Matriarchal Societies

[Athena]

Matriarchy is tied to the subject of rape, because rape is tied to personal power or lack of it. Sites objecting to the treatment of males charged with rape, warn the US is becoming a matriarchy, which I find very funny, but in some areas of our lives females have gained power and males have lost power.

 

A matriarchy is a female dominated society, and a patriarchy is male dominated. Can you imagine how the reaction to rape might be different if a society that is female verses male dominated? For sure the warning that the US is becoming a matriarchy, is an expressed concern about males loosing power. I remember when my daughter was in high school and I was asked to sign a paper giving my daughter permission to attend a sex ed class. I asked the male teacher how he addressed the subject of condoms, and he laughed and said, "we all know that is for the girls protection". I refused to signed the permission form because I did not like his attitude. Preventing pregnancy is not just about protecting the girl , but not that long ago, males could seduce large numbers of young females, leaving them pregnant and walk away with no responsibility, never having to pay child support or comfort and sick child, or in any way contribute to the rearing of the child. My oldest granddaughter is one of these children, and there is much pain and suffering in the wake of such of irresponsibility, especially in our culture where we put much importance on having a father and mother. This practice of not holding males responsible for children, did not change until females gained greater political power.

 

Now we seem to be going to the other extreme of being too harsh on males, which is a subject of another thread, but I want to make it clear that we have been a patriarchy, worshiping a Father in heaven, holding the man as the of household, and holding the female in the position of slaves to men, denying them even the right to the own clothes in some places, and many places having laws making it legal to hit wives to make them obey, and limits on how badly she can be hit. I am providing a link that describes a matriarchy so we can aware of how different things can be.

 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mosuo-One-of-the-Last-Matriarchal-Societies-36321.shtml

[Ringer]

We talked about the culture from your link in my human sexuality class. From what my professor said, I haven't personally looked into it, it is much like how Margaret Mead said there was no rape or any thing akin to our gender roles in the societies she studied. Meaning there is rape, divorces, murder, etc. The people inside the society usually just hide it or the people reporting on it are falsifying. Think about the middle eastern country that doesn't have any gay people. Again I may be wrong that is just how my prof presented the story of that place.

[Athena]

We talked about the culture from your link in my human sexuality class. From what my professor said, I haven't personally looked into it, it is much like how Margaret Mead said there was no rape or any thing akin to our gender roles in the societies she studied. Meaning there is rape, divorces, murder, etc. The people inside the society usually just hide it or the people reporting on it are falsifying. Think about the middle eastern country that doesn't have any gay people. Again I may be wrong that is just how my prof presented the story of that place.

 

There can not be divorce if there is not marriage. In patriarchies, married women have been like property. The culture of the link didn't have marriages, and property went from the mother to her children. The important male in the children's lives was the mothers brother. What kind of difference do you think this might make?

 

Did you sexuality class talk about bonobo, where there is no rape because the females stay together and defend each other. On the other hand, these primates also do a lot of touching to comfort each other, and some of associated this touching with being sexual. Is all touching sexual? Where might we draw a line between sexual touching and non sexual touching? Might our Puritan back ground, have an influence on our touching? How might a society with a lot of touching, be different from one with very restricted touching?

[Ringer]

Yes we did talk about bonobos, but we are not bonobos. There are very few species that rape of a female from almost all males are not at least attempted to be stopped. Chimp societies the males protect the females from rape if there are others around. The only primates that I can think of that rape happens fairly consistently without other primates within the group attempting to stop it is orangutans, and that's probably because they don't really for 'societal' groupings.

 

The marriage thing is not all that unbelievable. Just because they don't have the christian ideologies of what we think of as marriage doesn't mean it's amazing, it is much like what teenagers and non-religious people in the western world do. So they don't force couples to have a long term, the Mosuos aren't the only tribe or society that practice walking marriages. So there's not divorce because there is no marriage but my point was this society is most likely not as ideologically pure as most people like to make them out to be.

[CharonY]

Well, the system the Mosuo set up is interesting in many aspects. The fact that non of the genders actually are "destined" to leave the household apparently reduces unequal treatment. A girls can be deemed less worth in many cultures, because they are lost to the family and do not continue to carry on the family name. While societies have changed in recent times, these believes are much harder to change.

 

In walking marriages of course there is no binding obligation for any of the partners to maintain the relationship, especially since the child unequivocally belongs to the mother's family. One should note that rape still occurs in the Mosuo society, (which is punishable by death IIRC) however I have no idea how high the rate is.

[swansont]

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Moderator Note

Posts on girls (supposedly) being treated preferentially have been moved to an existing thread on the topic. Keep that discussion there, please.
http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/58611-are-girls-really-treated-preferentially/