Patriarchy (redirected from patriarchies)

patriarchy: see matriarchy.

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Patriarchy 

the most widespread form of primitive communal relations during the period of their breakdown. The patriarchy is characterized by the dominant role of men in the economy, society, and family.

The transition to patriarchy took place during a period of significant development in the productive forces and an increase in labor productivity in all aspects of the primitive communal economy: agriculture, cattle raising, hunting, and fishing. The development of production caused the growth of exchange and the rise of private property. Almost everywhere men replaced women in the sphere of basic production and confined them primarily to domestic labor. The patriarchy is also characterized by patrilinear inheritance. The kinship group loses its economic unity but retains other elements of kinship. In addition, the patriarchy is marked by the transition from pairing marriage to monogamy, the settling of the wife in the husband’s communal group (patrilocal marriage), and the formation of large patriarchal families. Patriarchal relations were further strengthened with the growth of property differentiation, the emergence of patriarchal slavery, and the rise of class divisions.

The question of the place of the patriarchy in the history of society has been discussed for many centuries. One widely held theory claimed that human society had always been patriarchal. The ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle supported this theory, which dominated medieval thought on the history of society. In the 19th century it was advocated by H. Maine. In the 1860’s and 1870’s J. Bachofen and later L. H. Morgan refuted the idea of the primordial character of the patriarchy. Key features of Morgan’s views were supported and developed by F. Engels, and they have been accepted by most Soviet scholars. But even in the 20th century a significant number of bourgeois ethnologists adhere to the theory of the primordial character of the patriarchy.

REFERENCES

Engels, F. Proiskhozhdenie sem’i, chastnoi sobstvennosti i gosudarstva. In K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 21.
Morgan, L. H. Drevnee obshchestvo. Leningrad, 1934. [Translated from English.]
Kosven, M. O. “Perekhod ot matriarkhata k patriarkhatu.” Tr. ln-ta etnografii, vol. 14. Moscow, 1951.
Problemy etnografii i antropologii v svete nauchnogo naslediia F. Engel’sa. Moscow, 1972.

L. A. FAINBERG