Patriarchy is a social system in which the father or eldest male is head of the household, having authority over women and children. Patriarchy also refers to a system of government by males, and to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems. It may also include title being traced through the male line.[1]
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The term patriarch means the father or chief of a clan. It is also used in Christianity as an official title, and derives from the Greek patriárchēs (πατριάρχης) via the Latin patriarcha. [2]
“Names of Christian dignitaries were in early days taken sometimes from civil life (episkopos, diakonos), sometimes borrowed from the Jews (presbyteros). The name patriarch is one of the latter class. Bishops of special dignity were called patriarchs just as deacons were called levites, because their place corresponded by analogy to those in the Old Law. All such titles became official titles, only gradually. At first they were used loosely as names of honour without any strict connotation; but in all such cases the reality existed before any special name was used.”[2]
A patriarch is one of the scriptural fathers of the Hebrew people, a man who is father or founder, or a man who is head of a patriarchy. The official title of Patriarch refers to any of the ancient or Eastern Orthodox Sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, or of the ancient and Western Sees of Rome with authority over other bishops. It also refers to the head of any of various eastern churches or a Roman Catholic bishop. Finally, it could refer to a Mormon of the Melchizedek priesthood.[3]
A patriarchate is the jurisdiction of a patriarch.[4]
Within feminist theory, patriarchy refers to the structure of modern cultural and political systems, which are ruled by men. Such systems are said to be detrimental to the rights of women. However, it has been noted that patriarchal systems of government do not benefit all men of all classes.[5]
While the term patriarchy generally refers to institutions, the term is sometimes used less effectively in describing societal attitudes. It has been argued, "institutions are very persistent and may last, with little change, into a period in which attitudes have altered considerably since the institutions were devised." Gordon Rattray Taylor used the words "patrist" and "matrist" to describe attitudes (as opposed to institutions), and noted that the outlook of the dominant social group seems to swing between the two extremes. However, the patrist assertion that the patriarchal system of authority was the original and universal system of social organization, invariably leads to the establishment of corresponding institutions.[6]
In the 3rd Century BCE, Aristotle taught that the city-state developed out of the patriarchal family, although he thought the two were different in kind as well as in scale.[7] He wrote that the highest form of human community is the political community. In the Politics, Aristotle attempts to illustrate the nature of the hierarchies that exist in the political community and its subordinate communities. He argues for an origin of male rule. In Chapter Thirteen he states that men and women have different kinds of virtue, “just as those who are natural subjects differ (from those who rule by nature.)” Other types of community, such as the household, are subordinate and inferior to the polis. Aristotle proposed that the household is subordinate to the political community because the aim of life in the household is the mere preservation of life, or the satisfaction of life's daily needs, whereas the aim of membership in the political community is to live well. He also proposed that the household is inferior to the political community in the character of its rule. In the household, the man rules by virtue of his age and sex, monarchically at best and tyrannically at worst, while in the polis, citizens choose their rulers on the basis of merit.[8]
Both Plato and Aristotle seem to have followed the lead of Socrates, who denied that citizens had the basic virtue necessary to nurture a good society and equated virtue with knowledge unattainable by ordinary people. During Athens’ struggle with undemocratic Sparta, Socrates favored Sparta.[9]
Plato never mentioned Socrates’ sedition against Athens, but the cosmology of the Timaeus includes the idea that a man who lives well will live a happy and congenial life on his consort star. Failing this, his second birth will be as a woman.(41E-42D, on Creation of Souls)[10][11]
Other ancient societies contemporary with Aristotle, as well as many Athenians, did not share these views of women, family organization, or political and economic structure.[12] Egypt left no philosophical record, but Herodotus left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens. He observed that they attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt a middle-class woman might sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents. Greek influence spread, however, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle.[13] Eventually, when Alexander wanted to unite his two empires in equality, Aristotle was adamant that all non-Greeks should be enslaved.[14]
About 200 B.C. the Jewish Philosopher Aristobulus of Paneas claimed that Jewish revelation and Aristotelian philosophy were identical. Before another 200 years had passed it was said that Aristotle derived his doctrine directly from Judaism. In the 12th Century, Aristotlianism was harmonized with Judaism by the Tallmudist, philosopher and astronomer, Maimonides.[15] Subsequent rabbinical thought includes such pronouncements as "Eve was not created simultaneously with Adam because God foreknew that later she would be a source of complaint. (Gen. R. xvii), and "Nine curses together with death befell Eve in consequence of her disobedience" (Pirke R. El. Xiv.; Ab. R. N. ii. 42).[15] While Maimonides dared to contradict Aristotle's ideas in matters of faith, it wasn't long before the Islamic philosopher Averroes, endorsed them without reserve.[15]
For the last 1800 years Christian leaders have placed great emphasis on the creation of Eve, believing that the story was historical fact, rather than androcentric myth. Combined with the account of the Fall in Genesis, Chapter 3, it has been used as evidence of insurmountable character defects, not just for Eve but for all women. In the 2nd Century Tertullian, the son of a centurion, and a pagan until middle life, told women believers, "Do you not know that you are Eve?...Because of the death which you brought upon us, even the Son of God had to die" (De cultu feminarum, libri duo I, 1).
