[P2P-F] Fwd: Matriarchal Studies

Sat Aug 16 19:22:11 CEST 2014

Thank you SO much for this Michel and especially Dante, who found this and shared this piece! As I truly believe this is an essential and critical discussion for any true transformation of a so deeply and aggressively imbalanced patriarchal society and world, and that the necessary emotional intelligence critical to getting back to any true "balance" or human and planet sustainability, has been broken and deeply damaged by that very left-brain, overly rationalized focus that obscures these issues.  And is so deeply reinforced by our educational system, which deepens this very imbalance.

It's just a great piece, Dante but the key -- and I have found this to be the hardest for those trained well in cognitive displacement of inner heart "knowing" -- is to actually understand this emotionally, not just cognitively.  That's when actual human relationships are transformed, when we forge the paths of learning from each other that do not deny our different ways of understanding, but actually balances them so we can hear the gifts offered by that very "difference".  Over cultures and histories, as well as genders.

Anyway, critical to deconstruct as it so often is the underlying root of much of the dissension and "will to power over others" that is taught at the root of patriarchy but not, as this piece suggests and all my historical work has found as well, at the "power with one another" model at the ground of matriarchy.  

The key is to teach that at the level it is most understood, the level of the emotional heart, critical to any successful parenting of any human life and ultimately the planet that supports that and all life.

Just, "Thank you!"

Warmly,
June

June Gorman, Educator and Educational Theorist
Co-founder, Transformative Education Forum<http://www.tef-global.org/>
Education Advisor, UN SafePlanet Campaign <http://www.safepla.net/>
Board Project Director for Outreach, International Model United Nations Association<http://imuna.org/>
Steering Committee, (UNESCO/Global Compact) K-12 Sector for Sustainability Education <http://www.uspartnership.org/main/view_archive/1>  )
Member, UN Education Caucus for Sustainable Development
Member, UN Commons Cluster

________________________________
 From: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
To: p2p-foundation <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org> 
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2014 4:49 PM
Subject: [P2P-F] Fwd: Matriarchal Studies

---------- 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 ofthe 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 basisof 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 inthe 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 thatmatriarchies 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. Atthe 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. 

Read more in: 

Heide Goettner-Abendroth (ed.): 
Societies of Peace. Matriarchies Past, Present and Future 
 Inanna Press, York University, Toronto/Canada 2009 

Heide Goettner-Abendroth: 
Matriarchal Societies. Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe 
Peter Lang, New York/USA, March 2012 

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