Was Patriarchy a Women's Scheme to Control Men?

self | 10/30/2002 | SauronOfMordor

[SauronOfMordor]

Does Patriarchy Benefit Women?

Much has been said in feminist circles about how women are oppressed by patriarchy. Patriarchy literally means “rule by fathers” and is a system where men effectively are in control of property and decision-making. An important characteristic of patriarchal systems is that they are generally also patrilineal (a child’s descent is described by who his father, and father’s father were, rather than through the mother’s line).

The question I’m putting forth here is: Does the patriarchal/patrilineal system act more to oppress women, or is it actually more a way for women to tap and control male energy? My assertion is that patriarchal society creates an incentive structure that enables women to harness male energy and initiative for the benefit of women and their children.

In patrilineal societies, men tend to be confident that the children of their household are theirs, and take an active role in their upbringing. The men also tend to perform long-range planning, and invest time and effort into making life better for their offspring.

Matrilineal societies have been recorded in early history, and still exist in sections of Africa. The matrilineal societies of ancient times did not leave much in the way of historical record. In modern times, where they exist, they are generally poor and technologically primitive. To some extent, the welfare enclaves of our inner cities are increasingly matrilineal. In the developing matrilineal societies in our inner cities, the defining characteristic is that males have no permanent attachment to the children they father, nor to the women who are the mothers of their children. In such an environment, males tend not to make long-range plans for the well-being of their children, nor do they make much effort to create the institutions that would be needed for long-term stability and prosperity.

In classic patriarchal cultures, men are motivated to amass wealth through the acquisition and enhancement of productive facilities: land, ships, businesses – things that will produce revenue to support a family, and which will provide an inheritance to pass along to their children. Part of the motivation is from love and emotional attachment. A large part of it is also pride and self-image -- the desire to leave a legacy, to be remembered as a great person after he's gone.

Having children who are emotionally attached to you has mutual benefits: the children can rely on support during their vulnerable years, and parents can have the expectation of support in their declining years. This can be very important in societies where survival is not assured unless you have a committed provider looking out for you.

Once someone has property, he has a strong incentive to promote institutions to protect and preserve his property. He bands together with his neighbors, in mutual protection. He has an incentive to cooperate with his neighbors to create improvements for their mutual benefit: roads, irrigation systems, etc. The incentive system promotes the institutions needed to preserve itself

Now let’s consider the incentive system for males in a matrilineal environment. When a man cohabits with a woman, he has no assurance of any of the children being his. He is less likely to experience any emotional bonding with them, and may consider them an interference with his relationship with the woman. He will have no expectation that the children will take care of him in his old age, and will be much less likely to make any investment in the children’s well-being.

In such an environment, the male won’t expect to survive much past the point where he’s no longer strong enough to obtain food and resources through his own strength. He’s likely to be invited to share the bed of a woman as long as he provides for her and protects her, and invited to leave when she acquires a better provider. The incentive will be to acquire wealth the fastest and easiest way he can: by getting together into a strong gang and taking it from somebody else. In matrilineal societies, whether in Somalia or South Central LA, the men tend to band together into warring gangs rather than engage in productive work.

In a competition between a patriarchal society and a matrilineal society, the patriarchal society will tend to prevail. The men of the patriarchal society are more likely to stand and fight off encroachments to territory they consider their property, while the men of the matrilineal society will be more likely to seek easier targets in another direction. A man will fight for his wife, his children, and his property – they are HIS, and part of his self-identity. A man is less likely to endure long-term conflict to protect the property of a woman he considers to be just a temporary girlfriend – it’s simpler to just find another girlfriend in an area with less conflict.

Comparing a patriarchal culture with a matrilineal culture, the advantages for women become apparent. By channeling male energy and imagination into long-term planning, patriarchy creates an environment where women and children are better provided for and better protected, thus better assuring long-term survival for all concerned.

[arthurus]

He had already bought coffee for himself...so I stood in line and bought my own and he didn't offe

And you mad conversation with this numbskull until 11 PM?

[arthurus]

Is there a club for that?

You should be able to find a support group in the yellow pages.

[Mark17]

One reason that many think that Asian women are "easy" is because the women that many men met in Asia- in Viet Nam in wartime conditions- were easy.

Yes, that is true, and I think you know that what I meant, was that if they went down into the provinces and met the locals there, they would find that the women were anything but easy. I had been to Clark Air Base, and many of the women around Clark were easy, but in the provinces, it was a whole different world.

[CobaltBlue]

>>Having somebody designated as having the final say does not necessarily mean despotism.<<

We defer to each other, depending on the circumstance.

