Patriarchy

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

I have briefly mentioned the issue of patriarchy and want to elaborate. As nomadic peoples in the late paleolithic finally started to remain in one place, agriculture was first develped, and, concommitant with a stable and non-migrating population, and the advances of cultivation, we began to see the first seeds of hierarchical religion. Prior to that, as is the case with most nomadic peoples, spirituality was vested in shamanic institutions, was often passed on from one generation to the next familially, and never achieved nor looked to achieve the status of an organized and cohesive hierarchical system.

The spiritual focus of many of these wandering groups was patriarchal, and, of many others, matriarchal. In the earliest years of development of agriculture, the matriarchal model predominated, as seen in Ceres and Demeter cults. The overwhelming similarity amongst these agrarian, matrilineal societies was the mystery of the cyclical planting and harvesting of crops, which took the form, analogously, of the feminine mystery of childbirth. Women became the archetypical paradigm which tranlated into successful sowing, raising and harvesting of food, vital to the survival of the local population.

This model fits mostly for terrain that was suitable for an agrarian lifestyle. It seems evident that, in the near East, where nomadic tribes continued to predominate, the lay of the land was not conducive to cultivation. The need for water drove the population from one water-rich spot to another, and the raising and domestication of livestock predominated as opposed to the agrarian model. These Near East nomads were, for the most part, organized along patriarchal bloodlines, the leadership roles being passed on from father to son. Even in the earliest Biblical tracts...we see references to "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob"...clearly a patrilineal passing of authority and control from one man to another.

Because so much of the early Judaeo-Christian-Muslim tradition has its roots in this patriarchal mode of authority and control, we see this same male institutionalizing of domination evident in nearly all Western religions and culture. Even with these nomadic communities, there eventually was seen to evolve permanent communities...first villages, then towns, and finally cities...and...these culturally male oriented civilizations began to create permanent hierarchical religious institutions that not only catered to the local population but, to insure their OWN survival, developed authoritarian methodologies to keep and maintain and grow the powerful controlling relationship they enjoyed over the population at large.

to be continued...

trickster108