How would a matriarchal society look like?

[TopHat]

Hi guys!

I have this matriarchal society but i don't know how it would work in certain situations.

A quick background-story:
One of the main food-resources in this land is a kind of ocean-fungus. This fungus is rich in vitamins, minerals and other good stuff. It is also rich on a kind of steroid that increase muscle a great deal but damages the intelligence a bit.
Both men and women eat it, but the men are highly susceptible to the effects and the women are almost immune. The men grow very strong but are intellectually impaired compared to the women. So naturally the society turned into a matriarch. Furthermore, the women who are talented with magic hold even greater importance in society and are often priestesses.

I've yet to figure out how this setting would work in the everyday life. Specially in the home environment and social status.

Do you guys have any ideas what it would look like?

Yours,
TopHat.

 

[Ireth]

I have a question -- why are women immune to the effects of the fungus but men aren't? Does it have to do with testosterone levels or something?

 

[WooHooMan]

You mention that women (presumably because of their intelligence) can have magical powers and become priestess? What is the religion of this society? What does magic have to do with it? Does it have anything to do with why men and women are treated so differently.
On that note, if this fungus makes men stupid, why don't they just, like, not eat it? Is someone forcing them to eat it?

 

[Sam Evren]

If my broken knowledge of culture serves me correctly, in cases of matriarchal societies, agriculture is often dominant---as opposed to hunting.

I'm not trying to be gender-insensitive, just sharing what I'm dredging out of my memory, but the reason given was that a woman was "tied to the seasons/cycles of the moon" more than their male counterparts.

Thus, in these given agriculturally-driven societies, they were deemed closer to the land, closer to the cycles of the crops. Essentially, they were the elite, agricultural shamans.

 

[Sam Evren]

Also, if I recall correctly, the women of ancient Egypt controlled the rights of property---both land and possessions. I'm trying to drag this out of damaged memory, but I do believe that they had comparable, if not even greater in some cases, rights to a man.

 

[Sam Evren]

You might want to investigate gender roles in the Hopi and Iroquois nations of North America. If you're looking for day to day interactions, in the home, in "everyday life," those cultures might give you something that's both recent/relatively recent and pre-industrial to explore.

 

[Queshire]

With what Sam said, well, I wouldn't be surprised with a matriarchal society tending to more agricultural societies, but I think it would likely have more to do with women traditionally fulfilling the gatherer role in hunter / gatherer societies. Don't quote me on that though.

Now personally I like the whole fungus aspect, but there's a risk of offending people. From people getting offended at the steroid angle to people getting offended that the matriarchal society has a thing that dumb down the men as if saying that would be the only way a matriarchal society could exist. That said though, people will get offended by anything so I say go for it.

First off, I imagine the men would be largely used for the brute force jobs with women supervising and handling the more delicate jobs. For example, men would be the foot soldiers with a female knight or commander giving them their orders or men would do the heavy farm work, blacksmithing, hauling things, essentially anything that requires more brawn than brains.

Now even dumbed down, I imagine that the men would have their own series of values and worth. With the women in charge and the men reduced in intellect, what does that culture view as the epitome of manliness? Would it be a man who always listens to his woman and uses his strength to protect them from any danger? Would it be being a raging beast, let loose by their female handlers to tear and destroy what ever foe is put in front of them? Would it be something else?

Similarly what would be considered a Bad Man? What types of actions and thoughts would be considered taboo for a man? Same questions for the women in that culture. Also, what are some of the recurring issues in that culture and how do they traditionally handle them? If the fungus has a steroid effect, is there roid rage and how do they handle it? Besides the fungus itself, how do they keep up the status quo? What if one of the men folk gets it in their head that they should be the ones ruling with their Strongness over the weak thinky women? And how do people go about trying to change the status quo. Even with the prevalence of medieval stasis in fantasy a proper culture is a constantly shifting tug of war between those who want to change things, those who want to keep things the same, and all the various competing ideas of how to go about doing just those things.

Um.... let's see, what else? I imagine that the fungus has a rather important cultural or even potentially religious significance. Like WooHoo said, considering the effects of the fungus there needs to be a reason they specifically eat it instead of other foods. Ummm.... how long it takes for the fungus to affect you would have a big effect as well. Relations with other cultures would end up suffering if just eating it for a week permanently affects the intelligence of foreign diplomats. You'll also have to consider how the matriarchal society interacts with men from other cultures. Depending on the level of muscle growth and amount intelligence drain it could be quite obvious that the foreign men are different from the local ones. It could be that the matriarchal society very well know the effects of the fungus but still eat it due to cultural reasons. Something that I think would be rather interesting in that case would be if particularly bright boys were prevented from eating the fungus and essentially raised as girls in order to preserve their intellect.

Building-wise, since it's an ocean fungus I presume that these are a coastal people right? Then I would suggest looking up real world coastal societies. Off the top of my head, there's a lot of wood used, the buildings tend to be only one or two stories, and tended to be easy to repair in case of tsunami or hurricane.

As for what you specifically asked, well day to day home life tends to not be very complicated so unless their intelligence was sapped so much that the men need assistance to just live I doubt there would be much of an effect. Naturally the women would likely handle the finances and deal with the more complicated affairs such as lawsuits or what not. With how divided the gender roles are in your society I imagine the fathers would teach their sons the values of being a Man while the mothers would teach the daughters. Finally, there'd be a large cultural element to their day to day life in order to reinforce the beliefs and acceptance of the effects of the fungus.

