matriarchal societies

The Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Who Is Jephthah’s Daughter? The Sacrifice of Women and Girls

Moderator’s Note: The was originally posted on January 20, 2014

Last week I reflected on Angela Yarber’s insightful essay and painting on Jephthah’s daughter. For those who did not read the earlier posts, the story of Jephthah’s daughter is found in the Hebrew Bible. Jephthah’s daughter was sacrificed by her father after he swore in the heat of battle that if his side won, he would sacrifice the first person he would see on returning home. Angela called us to reflect on who Jephthah’s daughter is in our time.

In my earlier midrash on the story, I invoked Daniel Cohen’s powerful retelling of the story of Iphigenia. Cohen concludes that Artemis told Agamemnon that his ships would sail only if he sacrificed his daughter not because she wanted him to do it—but because she hoped this challenge would induce him to realize that the costs of war outweigh any possible gain.

Transforming the Streets of Past into the Cities of the Future, Part II by Carolyn Lee Boyd

You can read yesterday’s part 1 here.

Modern architects and urban planners have recently been designing buildings and urban spaces promoting values reminiscent of Old Europe and other societies with similar values. These societies are often referred to as “matriarchal.” However, there is ongoing discussion among scholars about what to call them. For this post, we will use Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s lovely term “societies of peace.” To read more about these societies, modern desires to live in communities similar to these societies, and modern efforts to promote social interaction and beauty, please click here to read Part 1.

Connecting to Nature

Old Europe and other similar societies of peace frequently included well-used outdoor spaces, connecting residents to nature as they went about their daily life. Residents did weaving, baking, and other tasks in open courtyards. Public rituals were held in plazas and courtyards. Celts and those who lived in Britain before them held their religious ceremonies in groves of trees or in open spaces with standing stones or other monuments. Public art, such as frescoes in Crete, featuring plants and animals also indicates the value these societies gave to nature.

Transforming the Streets of Past into the Cities of the Future, Part I by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Modern Mixed Use Development with Buildings Facing Each Other in a Circle

Is a peaceful, just, creative, sustainable world a far-off, unattainable dream or might there be ways to begin to build such communities right in our own neighborhoods?

Archeologists and scholars like Marija Gimbutas, Heide Goettner-Abendroth, and Carol Christ have studied societies from Old Europe and elsewhere that share some common characteristics. (These societies are often referred to as “matriarchal.” However, there is ongoing discussion among scholars about how to name these societies. For these posts, I’ll use Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s beautiful term societies of peace). These qualities include prioritizing caring social relationships, art and beauty, ecological responsibility, equality, commitment to consensus decision-making, and more. Researchers often cite how buildings, city and town layout, and outdoor spaces of these societies of peace reflect these values by featuring similarly-sized residences, beautiful frescoes depicting women and men in peaceful pursuits, a lack of warlike structures, and plazas and courtyards for social, civic, and religious events, among other attributes.

Matriarchal Politics The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 3): Global Structures by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

To solve global problems, these steps from below must nevertheless be supplemented with more comprehensive structures. These are not „above,“ as there is no „above“ in this sense in matriarchal societies; they are simple more comprehensive.

National states no longer fit the bill: they are too big for humane, transparent political processes. At the same time, they are too small to solve global problems that the current patriarchy creates and leaves behind for posterity; this is especially true regarding problems related to advanced destruction of the biosphere on earth. It is no longer possible for national governments, or even regional ones, to solve these problems. They affect all of humanity, so global strategies are needed to solve them.

No more national states

Existing national governments must be dissolved in two directions: on one hand, in the direction of the autonomous regions, which are the basis for life; on the other hand, in the direction of a global structure with a purely executive status which has no state power. Such a structure could be a Global Council, which will be formed by the two halves of a Women’s Global Council and a Men’s Global Council. Today, the U.N.O. tries to form such a global council, but because of its patriarchal structure which excludes the issues of women and of many peoples, and because of the power plays of the super-powers on this level, fails to fulfill its ideals. They just continue the patriarchal status quo.

New distribution of national wealth

An initial and fundamental challenge is therefore to dissolve the financial wealth of each national state, first to the regions, and in the regions to the communities. Of course, it does not mean that the money goes to individuals or patriarchal institutions, rather it is only distributed for matriarchal communities. Exactly half of this wealth, that is 50 %, must go to women and the other half, that is 50 %, must go to the men of the communities, and not more to the men, as it is common in patriarchy. In that way, each sex can develop their respective area of the society and region. As there is already a double-occupancy of every agency in a new matriarchal society, this can be independently accomplished by each sex.

