What is "matriarchal"

Usage examples of "matriarchal".

Shan bristled at the unconscious challenge, a matriarchal reaction to the pheromone.

Otherwise, Zala could have been, architecturally and culturally, the matriarchal version of the glory that once was Athens.

To those who still lived as freewomen in the matriarchal societies high in the mountaintops, the reason for human females being hunted down was shrouded in mystery.

But in keeping with the new matriarchal traditions of the family the first-born male in each generation, the new Munk, was never the son of a Munk but always the son of a Sarah, and therefore the eldest nephew of the last Munk, a confusing line of descent not easily understood by anyone but the Szondis.

It is remarkable how many such legends survive among preliterate cultures of an earlier matriarchal period and a violent uprising by men in which they usurped female authority.

Predominantly agricultural societies, grouped around the home, were at the very least egalitarian and very probably matriarchal societies, with the mother at the centre of most activities.

More than five hundred matriarchal clans dwelled in the city, filling broad piazzas and clamoring market avenues with contingents of finely dressed, elaborately coiffed, magnificently uniformed clones, their burdens carried on well-oiled carts or the backs of patient lugars in liveried tunics.

And somewhere distant, somewhere near the heart of the rock, in a matriarchal chamber all of its own, something drummed out messages to its companions and helpers, stiffly articulated antlerlike forelimbs beating against stretched tympana of finely veined skin, something that had been waiting here for eternities, something that wanted nothing more than to care for the souls of the lost.

The secret family covens would pass the traditions down through the matriarchal line, usually by word of mouth.

They are matriarchal, you know, with their mother-clans indicated by the tattoos they wear.