
Patriarchy, matriarchy, hierarchy
I don’t even like Anarchy. And, now I am a world class poetess.
The blazing topic of the 21st century is Patriarchy. It is not new-fangled. It seems like an epidemic, an incurable one. The life we know has been molded for centuries. Patriarchy is embedded in the balls of patriarchs, mindsets, and women. It seems to rule over women and nature cursorily. Both are anyway devalued by the dominant paradigm according to Leonardo Dicaprio.
The fullness of primitive genderless-ness may be a medicament for our redemption. And to all who think, Matriarchy is the answer to patriarchy. You are off the beam, my love. If you don’t favor patriarchy then how can you favor matriarchy!! That’s just flawed. It’s not about gender dominion, rather a backing to one another as humans.
But where does it originate from? Patriarchy exists since Neolithic era because it worked perfectly back in time. Men were hunters while women gatherers but with the new concept of ownership of herds and lands came the yearning to have private herds left to the progenies of the owner.
A woman’s value lay and still very much lies in her reproduction skills, especially in farming villages because more people were needed to work the land and sustain the population, so women were expected to produce a large amount of offspring. The mortality rate of children was awfully high due to lack of medicine and knowledge, so women were expected to produce many children. Women, as Aristotle claimed, were indeed viewed as merely a receptacle… good only for the bringing forth of life. With this new control over women began the earliest saddening patriarchal families.
Children became an easy monetary asset, and if women were unable to procreate, they were seen as all but worthless (basically a piece of shit). The notion of women being only good for their womb has progressed even into today’s society.
Patriarchy amused itself when women began to be traded and treated as commodities, or being cast off to have intercourse with visitors as an act of hospitality by tribal chiefs, and the ritual rapes during festivals to assure prosperity, and from a young age, women became familiarized to this identification. Given seemingly universal devaluation of women, which differs in its formulae but not in its essence, the question of when and how it essentially otherwise persisted.
The patriarchal society bred increasingly misogynistic culture with evolution. Wives and mothers became obligatory, and women who did not trail the traditional functions met legal consequences. Surprise, surprise Even Juliet was arrogantly oppressed in the Elizabethan era.
Women were the legal wards of either her father or husband and had no rights of their own; they could not inherit property. Women weren’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything unless they were young and unmarried, and even then only when accompanied by their father. They were forced to stay at home rearing children and staying out of their husband’s way.
If they failed to listen to all male members of their family, they were beaten over a “whipping stool” and that’s where spanking originated from just in case you care to know. The punishment was punitive as disobeying was perceived as delinquency against their religion which stated that women were in existence only to serve and obey men.
Any title in the family including property and name was conceded from father to son or brother to brother. All women were completely at the mercy of on male family members or husbands and could not survive minus them. A woman in this time did not even have custody of her children as they belonged to her husband.
Also, if a woman was found to be an infidel, they would either be exiled or executed where men, who would seldom suffer penalties, had many legal sexual outlets, such as highly trained courtesans and male and female prostitutes. As men were able to seek sexual freedom with these outlets, most women could not leave their homes without the consent of a father or husband.
You must have analyzed by now that women were considered inferior to men. Do you know, it was customary for Roman women to marry and bear children? Once the children were born, the wives held authority over them and were responsible for raising them to be well-educated and good citizens of Rome. For a Roman woman to really succeed in teaching her children all that they needed to know, the mother needed to be well-educated herself. With this being said, it was a procedure that the boys would attend school, but it was not uncommon for girls to attend a public primary school. Dichotomy.
Even today, Individual families are usually set up on a patriarchal basis, with the husband and father (Males) determining fundamental conditions and making the key decisions, and with humble obedience owed to this male authority. Women don’t have a significant say in property or financial matters. They are only limited to Kitchen and bedrooms to perform the duties directed at them. The patriarchal family structure rests on men’s control of most or all property, starting with the land itself; relationships and the marriage dictate subordination to men, is the normal condition for the vast majority of women.
I don’t have an issue but if you think rationally, the institution of marriage is based on the patriarchal system? A revealing symptom of patriarchal families is the fact that, after marrying, a woman usually moves to the orbit (and often the residence) of her husband’s family. Is there any reasoning behind it? It just happens because that’s what has always happened. It is just there sitting in our minds.
I think women’s standing depends largely on their economic role. The more important and independent their economic role, the higher their status is. Patriarchal-ism rears vital questions about women themselves. Many women took on the culture of patriarchal-ism, holding and living that it was their job to obey and serve men and accommodating arguments that their abilities were inferior to those of men.
Now, do you realize how far we have come? It is not about just clothes or freedom to smoke and drink. Our great grandmothers, grandmothers, and mothers have suffered too long for us to whine over trivial issues under the label of Feminism. It is much more than that. It is about freeing our souls of rooted darkness by centuries of patriarchs.
I say, grab them by the patriarchy.
you have a lot of passion with your writing Lovey!
Glad you feel that. You are kind as ever.