[P2P-F] Fwd: Matriarchal Studies

Sat Aug 16 17:49:22 CEST 2014

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 5:54 PM
Subject: Matriarchal Studies
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>

http://www.hagia.de/en/matriarchy.html

http://www.hagia.de/en/matriarchy/matriarchal-studies.html

Matriarchy

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women ruling over
men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are
mother-centered societies, they are based on *maternal values:*
care-taking, nurturing, motherliness, which holds for everybody: for
mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike.

Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon these maternal values and
motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than
patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented. Their precepts aim to
meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies,
mothering – which originates as a biological fact – is transformed
into a *cultural
model.* This model is much more appropriate to the human condition than the
way patriarchies conceptualise motherhood and use it to make women, and
especially mothers, into slaves.

The deep structure of “matriarchal society” (a structural definition):

 With matriarchal cultures, equality means more than just a levelling of
differences. Natural differences between the genders and the generations
are respected and honoured, but they never serve to create hierarchies, as
is common in patriarchy. The different genders and generations have their
own dignity, and through complementary areas of activity, they function in
concert one other. More precisely, matriarchies are societies with
complementary equality, where great care is taken to provide a balance.
This applies to the balance between genders, among generations, and between
humans and nature. Maternal values as ethical principles pervade all areas
of a matriarchal society. It creates an attitude of care-taking, nurturing,
and peacemaking.

This can be observed on all levels of society: the economic level, the
social level, the political level and the areas of their worldviews and
faiths.

* At the social level,* matriarchal societies are based on the clan, and on
the “symbolic order of the mother”. This also means maternal values as
spiritual principles, one that humans take from nature. Mother Nature cares
for all beings, however different they may be. The same applies to
motherliness: a good mother cares for all her children, embracing their
diversity.

This holds true for men as well. If a man in a matriarchal society desires
to acquire status among his peers, or even become a representative of the
clan to the outside word, then he must be like a “good mother”.

But in matriarchies, you don’t have to be a biological mother in order to
be acknowledged as a woman, because matriarchies practice the common
motherhood of a group of sisters. Each individual sister does not
necessarily have to have children, but together they are all “mothers” of
any children that any of them have. This motherhood is founded on the
freedom of women to decide on their own about whether or not to have
biological children.

This is possible because matriarchal people live together in large kinship
groups, formed according to the principle of *matrilineality*. The clan’s
name, and all social status and political titles, are passed on through the
mother’s line. Such a matri-clan consists of at least three generations of
women, along with their brothers, nephews and maternal uncles. In classic
cases, the matri-clan lives in one big clan-house. This is called
*matrilocality.
*Their spouses or lovers stay only over-night, in a pattern called
“visiting-marriage”. These principles of matrilineality and matrilocality
put mothers at the center; in this way women guide their clans without
ruling.

In order to achieve social cohesion among the clans of a village or city,
complex marriage conventions have been developed that link them in mutually
beneficial ways. The intended effect is that all inhabitants of a village
or city are related to each other by birth or by marriage. This shapes a
society that sees itself as a big clan, where everybody is “mother” or
“sister” or “brother” to everybody else. Thus matriarchies can be defined
at the social level as  *non-hierarchical, horizontal societies of
matrilineal kinship.*

This social order based on motherhood includes far reaching consequences
for the *economical level: *Matriarchal economy is a subsistence economy.
There is no such thing as private property, and there are no territorial
claims. The people simply have usage rights on the soil they till, or the
pastures their animals graze, for Mother Earth can not be owned or cut up
in pieces. She gives the fruits of the fields and the young animals to all
people. Parcels of land and a certain number of animals are given to each
matri-clan, and are worked on communally.

Most importantly, women have the power of disposition over goods and clan
houses, and especially over the sources of nourishment: fields, flocks and
food. All the goods are put in the hands of the clan mother, the matriarch,
and she, mother of all the clan members, distributes them equally among her
children and grand-children. She is responsible for the sustenance and
protection of all clan members.

In a matriarchal community, the clans enjoy perfect mutuality: every
relative advantage, or disadvantage, in terms of acquiring goods is
mediated by social guidelines. For example, at the seasonal festivals of
the agricultural year, clans that are comparatively better off will invite
all the inhabitants to be their guests. The members of such a clan organize
the banquet, the rituals, and the music and dances of one of the annual
festivals – and then give away their goods as a gift to all their
neighbours. By doing this, they gain nothing except honor. At the next
festival in the cycle, another lucky clan will step up, outdoing itself by
inviting everybody in the village or neighbourhood, entertaining them all,
and dispensing presents.

Since this is the general attitude, matriarchal economy can be called a
“gift economy”.  It is the economic manifestation of maternal values, which
prevents development of an exchange economy and instead fully achieves a
gift economy. Due to these features, matriarchies can be defined at the
economical level as *societies of balanced economic reciprocity, based on
the circulation of gifts.*

   The patterns of* the political level* follow the principle of consensus,
which means *unanimity* regarding each decision. To manifest a principle
like this in practice, a society must be specifically organized to do so,
and matrilinear kinship lines are, once again, the starting point.

The basis of each decision-making is the individual clan house. Matters
that concern the clan house are decided upon by the women and men in a
consensus process, of which the matriarch is the facilitator. Each person
has only one vote – even the matriarch – and no member of the household is
excluded.

The same applies to decisions concerning the whole village. The clan
delegates meet together in the village council, but do not make decisions
themselves; they simply communicate the decisions that have been made in
their clan houses, and move back and forth, until a consensus decision is
reached by the whole village. The same applies at the regional level. The
delegates move between the local council and the regional council until
consensus of all the villages is reached.

The origin of all politics is in the clan houses, where the people live,
and in this way, a true “grass roots democracy” is put into practice. The
result of these practices is that matriarchies are *egalitarian societies
of consensus.* This clearly shows how maternal values also permeate
political practice.

But such a societal system as matriarchy could not function as a whole
without a deep, supporting and all-permeating spiritual attitude. *At the
spiritual and cultural level, *matriarchal societies do not have hierarchic
religions based on an omnipotent male God. In matriarchies, divinity is
immanent*,* for the whole world is regarded as divine: as feminine divine.
This is evident in the widely held concept of the universe as the Great
Goddess who brought forth everything by birth, and of the earth as the
Great Mother who created everything living. And everyone, and everything,
is endowed with divinity by virtue of being a child of the Great Mother
Nature.

In such a culture, everything is spiritual. In their festivals, which
follow the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of life, everything is
celebrated. There is no separation between sacred and secular, so the
everyday tasks also have ritual significance. In this sense matriarchal
societies are sacred ones.

The entire societies are constructed in the image of the creative Mother
Nature. This divine mother is reflected in every woman’s being, and in her
abilities to create. Every social, economic and political action is
informed by the principle of the world’s – and the universe’s –
all-encompassing maternal attitude.

Therefore, on the spiritual level, matriarchies are *sacred societies and
cultures of the Divine Feminine or Goddess.*