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For other uses, see Patriarchy (disambiguation).
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Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and is dependent on female subordination.

Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, and economic organization of a range of different cultures. Patriarchy also has a strong influence on modern civilization, although many cultures have moved towards a more egalitarian social system over the past century.[1]

Definition and usage

Patriarchy literally means "rule of fathers",[2][3] from πατριάρχης (patriarkhēs), "father" or "chief of a race, patriarch".[4][5] Historically, the term patriarchy was used to refer to autocratic rule by the male head of a family. However, in modern times, it more generally refers to social systems in which power is primarily held by adult men.[6][7][8][9]

History

Anthropological and historical evidence indicates that most prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were generally relatively egalitarian, and that patriarchal social structures did not develop until many years after the end of the Pleistocene era, following social and technological innovations such as agriculture and domestication.[10][11] However, according to Robert M. Strozier, historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event" of the origin of patriarchy.[12] Some scholars point to about six thousand years ago (4000 BCE), when the concept of fatherhood took root, as the beginning of the spread of patriarchy.[13][14]

Domination by men of women is found in the Ancient Near East as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history".[12] With the appearance of the Hebrews, there is also "the exclusion of woman from the God-humanity covenant".[12][15] However, see Jesus and women.

The works of Aristotle viewed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous.[16][17][18]

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 Egyptian women 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.[19]

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.[20][unreliable source?]

In the 19th Century, various women began to question to commonly accepted patriarchal interpretation of Christian scripture. One of the foremost of these was Sarah Grimké, who voiced skepticism about the ability of men to translate and interpret passages relating to the roles of the sexes without bias. She proposed alternative translations and interpretations of passages relating to women, and she applied historical and cultural criticism to a number of verses, arguing that their admonitions applied to specific historical situations, and were not to be viewed as universal commands.[21] Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Grimké’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.[22]

Feminist theory

Most forms of feminism characterize patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. As feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman writes, "The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection."[23] In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.[24]

Biological vs. social theories

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]

Some sociobiologists, such as Steven Goldberg, argue that social behavior is primarily determined by genetics, and thus that patriarchy arises more as a result of inherent biology than social conditioning. Goldberg also contends that patriarchy is a universal feature of human culture. In 1973, Goldberg wrote, "The ethnographic studies of every society that has ever been observed explicitly state that these feelings were present, there is literally no variation at all."[28] Goldberg has 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.[29]

There is considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies. Although there are no known examples of strictly matriarchal cultures,[30] there are a number of societies that have been shown to be matrilinear or matrilocal and gynocentric, especially among indigenous tribal groups.[31] Some hunter-gatherer groups have been characterized as largely egalitarian.[32]

