
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If you want to see it that way, you could say that the females have a tiny bit more power, but Barbara Alice Mann says the system is egalitarian. The reason the women can reject the decision to go to war is because the effects of war fall heavily on women and children who may be raped an enslaved, among other things. The decisions made in the female council are done through a system of participatory democracy in which every voice is heard and consensus is reached before any decision can be made. It is understood and also institutionalized in practice that mothers and grandmothers will take account of the needs of all their children and the community as a whole.
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The very notion of war is patriarchal. Women are not prone to use or collect weapons, that’s what men do. Women are pretty unaware that they are marinating in a totally male construct. Think of the language even and all writings prior to about 100 years ago – all laid out by men because women were prohibited from being educated. Women are easily complicit that’s what women’s tendency is, men’s tendency is to war. By-the-way just for clarity, I speak not from malice but from truth. If I were a man I would respond by saying, “well get your own system then instead of lambasting patriarchy”. Men are quite comfortable with patriarchy of course but they would be right to say that as it is a system that suits them, a system based on competition and self-aggrandizement. These foundations though do not suit women.
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