In the 4th Century, the basic attitude was one of puzzlement over the seemingly incongruous fact of woman's existence. Augustine of Hippo said he could not see how a woman could be any help for a man if the work of childbearing is excluded. However, it was only with Thomas Acquinas in the 13th Century that Aristotle's teachings emerged in the official teachings of Roman Catholicism. Aristotle's assertion that women are misbegotten males can be found in the Summa Theologica, I, 92 I ad 1. The influence of combining Aristotle's theory with biblical interpretations can't be overestimated.[16]
In about 1404 Christine de Pizan wrote "Le livre de la cite des dames", a systematic feminist treatise arguing against the misogyny in classical works and the Christian Canon. After the advent of printing the discourse became known as "the querelle des femmes" and continued for the next 400 years.[17]
From the time of Martin Luther, Protestantism regularly used the commandment in Exodus 20:12 to justify the duties owed to all superiors. ‘Honor thy father,’ became a euphemism for the duty to obey the king. But it was primarily as a secular doctrine that Aristotle’s appeal took on political meaning. Although many 16th and 17th Century theorists agreed with Aristotle’s views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. The patriarchal political theory is associated primarily with Sir Robert Filmer. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled Patriarcha. However, it was not published until after his death. In it, he defended the divine right of kings as having title inherited from Adam, the first man of the human race, according to Judeo-Christian tradition.[18]
In 1688 John Locke, called Filmer’s all-powerful prince “…this strange kind of domineering phantom called the ‘fatherhood’ which, whoever could catch, presently got empire and unlimited, absolute power.” Locke asserted that if ‘honor thy father’, places everyone in subjection to political authority, then it couldn’t mean the duty owed to natural fathers, since they are subjects. By Filmer’s doctrine, fathers have no power since power belongs solely to the prince. Locke also observed that those who propose political rights based on this commandment invariably omit the word ‘mother’. (His editor, however, made a note of Locke’s inconsistency in attributing natural law to the governance of relations between a father and his children, while stating that the law governing relations between a man and his wife is based on legality, or on Eve’s punishment after the Fall).[7]
Aristotle’s view, by Locke’s time elevated to an anthropological doctrine, was not weakened by this argument, and subsequent writers continued to give credence to Filmer’s views.[18]
In the 19th Century, Sarah Grimke dared to question the divine origin of the scriptures. Later, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Grimke’s criticism of biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published The Woman's Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by Feminist theory, which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition.[19]
In Europe, from about 1770, the rationalist Enlightenment and the desire for mystery had brought about a resurgence of a synthesis of Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism and Cabbalistic theosophy.(see, Hermetic Qabalah) This particular version arose first in the utilitarian and industrial countries of America and England, with the theosophy of Madame Helena Blavatsky. This had a profound impact in Germany where it fit into the Libensreform movement. It is likely that Adolf Hitler was influenced by Blavatsky through the writings of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels.[20]
List sought a chauvinist mystique for the defense of Germandom against the liberal, socialist and Jewish political forces in the late Wilhelmian Era. His blueprint involved ruthless subjection of non-Aryans in a hierarchical state; qualification of candidates for education or positions in public service, as well as in professions and commerce, based on racial purity. All non-Aryans were to be slaves. His political principles included racial and marital laws, and a patriarchal society where only male heads had full majority and where only Ario-Germans had freedom and citizenship. Each family was to have a genealogical record, proving Aryan lineage. He proposed a new feudalism where only the first-born inherits. These ideas were published as early as 1911 and were similar to the Nuremberg laws of 1935.[20]
Darwinist writers, who wrote of blond, blue-eyed Aryans, were influential in the writings of von Liebenfels. Von Liebenfels had illiberal, pan-German and monarchical sentiments. He believed the lower classes were inferior races and must be exterminated along with the weak. Socialism, democracy and feminism were his most important targets. Women were a special problem, in his view because they were more prone to bestial lust. He advocated brood mothers in eugenic convents, sterilization and other practices that later influenced the Third Reich, apparent in Himmler’s anticipation of polygamy for his Schutzstaffel (SS), care of unmarried mothers in SS homes, and musings on the education and marriage of chosen women.[20]
By 1673, François Poullain de la Barre, "On the Equality of the Two Sexes", had turned feminism into a systematic Enlightenment philosophy (as opposed to the previous Renaissance feminism).[17] However, in 1861, Johann Jakob Bachofen, a German romantic and writer of the counter-Enlightenment said that matriarchy preceded patriarchy, and is superior to patriarchy on moral grounds. Bachofen influenced Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Marxist analysis has been a basis for subsequent feminist thought.[21] From the beginning, socialist feminists in France, for example, were challenged by the republic, which "oppressed them as workers and women; by Marxism, which ignores gender; and by the misogyny of their socialist brothers. This struggle continues within all parties of the left."[17]
