Crossword clues for matriarchy
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
formed in English 1881 from matriarch + -y (4).
Wiktionary
n. 1 A social system in which the mother is head of household, having authority over men and children. 2 A system of government by females (particularly as a kind of polity). 3 The dominance of women in social or cultural systems.
WordNet
n. a form of social organization in which a female is the family head and title is traced through the female line [syn: matriarchate]
Wikipedia
Matriarchy is a social system in which females hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property at the specific exclusion of men, at least to a large degree. While those definitions apply in general English, definitions specific to the disciplines of anthropology and feminism differ in some respects.
Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal, but some authors believe exceptions may exist or may have. Matriarchies may also be confused with matrilineal, matrilocal, and matrifocal societies. A few people consider any non- patriarchal system to be matriarchal, thus including genderally equalitarian systems, but most academics exclude them from matriarchies strictly defined.
In 19th century Western scholarship, the hypothesis of matriarchy representing an early, mainly prehistoric, stage of human development gained popularity. Possibilities of so-called primitive societies were cited and the hypothesis survived into the 20th century, including in the context of second-wave feminism. This hypothesis was criticized by some authors such as Cynthia Eller in The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory and remains as a largely unsolved question to this day. Some older myths describe matriarchies. Several modern feminists have advocated for matriarchy now or in the future and it has appeared in feminist literature. In several theologies, matriarchy has been portrayed as negative.
Usage examples of "matriarchy".
The collective oppression of women since the collapse of the great pre-historic matriarchies at the close of pre-literate times reflects the collective state of the repression of the archetypal Anima in men.
The neopagans of his home milieu did not include her in their fairy tales of a prehistoric matriarchy when everybody was nice.
Amazon military advisors, reverse the genders of every law on the statute books and every custom in the city having to do with relations between the sexes, and convert Tiryns into an absolute matriarchy.
Bennett had been taken in when his sailing guild could no longer care for hima tradition long abandoned by other matriarchies, but proudly maintained by Lamatia.
Of the seventeen major, and ninety minor matriarchies in Port Sanger, Lamatia was among the most prominent.
Perkinism appealed to small matriarchies who felt obstructed by established lines.
Here in Long Valley, important matriarchies built their citadels near their fields or pastures, leaving towns to small homesteads, sometimes derisively called microholds.
The hive matriarchies of Long Valley had become involved in a far more brazen scheme: kidnapping the Interstellar VisitorRennaright out of the hands of the council in Caria City.
The ritual was an odd one, from the most ancient of the Wenshar grimoires, its faded instructions jotted in a curious book hand characteristic of the court of that accursed matriarchy which lay open to several interpretations.
Seeing me taken aback by this consideration, she went on to deride the male-supremist character of the great body of our classic myths, with which she revealed a fairly extensive acquaintance -- Philonoë's influence, no doubt -- and which she held to be the fabulated record of a bloody overthrow, by male pig patriarchs in ages past, of the original and natural matriarchy of the world.
But it really wasn't his fault that he was born low man in a matriarchy.
She was a retiring woman in black, not beautiful but with a finely modeled head, who exercised her matriarchy only in moments of family crisis.
The Matriarchy, buying peace at the price of dishonor, stamping out initiative, prisoning all who dare oppose its unprogressing rule, has made men slaves and women their soulless taskmasters.
Because of the names used in Dorsa Brevia, and that culture’s valorization of the Ariadnean matriarchy, the two places had developed a relationship.
Because of the names used in Dorsa Brevia, and that culture's valorization of the Ariadnean matriarchy, the two places had developed a relationship.