For example, we always buy late model used cars, which is more economical than buying brand new cars. It used to be that I would pick my car, and he would pick his. But I happen to be better at (or luckier at) picking cars, so he insists that I have the final say.

People sometimes laugh at us when we are deciding things. I will say, we'll do what you want, and he'll say, no, we'll do what you want, and eventually we find something we both like. If not, usually the one who has the most at stake or feels most strongly about something gets to pick.

When you think about it, how many choices in a marriage don't affect both the husband and the wife?

It helps that we both have a good income. When the kids were little, and we only had his income, there were often hard feelings over relatively small amounts of money. Same thing when I was putting him through graduate school.

[arthurus]

if they went down into the provinces and met the locals there, they would find that the women were anything but easy

Absolutely. Wherever the culture survived at all.The cultural effects of the war were felt much more in the cities that mostly did not suffer the physical destruction and dislocation that devastated the countryside. The country folks, the ones that did not wash up in the cities, were able to keep their souls.

[SauronOfMordor]

Good but he wastes his argument by confusing his terms. Where he used "matrilineal" he should have used "matriarchal". Matrilineal refers to how descent and inheritance are reckoned and a matrilineal culture can be patriarchal.

See my post #209. I was very deliberately using the term "matrilineal" to describe societies where the father has little-or-no confidence that any particular woman's children are biologically his, and children do not have a person holding a stable role of "father" in their lives (something like the situation in today's inner cities).

"Matriarchal" implies a society where women rule. Women do not rule in matrilineal societies like Somalia of South-Central LA -- nobody rules, there are just battles for dominance by various warring gangs

[CobaltBlue]

The right man will think you are a pearl beyond price. He would risk life and limb for you. He will chase you. He will give you gifts. He will try to entice you. This is the way to know that you have met the right man, or one of the right men.

If he does not think you are wonderful, do not date him. He is wasting your time.

The way it really works between men and women is that men decide which women they want, and women decide which man she wants from the pool of men who want her.

The wrong man may act the same way, but if you wait until you know him, you will see that he is a cad, and you will not waste any more time on him.

Chasing a man does not work.

[SauronOfMordor]

The soldiers came home and all had great tales about the ease and proficiency of the women in Viet Nam or Thailand and that is what the folks back home heard about them. I have heard old men talk about how easy were the German women.

A friend had a "hootch-wife" back in Vietnam. She slept with him and took care of his laundry and cleaning for him, in exchange for getting fed. For many women in that time and place, the alternative was starvation. Same deal in Germany in 1946 -- for many women, if they wanted to eat they needed to latch onto a GI. Fast-forward ten years in Germany, and it's a whole different story. Circumstances tend to dictate what you have to do to survive

[Jim Noble]

The reason he didn't use "matriarchal" is because matriarchy is impossible. Maybe he should have used "matricentric" (I just made it up).

The distinction is important, because in societies where the children belong to the mothers (Africa, some parts of India, Native America, ghettos) men still "rule" in the sense that crime is out of control, rape is out of control, and war or war equivalent is prevalent. There is no society anywhere, in the present or in the past, where women "rule" in the sense that men rule under patriarchy.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

I think I see the source of contention here. When I said (whatever it was) "information society has made men not matter so much any more," I wasn't implying that I literally believe that to be the case. Especially in the case of fatherhood, the masculine/male parental element is no less essential than the feminine/female, if the child is to grow up "healthy." Regardless of whether the family is 18th Century agrarian or 21st Century Microsoft. My post does seem to say that I'm exclusively defining men by what the Do. Should have either put the "matter so much" phrase in quotes or explained it better. I was at work and in a hurry, and you (Z) are a tough crowd. ; )

Manhood isn't obsolete in our society. Any more than Womanhood was obsolete when life was more physically demanding. [Here's where this train of thought becomes a chicken/egg quizzer]. In an ideal society (my words), the most definitive traits of both men and women will be maximized by the demands and expectations of the society. Meaning whatever men and women naturally bring to the table will be what society needs of them. Rather than defining men and women by what they Do, men and women simply Are, and in so Being, they are fit well within the daily demands of the society.

What are the most definitive traits of men and women? Watch children in unorganized play, and you get a pretty good answer. Before a relentless interest in the previously-unremarkable girls crept into the scene, the following sums up most of the free time spent by me and basically every guy I knew as a kid: building things with Lincoln Logs, Leggos, sticks, mud; knocking down said construction projects, playing role of Godzilla, US Army, Giant (insert your name); visiting certain death on local insect populations with fire, water, earth, tennis rackets; "projecting" at each other and the occaisional passing car a variety of missles, including mud, rocks, horse apples, water balloons, fireworks, BBs, burning logs; and of course endless competition/roughhouse activities like football, tag, hide-and-seek, smear the queer. None of this was scripted by demands of a job or school curricula or Oprah. It is, though, what we did as soon as we could get away from the scripted environs of school, church, etc...

