Why do you think most societies ended up being patriarchal?

Question

What made them all like that? What about the transition to agriculture made males dominate? ( I think that was when the change happened) I've been wondering this for a long time.

yes but how did they get to be the ones with rights and education in the FIRST place is what i am after

Answer 1

Well, if you look at all the higher mammals, and we are higher mammals, you will find a certain dominance of the male in the outward scheme of things. This is because in the cut and thrust of survival, the male's strength counts a great deal. However when you look at lions, you will find that the basic structure of the pride is female. That is, it consists mainly of females and their young. Males come and go, and stay so long as they are dominant. When you look at the primates you will find a basic similarity, although the males are a bit more dominant. However, although you will find some forcing of the female to have sex - for instance, there is still a lot of natural balance between the sexes. The males are larger and more dominant, however the difference is not as pronounced so much as in human societies.

For in the old stone age, their was a division of labour. Sure males went out and hunted and the females stayed at home and took care of the young and gathered. The males made all of the political decisions: eg concerning war, physical violence for survival and brought home the prestigious food-meat. However, human beings being what they are, without technology are not very good hunters. They have nothing of the skill say of the tiger. Even with technology they found that many times the hunting didn't sucseed. Hence you found that for ninety percent of our history, man depended upon woman and her gathering to feed him. Hence you had a certain balance even then.

However, with the new stone age and the development of technology, herding and farming as well as places other than caves or covered patios to live in, humans found that one could amass wealth. That is, livestock, grains, metal instruments and little luxuries. Property came into it. In the old days there was not so much wealth and the tribe or clan shared the food and other things. However with the new stone age, property came. A man could amass wealth. And the new tools of technology were(tools and weapons) were made for the maximum physical effect. And in an age of hand wielded instuments-they were designed by and for men. A man who amassed wealth suddenly became concious of that wealth and wanted to leave it to HIS offspring. Hence the men got together and endeavoured to make sure that their children were their's. Therefore the logical step was to make sure that their women were their women-exclusively. The men organised things under marriage, families and inheritance. They enforced it with the new technology and created civilized society. For organised agriculture had made women's gathering redundant. Women were therefore put into a vastly inferior position. They became chattels.

And with the advent of organised warfare(communities found they could use the new technology of metal to take from others) the male, the soldier, the warrior chief, the king-became all important. Class developed. God-kings sat on the thrones and their word was law. Most societies did become patriarchal because of the natural technological developement most of them followed. For in an age of hand basically hand wielding technology, it took the creatures with greater body strength to maximise the energy and thus the effect. What contributed to this was simply a condition of nature that males, because of their roles, had greater upper body strength.

But greater upper body strength doesn't make a patriachy. It may be an excuse or an opportunity or a means. However, unlike animals where nature completely determines roles, humans stand far above,with the attribute of intellegence and moral choice. Hence for any sentiant being, the reason was that they made a moral choice to do so. There is a propencity as you go up the evolutionary or creational scale for more participation and dominance on the part of the male. And when you reach lions for example you will find the incoming dominant lion will kill or the young male offspring of the defeated outgoing one. When you get to monkeys, the same, as well as the forcing of the female to have sex. When you get to chimpanzes you will find this mittigated but there is still a great physical dominance by the males and chimpanzes can be rutheless. When you get to humans it is mittigated even further, with physical dominance still with the males, but more of a balance.

But what put the societies to actual patriachy? It was the moral choice that men made to treat another human being in a way that was not consistant with morality and even with efficiency. The reason why most societies become patriachal as opposed to a balance, a division of labour to each's natural propensity, was that possessing the means of technology and organisation with the outward world experience, men, got to together and chose to do so . It was a simple moral and stupid choice. For to deny another human being opportunity is to deny youself and your unit the benifit of what that opportunity brings. For haven't you noticed that the most advanced societies, the most powerful and magnificant are and were the ones that began to move in the opposite direction and began to give their women human rights.

For these societies are the ones famed throughout history. The modern societies with their human rights and awesome technological and fire power that puts all other societies combined into oblivion. The Mongol Empire which employed not only women professionals and with great political influence such as Suppliamania, the wife of the Khagan Quyak, but also as envoys-the largest land empire in history. Rome who gave women all but political rights and who held up women to dignity. Rome-the ultimate empire. All the greats in history have respected their women. This should tell us something. For it is a moral choice-this is why most societies become patriachies-not because of circumstances,not because of nature-although that be the propensity, not because of some god came down and ordered them or some other lame excuse-but because of one thing and one thing alone- MORAL CHOICE. There is no excuse and their is no hiding. Justice will seek out. For the finger points to the guilty and they shall not escape. For right is more powerful than we can imagine.

And what of the future. The future will see justice and right truimph and all humans accorded that which is theirs by right. By right of nature and not to be taken away by some pompous poobah. In ending-there is one more famed power. Sparta-the greatest soldiers in ancient Greece-universally feared. Who would bow to no tyrant. Who feared no-one on the earth. Including the great king himself-Xerxes. The choice is always with us. Shall we be on the side of right-with the strong or on the side of evil-with the weak ? For I myself stand with that which was said in the movie 300. When the Persian envoy was enquireing to Leonardis why he let this woman speak. Spartan women being free and not afraid. The queen replied. "Because only Spartan women bear real men". For only men who have the morality, the strength, the intelligence, the confidence, the humanity- to acknowlege a another human being-whatever the sex-as standing beside them as equal human beings are real men. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

1. Men are usually bigger and stronger than women and can therefore impose their will physically.

2. Because men are bigger and stronger, they've ususally been the ones to fight battles and provide meat (by hunting).

3. That (maybe natural) division of labor--men out hunting, women staying home with the children--led to men's being the decision-makers outside the home.

4. In very early times, women may have been dominant because they gave birth, and as recently as the last century there were societies in the world that didn't understand the male role in reproduction. As men learned, over the ages, what they had to do with those babies their womenfolk produced, the figurative pendulum swung to the other extreme. (In Aeshcylus' play The Furies/Eumenides, Athena absolves Orestes, who has recently stabbed his mother to death, of the charge of shedding the blood of a relative by ruling that the mother is only the vessel for the father's seed and is no blood relation to her child.)

I don't believe that the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture brought about patriarchy (or andrarchy?), because there are pre-agricultural societies even today that are pretty rigidly patriarchal, and, on the other hand,some scholars have suggested that the pre-Indo-European inhabitants of the Mediterranean area were matriarchal and agricultural and that they taught agriculture to the patriarchal Indo-European invaders.

Answer 3

Until men stand up to men who rape men, women and children, and say rape is wrong and won't be tolerated under any circumstances, rape will continue. Look at how many people are justifying all rape because some are false accusations. So is all murder ok too, since some people are falsely accused of murder? Just why do so many of these people identify with the ones being accused of rape? It makes you wonder just what they are so worried about. Yep, the western world is still very patriarchal. A man's word still counts more than a woman's.

Answer 4

Men were stronger, for the most part, they were the warriors and the fighters. The olden days in the times of the Kings of Judea and Cyprus and so on they were the only ones that had rights or education. It just carried on.

Answer 5

men were stronger physically and that made it easier to dominate women. And women out of fear submitted.