Some 19th-century scholars formulated a unilinear theory of cultural evolution.[22] One hypothesis suggested that human societies evolve through a series of stages: sexual promiscuity was followed by matriarchy, which was in turn followed by patriarchy. This description was later refuted by most experts studying the subject.[22]
Sociobiologist Steven Goldberg wrote in 1973, "The ethnographic studies of every society that has ever been observed explicitly state that these feelings (feelings of both men and women that the male’s will dominates the female’s) were present, there is literally no variation at all." [23] Goldberg had critics among anthropologists. Concerning Goldberg's claims about the "feelings of both men and women" Eleanor Leacock countered that the data on women’s attitudes are “sparse and contradictory,” and that the data on male attitudes about male-female relations are “ambiguous.” Also the effects of colonialism on the cultures represented in the studies were not considered. [24]
Most sociologists reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that social and cultural conditioning is primarily responsible for establishing male and female gender roles.[25][26] According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.[25] These constructions are most pronounced in societies with traditional cultures and less economic development.[27] Even in modern developed societies, however, gender messages conveyed by family, mass media, and other institutions largely favor males having a dominant status.[26]
There is considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies. Although there are no known examples of strictly matriarchal cultures,[28] there are a number of societies that have been shown to be matrilinear or matrilocal and gynocentric, especially among indigenous tribal groups.[29] Some hunter-gatherer groups have been characterized as largely egalitarian.[30]
In simple societies, which match evolutionary conditions, women are not occupied solely with caring for children and they contribute about 44% of the food. In one study, one third of the societies studied were egalitarian. The men were not warlike or controlling of women and many other adaptive behaviors evolutionary psychologists would expect were not present.[31]
In the case of mate selection, a core area of evolutionary psychology, it has been shown that choices can be influenced by the observed choices of others. In fact, it is thought that in some cases, cultural evolution may change “the extent to which biological evolutionary accounts work at all.” [32]
A third study suggests that egalitarianism is a matter of degree. Susan Kent found that egalitarianism “is a continuum, not an absolute entity; societies are only more or less egalitarian.” Recent studies show that divisions of work, wealth and political power produce “inegalitarian” social structures.[33]
In the 1970s, mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote in “The Power of Myth”, that the Hebrews were part of an invading force consisting of Indo-Europeans and Semites who drove out the goddess sacred to the Canaanite people. Campbell said these goddess-worshipping people were agricultural, whereas the Semites and Indo-Europeans were herding/hunting peoples and natural killers. He lauded the Greeks for the fact that Zeus was married to a goddess, giving them credit for the tradition of the virgin birth. (see, virgin birth (mythology) and condemning the Hebrews for having no comparable mythology. He observed that the Hebrews referred to the Canaanite goddess as the abomination.[34]
However, archaeological evidence has shown that when the Hebrews began to settle in Palestine, there was already extreme economic stratification under an Egyptian administration. It is likely the Hebrews belonged to marginal units consisting of permanent peoples and nomads with distinct values and principles. “One of the cultural traits of the rulers of Palestine in the Middle Urban age is their custom of burying the dead with their horses and donkeys. The best examples in Palestine of the custom were found by Sir Flinders Petrie at Tell el-Ajjul, “the tell of the chariots,” near Gaza.” This represents Hyksos and not Hebrew influence, as the Hebrews did not bury humans with animals.
When the Hyksos rule ended in Phoenicia about 1600 BC, it brought no changes to the social and political structure of Palestine. Canaanite divinities were “ruthless, atrocious and fearful”. There was human sacrifice, sacred prostitution, and serpent worship. Totalitarianism virtually enslaved the majority of the population, and so the nobility lived in fortified cities. Archaeologist Emmanuel Anati found a lack of creativity and individuality in the art and material culture in this period and attributed this to the hardships of the feudal system and the brutal religion.[35]
Many of the Hebrew tribes were not able to continue their nomadic lifestyle in Canaan because there were too many other tribes already occupying the land, so they lived in close proximity to the Phoenician cities. Taking up agriculture was not always viewed as an advance for nomadic people. Aryans value agriculture but the Semites do not. Even after settling down, the Hebrews retained their nomadic sensibilities. Evidence for this is the Hebrew belief that Cain sinned by forcing the ground. Cain, a red and hairy man, was part of a solar myth. City-building and agriculture are the domain of solar figures. Solar figures are typically male.
In the wake of Masters and Johnson's pioneering research on female orgasm, a new theory of patriarchy emerged. Mary Jane Sherfey, suggested that the "ungovernable cyclic sexual drive of women" had to be forcefully suppressed by social codes in order for settled agrarian societies, comprised of stable biological families. [36]