I dreamt again last night about the topic of patriarchy and matriarchy. About a potential solution and how we can possibly move forward in a way that is beneficial to us all.
Firstly, what do we mean by matriarchy? Obviously, it’s the feminine side of life. It’s the opposite of patriarchy in that it is purported to be soft, nurturing, warm, loving. The caring side of life, I guess. We don’t really know what it would mean for society, a matriarchal society, because one has never truly existed in historical record. I’m not saying one has never existed at all, just that it happened before historic records began to be kept.
There are matrilineal societies where kinship is passed down through the maternal line. So, ancestry is maternal. Inheritance is from mother to daughter rather than father to son, family names are mother to daughter. Outside of the Basque region in Spain and Laeso in Denmark, there are no matrilineal societies in Europe. And outside of Native American communities there are none in North America nor in Australasia outside of indigenous people. So, basically, there are very few hints of a matriarchal society in the West (and the Indian subcontinent). The majority of these matrilineal societies are in Asia and Africa with many in the Native American people and indigenous populations. Another hint of matriarchy that exists is matrilocal where married couples reside with or close to the bride’s family (usually the bride had to move in with or close to her husband’s family). Again, other than the Greek islands, this does not happen in the West outside of indigenous people and Native Americans.
Even within all of this, however, it does not add up to a matriarchal society of which there have been none in recorded history.
In 2000, the Native American Indians decreed that in the last three thousand years, Mother Earth has been a “man’s world” and that life is “out of balance”. The word that they use for this is “koyanisqatsi”. They made four major observations on the state of the world: that for the last three thousand years the male ego has run unchecked, that we have had far too many testosterone fuelled wars, that there has been a plethora of misogynistic societies, and that homo sapiens have shown a huge disrespect for Mother Earth. All of which I have been saying in my previous two blogs and which I have said in my trilogy (though not as explicitly). Unfortunately, 26 years later on and nothing has changed.
The present place of women in society is a relatively new one considering the length of time we have been on earth. There is good evidence that if we go back to pre-history civilisation Mother Earth was indeed worshipped as a powerful worker of miracles. In the absence of historical literature and records, we must look to art to see how women were represented, and the Venus of Willendorf is a fine example of how women were portrayed and considered. The Venus of Willendorf was found 30 metres above the Danube in Austria. Dating back some 30,000 years, she is just 12cm tall yet depicts the female goddess as a position of authority. Men realised at that time that you only had to give this Goddess a seed and she could produce the miracle of a baby. The Goddess Earth Mother was a figure feared and revered in the ancient world, and so society at that time understandably was often matriarchal.
The ancient, prehistoric, civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Anatolia appear also to have been matrilineal, as well as matriarchal. The natural state, however, was gradually destroyed as men established the unnatural condition of patriarchy, by subjugating women. What changed? The introduction of monotheism and the making of that single God as a man from the first monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism to Islam and everything in between. Anything that deviated from this script was ruled heresy and crushed over the following milennia. Fundamentally, this is what pushed women out and led to the rise of patriarchy, the men who adopted and pursued these structured, single God religions. Religion fundamentally changed the balance of power. Look at how the Christian religion wrote out, and denigrated, women such as Mary Magdalene. Look at how women are depicted from the moment these religions started to take hold. They go from being equal to being submissive. From being goddess to wife, lesser than the powerful man by her side. The tempter of man, the reason the world fell into sin. The mother is venerated but this miracle of birth no longer marks her out as special except when she gives birth to the Messiah.
There has been, therefore, a three thousand year experiment in the patriarchy and it is, essentially, failing.
So, from what we know of prehistory, what does a matriarchal society look like? Well, it looks like a society where women are venerated and seen as the life-givers that we are. Where there is a sense of equality, where men and women are seen alongside each other and treated as such. Where there is less of a focus on ego and greed, basically. However, those societies it could be argued did not flourish in the same way as the patriarchal one did. It did not move forward at the rate the patriarchal one did. Had we stayed with the matriarchal society, would we have progressed as far as we have? Assuming where we are today is progress? We cannot argue simply that everything to do with the patriarchy is bad and everything to do with the matriarchy is good, that is simply not true. There are pros and cons to both as there always are in life.
The answer is balance. A balance between the patriarchy and the matriarchy which is what my dream last night was about. I dreamt about the four colour personality test, in essence. I remember taking it many years ago at work where I came out very strongly as Red/Yellow with barely any Blue/Green in me. I am probably still very similar today but I do think motherhood, illness and maturity has tempered the Red/Yellow and introduced some Blue/Green. In this scenario, Red/Yellow is probably the patriarchy and Blue/Green the matriarchy. The ‘perfect’ outcome is probably a balance of all four colours. Is that possible? Unlikely. But there is the potential for there to be more balance between the colours than there is currently. For there to be a (lot) less patriarchy and a (lot) more matriarchy. In tarot, this would be the Temperance card which is also patience. The Temperance card perfectly balances the Divine Masculine with the Divine Feminine and keeps the flow even between the two. It is also the fundamental premise of my trilogy – creating the balance between light and dark. Both are needed, but in balance.
So, this is my conclusion to a little mini-series inspired by my dreams. That we need the balance of the matriarchy and the patriarchy, between the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine. True equality. An understanding that we are all equal, all the same, all connected – including with nature. What does this look like and how do we get there? I don’t know. But surely we owe it to nature and Earth to find out.
Louisa Simpson 