Joan Bamberger: The Myth of Matriarchy

Joan Bamberger discusses The Myth of Matriarchy

Summary

Matriarchy does not exist today in any society. The historical existence of matriarchy remains disputed. There is no evidence from myths that the adoption of settled agriculture caused the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy. The myth of the matriarchy hampers the women's movement by diverting attention away from changing existing gender relations.

Origin of Matriarchical Studies

Bamberger (pp. 263-4) writes:

The earliest and most erudite study of matriarchy was published in Stuttgart in 1861 by the Swiss jurist and classical scholar Johann Jakob Bachofen. His Das Mutterrecht (Mother right: an investigation of the religious and juridical character of matriarchy in the ancient world) had an impact on nineteenth-century views on the evolution of early social institutions. Arguing from mainly poetic and frequently dubious historical sources (Hesiod, Pindar, Ovid, Virgil, Horace, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Herodotus, and Strabo), Bachofen tried to establish as moral and historical fact the primacy of “mother right,” which he thought sprang from the natural and biological association of mother and child. Matriarchy, or the dominion of the mother “over family and state,” according to Bachofen, was a later development generated by woman’s profound dissatisfaction with the “unregulated sexuality” that man had forced upon her. A gradual series of modifications in the matriarchal family led to the institution of individual marriage and “the matrilinear transmission of property and names.” This advanced stage of mother right was followed by a civil rule by women, which Bachofen called a “gynocracy.” The rule by women was overthrown eventually by the “divine father principle,” but not before mother right had clearly put its stamp on a state religion. Indeed, it was this sacred character of matriarchy, founded on the maternal generative mystery, that represented for Bachofen the bulk of his evidence in favor of ancient matriarchies. (Italics in original

Emphasis Mine

Bachofen started matriarchical studies by postulating that the generative power of females was the basis for the political system of matriarchy. His contributions also include:

• Use of myths to reconstruct historical events
• Postulate that patriarchy replaced matriarchy directly
• Postulate that ideology initiated this replacement—this follows the Hegelian Dialects that was prevalent at the time (1860's)

Myths Used to Study History

Bamberger (pp.266-7) writes:

Since the publication of Das Mutterrecht this “virgin territory” has been explored by a horde of archaeologists and social anthropologists. Their diligent searches into the prehistory of Mediterranean cultures as well as into the present conditions of primitive societies around the world have not uncovered a single undisputed case of matriarchy. Even the Iroquois, once a stronghold for “matriarchists,” turn out to be matrilineal only, although Iroquois society still comes the closest to representing Bachofen’s ideal “gynocratic state,” since Iroquois women played a decisive role in lineage and village politics. Yet in spite of the substantial power wielded by women, men were chosen consistently as political leaders. At most, the Iroquois today are considered a “quasi-matriarchy ” (Wallace, 1971).

To have cast doubt, as I have just done, on the historical evidence for the Rule of Women is not the same thing as challenging the significance of the mythologies of matriarchy. The main issue would seem not to be whether women did or did not hold positions of political importance at some point in prehistory, or even whether they took up weapons and fought in battle as the Amazons allegedly did, but that there are myths claiming women did these things, which they now no longer do. This mythological status of primitive matriarchies poses as interesting a problem as any generated in the nineteenth century about the credibility or viability of matriarchy as a social system. Undoubtedly the false evolutionism and mistaken prehistory led to the obfuscation of any real contribution Bachofen might have made to the study of myth, since he did not consider that the “events ” related by myths need not have a basis in historical fact. (Italics in original

Emphasis Mine

At the time (1971), Bamberger could not find a case of matriarchy in existing primitive societies. This absences contradicts the hypothesis that settled agriculture allowed patriarchy to replace matriarchy.

The prevalence of myths of matriarchy and its replacement by patriarchy strengthens the hypothesis that this was a real historical event.

Bamberger (p.267) writes:

Rather than replicating a historical reality, myth more accurately recounts a fragment of collective experience that necessarily exists outside time and space. Composed of a vast and complex series of actions, myth may become through repeated recitation a moral history of action while not in itself a detailed chronology of recorded events. Myth may be part of culture history in providing justification for a present and perhaps permanent reality by giving an invented “historical” explanation of how this reality was created.

Emphasis Mine

This methodology permits myths to be interrogated in order to reconstruct the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy as an experience.

Matriarchy Myth as Tool of Oppression

Bamberger (p.280) concludes:

Myth and rituals have been misinterpreted as persistent reminders that women once had, and then lost, the seat of power. This loss accrued to them through inappropriate conduct. In Tierra del Fuego the women tricked the men into performing both male and female chores; and in the northwest Amazon they committed the crime of incest. The myths constantly reiterate that women did not know how to handle power when they had it. The loss is thereby justified so long as women choose to accept the myth. The Rule of Women, instead of heralding a promising future, harks back to a past darkened by repeated failures. If, in fact, women are ever going to rule, they must rid themselves of the myth that states they have been proved unworthy of leadership roles.

The final version of woman that emerges from these myths is that she represents chaos and misrule through trickery and unbridled sexuality. This is the inverse of Bachofen’s view of pre-Hellenic womanhood, which he symbolized as a mystical, pure, and uncorrupted Mother Goddess. The contrast between mid-Victorian notions of the ideal woman (they are not those of ancient Greece, as Bachofen supposed) and the primitive view, which places woman on the social and cultural level of children, is not as great as it appears. The elevation of woman to deity on the one hand, and the downgrading of her to child or chattel on the other, produce the same result. Such visions will not bring her any closer to attaining male socioeconomic and political status, for as long as she is content to remain either goddess or child, she cannot be expected to shoulder her share of community burdens as the coequal of man. The myth of matriarchy is but the tool used to keep woman bound to her place. To free her, we need to destroy the myth.

Emphasis Mine

Bamberger argues that since the myths of matriarchy posits an unrealistic view of women, the pursuit of a return to matriarchy (however imagined) precludes the inclusion of women into existing power structures.

References

Bachofen, J. J. (1967). Selections Myth, Religion, and Mother Right: Selected Writings. Princeton University Press.

Bamberger, J. (1974). The myth of matriarchy: why men rule in primitive society. Women, culture and society, 263-80.