The concept of matriarchy

Андрей Тихомиров

The concept of matriarchy

The concept of matriarchy

Matriarchy (from the Latin word mater – mother and the Greek word αρχή – beginning, power) is an early period in the history of the primitive communal system, characterized by the equal and then predominant position of women in the economy and society. The term "matriarchy" also refers to the social system of the early period of the primitive communal system.

All the peoples of the globe have passed the stage of matriarchy, coming immediately after the epoch of the primitive herd and dating archaeologically to the late Paleolithic.

The matriarchy has a huge archaeological extent from the late Paleolithic to the developed Neolithic. The Paleolithic (ancient Stone Age) lasted from the emergence of man (about 1 million years ago) until about the 10th millennium BC. The period of existence of fossil man, who used chipped stone, wooden and bone tools, engaged in hunting and gathering, learned to use fire. The Neolithic (New Stone Age) lasted from the 10th to the 3rd millennium BC. The period of transition from the appropriating economy (hunting, fishing, gathering) to the producing one (agriculture, cattle breeding).

Matriarchy is characterized by the multifaceted development of productive forces. The economy is developing along the lines of hunting, fishing, hoe farming and breeding of domestic animals. The basis of industrial relations is public ownership of the means of production.

Early matriarchy and advanced matriarchy should be distinguished. The first corresponds archaeologically to the Late Paleolithic and Early Neolithic. This stage was occupied in the recent past by the indigenous population of Australia and some parts of Africa and South America. In the field of economy, the early matriarchy is characterized by gathering, hunting, primitive fishing; at the same time, gathering is a female branch of labor, hunting is a male one, both sexes are engaged in fishing. This period is characterized by the equal position of women and men, which follows from their approximately equal share in the economy. The main social unit is the maternal gens, connected with another gens through dual exogamy (mandatory marriage only between members of these two gens). There is no consolidated tribe. The account of kinship is maintained on the maternal side. Group marriage is preserved, which turns into a more developed form – a pair marriage, as well as a separate (dislocal) settlement of the spouses, which is replaced by their settlement in the generic group of the wife (matrilocal).

Group marriage is the oldest form of marriage that arises during the transformation of a primitive herd into a tribal community at the boundary between the Lower and Upper Paleolithic as the first form of ordering of marital relations. In this type of marriage, the tribe was divided into 2 groups ("marriage classes"); each man of one group could be the spouse of each woman of another group, marriage between members of the same group was prohibited. In fact, a group marriage was a marital cohabitation of a couple of spouses, which was more or less permanent, but easily dissolved and accompanied by temporary marital ties. This marriage gave rise to a group, or classification, kinship, in which kinship relations extended to groups of relatives (a person called father not only his real father, but also all men who were in the father's marriage group; accordingly, all women who were in the mother's marriage group were "mothers" for him; all members o