Quote:
Originally posted by CDSmith
There are however many pockets of "recorded history" that involve matriarchies, which were dominated primarily by women.
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When people refer to the tribes that would be considered "matriarchy", often times what is being described is how the tribe operated along lineage and kinship / blood lines. For example, your mother is Raven clan (using the Tlingit as an example), you are a Raven, even if your father is Eagle clan. See what I am saying. It was only a matriarchy in that who you were within the tribe was based upon who your mother was. And who you married was dictated by this, etc etc. It varies by culture obviously.
For the even less frequent instances where a women maintained some sort of decision making power in a tribe / clan / family, it was almost entirely 1 individual within each tribe / family / clan that had any sort of discernable power whatsoever. It wasnt a general situation where women ruled over men. As far as I know, there has never been a society / culture where the women were largely in control and held power over men.