However, this money is not a paying for motherhood and women’s work – which in fact cannot be paid –, but it belongs to them as half of humanity. It is their modest share for all what women had done for free through long periods of time. This equitable division of wealth would enable women to stop begging for state aid, which for them is notoriously scanty anyway. And it should start just now for women’s communal and cultural projects!

The constant social and economic unbalance in which all of today’s national states find themselves would come to an end. The current horrendous flow of money into male projects – the military, multinational corporations, monumental prestige-buildings and ego-architecture, huge sports stadiums and events costing hundreds of millions of dollars – means that there is nothing left but pitifully small amounts for social services, as women are expected to provide these for free. It is the usual situation of exploiting women. With the equal division of financial national wealth, women would probably establish infrastructures to fulfil social needs, with the likely result that communities, healthcare, culture and education would flourish. And women would establish their own schools and universities, because their knowledge is never respected in patriarchal societies. But even men are not free to do what they want with their share of money, for the projects of women and men in the communities and regions would be agreed upon by the local and regional consensus councils, according to maternal values.

Global structures for global problems

The other direction in which the public wealth of national states should be dissolved would be the structures of the Women’s Global Council and the Men’s Global Council. An agreed-upon percentage of women’s and men’s wealth from all the regions would go to these two halves of the Global Council, conducted by delegates of both sexes. The Global Council’s assets would be used exclusively to solve the global problems of the polluted air and water and soil and the damaged life on earth, that means, to clean up the technology-caused legacy of pollution by military powers and industrial corporations.

Members of the Women’s Global Council and the Men’s Global Council are always elected delegates from each region, and are responsible to their region; they have no power to make decisions independently of their region’s determinations. They moderate and coordinate the decisions of all regions of the world in precisely the same sense that a regional or local council coordinates the decisions of the matri-clans.

With these structures, what we call a “state” dissolves, regardless of whether it is a monarchy, an autocracy, a so-called democratic national state, an empire or a super-power. The concept and image of the hierarchical “state,” no matter how constituted, have become redundant. Patriarchal history of established domination began with the formation of “states” every time. With the development of new matriarchal societies, which are free of domination, a new, humane history of cultures could begin.

Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a mother and a grandmother. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy of science at the University of Munich where she taught for ten years (1973-1983). She has published extensively on philosophy of science, in addition to various books on matriarchal society and culture, and is a founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies. Her magnum opus: Matriarchal Societies. Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe, (Lang 2012, New York) defines the topic and provides a world tour of examples of contemporary matriarchal cultures. She has been visiting professor at the University of Montreal in Canada, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. In 1986, she founded the International ACADEMY HAGIA for Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality in Germany is its director. In 2003, 2005 and 2011 she organized three World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies in Europe and the U.S.A. In 2005, she was elected by the international initiative “1000 Peace Women Across the Globe” as a nominee for the Nobel Peace.

Who Is Jephthah’s Daughter? The Sacrifice of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ

In my earli carol p. christ 2002 color er midrash on the story, I invoked Daniel Cohen’s powerful retelling of the story of Iphigenia. Cohen concludes that Artemis told Agamemnon that his ships would sail only if he sacrificed his daughter not because she wanted him to do it—but because she hoped this challenge would induce him to realize that the costs of war outweigh any possible gain.

I suggested that these words be spoken whenever the story of Jephthah’s daughter is told: Continue reading “Who Is Jephthah’s Daughter? The Sacrifice of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ”

Matriarchal Societies of Peace Make Sound Social Policy by Carolyn Lee Boyd

carolyn portrait

The true measure of a society’s success should be the well being of those who live in it. Are they healthy and happy? Do they have their basic needs met? Are they free from the fear of violence? While the matriarchal “Societies of Peace,” as described the book of the same title edited by Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, represent many differing eras and places and each is unique, in general they succeed in creating such lives for those who live or lived in them. Carol Christ recently explained what characterizes these matriarchal societies:

Matriarchal societies have 4 characteristics in common:
1) They 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.

Continue reading “Matriarchal Societies of Peace Make Sound Social Policy by Carolyn Lee Boyd”