See also

References

  1. ^ MacMillan Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender p. 1104.
  2. ^ Ferguson, Kathy E. (1999). "Patriarchy". In Tierney, Helen (ed.). Women's studies encyclopedia, Volume 2. Greenwood Publishing. p. 1048. ISBN 9780313310720.
  3. ^ Green, Fiona Joy (2010). "Patriarchal Ideology of Motherhood". In O'Reilly, Andrea (ed.). Encyclopedia of Motherhood, Volume 1. SAGE. p. 969. ISBN 9781412968461.
  4. ^ πατριάρχης, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  5. ^ patriarchy, on Oxford Dictionaries
  6. ^ Meagher, Michelle (2011). "patriarchy". The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 441–442. ISBN 9781405183536. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Giddens, Anthony & Griffiths, Simon (2006). Sociology (5th ed.). Polity. p. 473. ISBN 9780745633794.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Gordon, April A. (1996). Transforming capitalism and patriarchy: gender and development in Africa. Lynne Reiner. p. 18. ISBN 9781555876296.
  9. ^ "Patriarchy". Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography: K-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2005. p. 453. ISBN 9780313327391. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Hughes, Sarah Shaver & Hughes Brady (2001). "Women in Ancient Civilizations". In Adas, Michael (ed.). Agricultural and pastoral societies in ancient and classical history. Temple University Press. pp. 118–119. ISBN 9781566398329.
  11. ^ Eagly, Alice H. & Wood, Wendy (June 1999). "The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behavior: Evolved Dispositions Versus Social Roles". American Psychologist. 54 (6): 408–423.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ a b c Strozier, Robert M. (2002) Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity: : Historical Constructions of Subject and Self p.46
  13. ^ Kraemer, Sebastian (1991). "The Origins of Fatherhood: An Ancient Family Process". Family Process. 30 (4): 377–392. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1991.00377.x. PMID 1790784. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |work= and |journal= specified (help)
  14. ^ Ehrenberg, 1989; Harris, M. (1993) The Evolution of Human Gender Hierarchies; Leibowitz, 1983; Lerner, 1986; Sanday, 1981
  15. ^ Lerner, Gerda (1986) The Creation of Patriarchy 8-11
  16. ^ Fishbein, Harold D. (2002). Peer prejudice and discrimination: the origins of prejudice (2nd ed.). Psychology Press. p. 27. ISBN 9780805837728.
  17. ^ Dubber, Markus Dirk (2005). The police power: patriarchy and the foundations of American government. Columbia University Press. pp. 5–7. ISBN 9780231132077.
  18. ^ Bar On, Bat-Ami (1994). Engendering origins: critical feminist readings in Plato and Aristotle. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791416433.
  19. ^ Bristow, John Temple. What Paul Really Said About Women: an Apostle's liberating views on equality in marriage, leadership, and love, HarperCollins, New York, 1991.
  20. ^ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404900841.html[unreliable source?]
  21. ^ Durso, Pamela R. (2003). The Power of Woman: The Life and writings of Sarah Moore Grimké (1st ed. ed.). Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press. pp. 130–138. ISBN 978-0865548763. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); External link in |title= (help)
  22. ^ Castro, Ginette (1990). American Feminism: a contemporary history. NYU Press. -- [page needed]
  23. ^ Pateman, Carole (1988). The Sexual Contract, Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 207.
  24. ^ Tickner, Ann J. (2001). "Patriarchy". Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries P-Z. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1197–1198. ISBN 9780415243520.
  25. ^ a b Sanderson, Stephen K. (2001). The Evolution of Human Sociality. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 198. ISBN 0847695352.
  26. ^ a b Henslin, James M. (2001). Essentials of Sociology. Taylor & Francis. pp. 65–67, 240. ISBN 0536941858.
  27. ^ Macionis, John J. (2000). Sociology: A Global Introduction. Prentice Hall. p. 347. ISBN 0130407372.
  28. ^ Goldberg, Steven (1973). The inevitability of Patriarchy, William Morrow, New York.
  29. ^ Review of The inevitability of patriarchy by Steven Goldberg, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Jun., 1974), pp. 363-365, Blackwell publishing.
  30. ^ "Matriarchy". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development is now generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed.
  31. ^ Schlegel, Alice (1972). Male dominance and female autonomy: domestic authority in matrilineal societies. HRAF Press.
  32. ^ Erdal, D. & Whiten, A. (1996) "Egalitarianism and Machiavellian Intelligence in Human Evolution" in Mellars, P. & Gibson, K. (eds) Modelling the Early Human Mind. Cambridge Macdonald Monograph Series.

Further reading

  • Adeline, Helen B. Fascinating Womanhood. New York: Random House, 2007.
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003.
  • Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. (first USA edition, in translation)
  • Bornemann, Ernest. Das Patriarchat - Ursprung und Zukunft unseres Gesellschaftssystems, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991 (Original German edition 1975), ISBN 3-596-23416-6
  • Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  • Brizendine, Louann. The Female Brain. New York: Morgan Road Books, 2006.
  • Brown, Donald E. Human Universals. New York: McGraw Hill, 1991.
  • de Santillana, Giorgio & Hertha von Dechend. Hamlet's Mill: an essay investigating the origins of human knowledge and its transmission through myth. David R. Godine, publisher, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 1977. The effects of evolutionary theory on the study of culture, pp. 68–72.
  • Eisler, Riane. ' 'The Chalice and the Blade' '. Harper Collins, 1987.
  • Gimbutas, Marija. The civilization of the goddess: the world of Old Europe. Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1991.
  • Jay, Jennifer W. 'Imagining Matriarchy: "Kingdoms of Women" in Tang China'. Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996): 220-229.
  • Konner, Melvin. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. 2nd edition, revised and updated. (Owl Books, 2003). 560p. ISBN 0805072799 [first published 1982, Endnotes
  • Lepowsky, Maria. Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
  • Mead, Margaret. 'Do We Undervalue Full-Time Wives'. Redbook 122 (1963).
  • Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. Palgrave MacMillan, 1999.
  • Moir, Anne and David Jessel. Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women.
  • Ortner, Sherry Beth. 'Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In MZ Rosaldo and L Lamphere (eds). Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 67–87.
  • Ortner, Sherry Beth. 'So, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In S Ortner. Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 173–180.
  • Smith, Bonnie G. (2005). Women's history in global perspective, Volume 2. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252029974.
  • Pilcher, Jane and Imelda Wheelan. 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies. London: Sage Publications, 2004.
  • Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: A Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books, 2002.
  • Wood, Wendy and Alice H. Eagly. A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin. 128(5) (Sep. 2002):699-727.
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