Frankly, I don't know what girls were doing in that same age bracket, because I wasn't often around them or paying attention to them. I'm 100% sure that the daily play routine of the average girl (assuming we were average guys) didn't look anything like the guys' routine. At the very least, I recall when the guys at school during recess were jumping off the highest point on the school yard or doing their best to knock someone's head off playing Bombardament, the girls were also engrossed in their own activities. I just don't recall what they were doing. Jump rope comes to mind. Sitting in circles and talking. AND of course there were girls doing more guy-like things and guys doing more girl-like things. Not saying that only boys could play rough or that only girls were interested in more gentle pursuits.

Obviously, we don't expect grown men to pass their days throwing waterballoons at each other, and we don't expect women to skip rope for hours on end. But, and this is more to my point, it's very obvious from a young age (mayber from birth, I don't know since I'm not a parent) that men and women, whether children and adults simply ARE very different creatures, regardless of what they DO with their time. My contention about modern society is that it's more naturally suited to the very nature of females, and increasingly unsuitable and outright hostile to the very nature of males. Assuming that the best society is one in which the natural inclinations of men and women are exactly what society demands of them, then men aren't as good a fit as women.

Z, this addressed to you as a reply. But it's also a better-developed explanation of my idea, generally addressed to whomever is reading the thread. I've got to stop writing right now, will post more later.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

you might be interested in this thread

[Savage Beast]

government to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex

This is covered by equal protection under the law.

[SauronOfMordor]

The way it really works between men and women is that men decide which women they want, and women decide which man she wants from the pool of men who want her.

Regressing a step back on this, a woman needs to figure out what kind of man she wants to approach her, and then takes steps to discover how to make her existence known to these men

If you haven't taken the time to really reflect on what qualities your ideal mate should have, you're unlikely to recognise him when you see him. First you must name what you want. Visualize him in your own mind. Make sure you're being real here.

Then you have to decide that you really and truly want this person, and that you will welcome him when he arrives

When you've decided who he is, you can deduce where he will be, and go there. The deer hunter generally does not go galumphing through the forest looking for deer. He finds a deer trail that shows evidence of having been traveled by deer recently, picks a good spot to observe the trail, and waits for his deer to come by.

[arthurus]

Somebody, maybe Wanniski, maybe someone on FR-I don't remember where I read it- that men will dominate women, either as husbands or as gangs.

[SauronOfMordor]

government to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex This is covered by equal protection under the law.

"Equal protection of the law", as originally defined, meant exactly that. You had sheriffs being uninterested in investigating when the Klan burned down a black man's house, but might arrest the black man if he shot back at the Klan. Laws against firearms ownership might be applied rigorously against disfavored groups, while "good old boys" had no worries, as they were appointed "special deputies".

Equal protection means that the police and courts must apply the protection of the laws even-handedly

"Preventing discrimination" means that some government bureaucrat must second-guess manager decisions on hiring and promotion. To do that, a remote bureaucrat would have to have as much information as the manager on the scene, and as much background knowledge of the field. Doesn't happen. The net result is quotas.

Government has no business second-guessing personnel decisions in the private sector. If the woman or minority is a good employee, other companies will hire them away from companies that don't appreciate them

[Savage Beast]

"Government has no business second-guessing personnel decisions in the private sector."

Y'right, Saur.

[Z in Oregon]

My contention about modern society is that it's more naturally suited to the very nature of females, and increasingly unsuitable and outright hostile to the very nature of males.

If you ever get a chance, please do read "The War Against Boys" by Christina Hoff Sommers. It makes just that point about the public school system. Available at amazon.com online...

[CobaltBlue]

I think it's also very important to be yourself, and to be true to yourself.

When I was growing up, people would tell me to pretend I wasn't as intelligent as I am, because it would intimidate men. I did not listen to them, which is a good thing, because when I ask my husband what he likes about me, one of the first things he says is that I am intelligent.

I met my husband working for the college newspaper. He wrote music reviews, and I did layout and pasteup. I liked his musical taste and writing style, and thought he was cute, he thought I was beautiful and intelligent.

I had a crush on the photographer, but my husband-to-be kept chasing me, persistently, until I agreed to go out with him, and he did everything he could to show me that he was crazy about me.

It was uncharacteristic of him, because he's really shy.

He is a real gem, and I am lucky to have him.