Rise of Patriarchy in Riane Eisler\'s Classic,

¶ … Rise of Patriarchy

In Riane Eisler's classic, the Chalice and the Blade, she writes,

It would seem only logical that the visible dimorphism, or difference in form, between the two halves of humanity had a profound effect on Paleolithic systems of belief. And it would seem equally logical that the fact that both human and animal life is generated from the female body and that, like the seasons and the moon, woman's body also goes through cycles led our ancestors to see the life-giving and sustaining powers of the world in the female, rather than the male form.

Even after much of the overt worship of goddesses had been changed and surpressed, the forms remain in the Shekhina of Hebrew tradition and of course, the Catholic Virgin Mary. The Mother remains, in disguise. For about 5000 years, society has been run on increasingly male-dominated and patriarchal lines with, it seems increasingly destructive results.

When societies honored the earth as the supplier of all that was needed, it would have been impossible -- even if the technology had been present -- for people to mindlessly destroy the very foundations of all life.

In patriarchy, it seems that somehow, males re-created reality to put themselves as the bringers or creators of life. By making all inheritance through the male line, everything worth having came as the results of males and of being male. It is mind-boggling to think that history and current reality could be so changed that people would come to accept and believe something that was simply not true. The question then becomes, how could such a re-vamping of reality take place?

If one looks at history for the last five thousand years, a pattern emerges that is pretty obvious and is also frightening for the future. It would seem that history was changed by brute force. In the earliest days of the new world, if you will, it is likely that peoples who worshipped war-like male gods took advantage of what natural catastrophes had done to matriarchal societies. It is believed that it was earthquakes that actually defeated many of these societies, although there are writers that have suggested that the defeat of the matriarchal societies came about because they were peaceful societies that couldn't defend themselves. This doesn't make much sense as it would seem that these people probably always had to protect themselves. Author Mary Mackey, in 1983, published a book titled, The Last Warrior Queen which was about just such a confrontation between extremely different cultures.

It would seem that a major difference between matriarchy and patriarchy would be the reasons for fighting. In matriarchy, fighting was to defend self and home. In patriarchy, fighting was to take territory and possessions, to increase that which was owned, and to prove dominance.

It is this dominance that is at the heart of the changes described in Eisler's book. She discusses how the matriarchal societies were arranged along what she describes as a partnership model of organization. In partnership, there is an idea of:

the production and distribution of the fruits of the earth, which were seen as belonging to all members of the group. Along with common ownership of the principal means of production and a perception of social power as responsibility or trusteeship for the benefit of all came what seems to have been a basically cooperative social organization. Both women and men -- even sometimes as in Catal Huyuk, people of different racial stocks -- worked cooperatively for the common good. (Eisler, 42)

Once, these societies were destroyed, it seems that control, domination and creating and keeping the most good for the fewest people became the controlling model.

This has been exhibited over and over again. It doesn't matter what fine-sounding phrases have been used to create the "need" for war. Whether we are thinking of the Crusades or the current war in Iraq, there is, under all the words, the real idea of taking territory, controlling resources and proving who is most powerful -- even if it is done in the name of somebody's god.

Feudalism was based on fealty and a tightly structured social system that permitted control and power to a relatively small number of men. The strongest, or perhaps the most brutal, became the barons and kings. They kept power and goods for themselves, and for their male progeny with a system that demanded both virginity and fidelity from women while allowing the men to behave however they wanted to. As long as the woman bearing the bastard child was specially chosen by the man involved, bastardy wasn't even that bad a thing. The prefix to an English surname of Fitz, indicated the bastard child of royalty. For most people, including most men, life was difficult and poor. Those who had, claimed it was because they were entitled by God and because they were better and more noble. Hierarchy was strictly enforced with men dominating women, children, and other men.