Matrilineality
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant of either gender in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothers. In a matrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as their mother. This ancient matrilineal descent pattern is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.
Early human kinship[edit]
In the late 19th century, almost all prehistorians and anthropologists believed, following Lewis H. Morgan's influential book Ancient Society, that early human kinship everywhere was matrilineal.[1] This idea was taken up by Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. The Morgan-Engels thesis that humanity's earliest domestic institution was not the family but the matrilineal clan soon became incorporated into communist orthodoxy. In reaction, most 20th century social anthropologists considered the theory of matrilineal priority untenable,[2][3] although during the 1970s and 1980s, a range of feminist scholars often attempted to revive it.[4]
In recent years, evolutionary biologists, geneticists and palaeoanthropologists have been reassessing the issues, many citing genetic and other evidence that early human kinship may have been matrilineal after all.[5][6][7][8] One crucial piece of indirect evidence has been genetic data suggesting that over thousands of years, women among sub-Saharan African hunter-gatherers have chosen to reside postmaritally not with their husbands' family but with their own mother and other natal kin.[9] Another line of argument is that when sisters and their mothers help each other with childcare, the descent line tends to be matrilineal rather than patrilineal.[10] Biological anthropologists are now widely agreed that cooperative childcare was a development crucial in making possible the evolution of the unusually large human brain and characteristically human psychology.[11] Although others refute the claims of supporters of the universality of matrilocality or patrilocality, pointing out that hunter-gatherer societies have a flexible philopatry or practice multilocality, which in turn leads to a more egalitarian society, since both men and women have the right to choose with whom to live.[12][13] According to some data, pastoralists and farmers strongly gravitate towards patrilocality, so patrilocality is a common phenomenon among non-Pygmies.[14] But among some hunter-gatherers, patrilocality is less common than among farmers. So for example, among the pygmies of Aka, which includes Biaka and Benzene, a young couple usually settles in her husband's camp after the birth of their first child.[15] However, the husband can stay in the wife's community, where one of his brothers or sisters can join him. This can happen in societies where the bride's service is practiced. Or in any other societies. According to the data above, some scientists also say that kinship and residence in hunter-gatherer societies are complex and multifaceted. For example, when re-checking past data (which were not very reliable), the researchers note that about 40% of the groups were bilocal, 22.9% were matrilocal and 25% were patrilocal.[16] A number of scientists also advocate multilocality, refuting the concepts of exceptional matrilocality (matrilineality) or patrilocality (patrilineality).[12][17]
Exception for the enslaved in the United States[edit]
In the United States, the offspring of enslaved women inherited their mother's status. A significant consequence of this is that children resulting from rape or unions between enslaved women and their owners did not have any of the rights of the father as they would have had under the patrilineal succession that applied to everyone but the enslaved.
In mythology[edit]
Certain ancient myths have been argued to expose ancient traces of matrilineal customs that existed before historical records.
The ancient historian Herodotus is cited by Robert Graves in his translations of Greek myths as attesting that the Lycians[115][116] of their times "still reckoned" by matrilineal descent, or were matrilineal, as were the Carians.[117]
In Greek mythology, while the royal function was a male privilege, power devolution often came through women, and the future king inherited power through marrying the queen heiress. This is illustrated in the Homeric myths where all the noblest men in Greece vie for the hand of Helen (and the throne of Sparta), as well as the Oedipian cycle where Oedipus weds the recently widowed queen at the same time he assumes the Theban kingship.
This trend also is evident in many Celtic myths, such as the (Welsh) mabinogi stories of Culhwch and Olwen, or the (Irish) Ulster Cycle, most notably the key facts to the Cúchulainn cycle that Cúchulainn gets his final secret training with a warrior woman, Scáthach, and becomes the lover of her daughter; and the root of the Táin Bó Cuailnge, that while Ailill may wear the crown of Connacht, it is his wife Medb who is the real power, and she needs to affirm her equality to her husband by owning chattels as great as he does.
The Picts are widely cited as being matrilineal.[118][119]
A number of other Breton stories also illustrate the motif. Even the King Arthur legends have been interpreted in this light by some. For example, the Round Table, both as a piece of furniture and as concerns the majority of knights belonging to it, was a gift to Arthur from Guinevere's father Leodegrance.
Arguments also have been made that matrilineality lay behind various fairy tale plots which may contain the vestiges of folk traditions not recorded.
For instance, the widespread motif of a father who wishes to marry his own daughter—appearing in such tales as Allerleirauh, Donkeyskin, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, and The She-Bear—has been explained as his wish to prolong his reign, which he would lose after his wife's death to his son-in-law.[120] More mildly, the hostility of kings to their daughter's suitors is explained by hostility to their successors. In such tales as The Three May Peaches, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, or The Griffin, kings set dangerous tasks in an attempt to prevent the marriage.[121]
Fairy tales with hostility between the mother-in-law and the heroine—such as Mary's Child, The Six Swans, and Perrault's Sleeping Beauty—have been held to reflect a transition between a matrilineal society, where a man's loyalty was to his mother, and a patrilineal one, where his wife could claim it, although this interpretation is predicated on such a transition being a normal development in societies.[122]