With social status something like this might work:
-Naturally at the top there would be a chieftess or some other leader. The person who makes the decisions for the community as a whole.
-Highly respected members of the community. Ex-chieftesses, mages, leaders of industry such as wealthy merchants, and potentially foreign diplomats.
-Those women put in charge of supervisor the males on their tasks.
-Essentially male warrant officers. Men who aren't smarter than females but whose expertise and experience with certain tasks or trades might allow them to order around inexperienced supervisors or rank and file women. For instance, you would want a man who has spent years working in the forge able to order some green horn women to stop before she dips her hand into molten metal or something. Of course this presumes that the men retain enough intellect to be able to make those judgement calls. If you decide to include this rank, I would suggest coming up with a specialized name for these people.
-I mentioned it before, but I still think it would be interesting to have certain particularly bright boys forbidden from eating the fungus and raised as girls in order to preserve their intellect. I think there were certain cultures in the real world that raised certain boys as girls for one reason or another. This position seems perfect to me to be some sort of special cultural or religious position within the culture. Special priests, or questers, or diplomats to other countries, etc and so on.
-After that would be the rank and file women. Basically the average Janes not particularly put in charge of the men folk or anything.
-Another interesting potentially position would be women who are adversely affected by the fungus. You mentioned that they were almost immune, but by the same token some aren't immune. I figure women affected like that would be considered something of a pity.
-The rank and file men would come next.
-Finally at the bottom would be those men so badly affected by the fungus that they're little more than beasts. Either just mindless hulks or raging animals.



~When it comes to foreigners, the females would be easy enough, depending on whether they're in a position of leadership or not they could be ranked with the average janes or with the supervisors.
~Foreign men would be particularly confusing. Depending on how much muscle growth the fungus prompts they could be quite obviously different from the local men. Some of the women might treat them like they would the guys raised as girls, or they might flat out mistake them for girls. The supervisors might try ordering them around like they would their own men which the foreigners may or may not take offense to, and some might get weirded out by guys not conforming to their local gender norms. I imagine the locals would likely prefer to deal with any women in the party instead of the men just in general and just in general there would be various bits of sexism. It wouldn't be meant out of maliciousness, but simply because that was the way they were raised.

This culture has a lot of potential, I really like it.

 

[Saigonnus]

One of the main food-resources in this land is a kind of ocean-fungus. This fungus is rich in vitamins, minerals and other good stuff. It is also rich on a kind of steroid that increase muscle a great deal but damages the intelligence a bit.
Both men and women eat it, but the men are highly susceptible to the effects and the women are almost immune. The men grow very strong but are intellectually impaired compared to the women. So naturally the society turned into a matriarch. Furthermore, the women who are talented with magic hold even greater importance in society and are often priestesses.

Just a thought I had: why is it that over the millenia they have been subsisting off the fungus, they haven't built up an immunity or resistance to the effects? Think about the black plague (not -exactly- the same thing) and how europe was decimated by it. Those left alive after it ran its course had a natural resistance to it. I would think after awhile, each subsequent generation would be more and more immune until those consuming it would be completely unaffected by it.

Maybe instead of having an effect in the present day, you could simply explain the males evolved to be less intelligent from long periods of history of consuming it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I'm going to skip past the fungus and simply focus on matriarchal society for a moment.

Okay... so there's several things that come to mind when we think of matriarchs... I tend to think of a middle of the road sort of society. For instance... is the "matriarchal society" one simply headed by a queen rather than a king? Then there's loads of historical examples.

Or, is the society one which reveres women over men for a spiritual reason? Still examples to be found.

Or, is the society some sort of amazonian thing, where men are kept as literal slaves and breeding stock?

Personally, I tend to feel the most natural matriarchal society would be one in which males and females are both respected, have rights, and are encouraged to pursue education and careers. Ireland had a society where men and women had mostly the same rights. Many cultures had sovereign queens who ruled without a king or male consort. Or, in a more primitive setting, maybe the matriarch isn't a leader at all, but the spiritual leader, a judge of souls. The Norse felt it was shameful for men to practice Seidr (magic), but t was all okay for women. What if you simply make the priestesses very important women and all members of society bow to their judgements? I did that in one of my stories. It wasn't a female dominated society, but the head of all spiritual things was a female and men would lay down their weapons in the street if she walked by and stopped a brawl.

Personally, I think lowering mens intelligence would be a mistake. If, for example, all the men in our society were suddenly mentally incompetent... I think it would get dangerous, not more female dominated. Imagine... creatures fueled by testosterone; brawny, stupid men. What in the world makes anyone think they would suddenly forget their own egos and self-imprtance and submit to the smarter, smaller women? Wouldn't happen. I've known some really stupid men in my life.... I can only imagine them getting brawnier and stupider. It would be a recipe for disaster. However... I can see it happening then that women band together and kick them out.

I think the best way to show a matriarchal society might be one in which women have many rights and simply don't "need" men. then, there's a genuine partnership between the genders, and let's all be honest... there are weak-willed men all over the place who wouldn't ever get in a fight, even to defend their girlfriend's honor if a bigger guy started talking smack. Why not simply say that those guys (for whatever reason) were the ones selected by women for centuries. Maybe the fungus killed off all the beefcakes for some reason. I mean, the only reason violent, strong men exist, is because their genes are kinda great for survival and survival means you live on to continue breeding. And... women kinda find it hot, manly men. Sorry. It's true. Bearded faces, muscly physiques, hairy chests, calloused hands, low voices... it's everything we aren't. You need to figure out WHY people developed in this certain way. I remember watching a documentary about human evolution and they talked about why men have beards. The video said, "If women didn't like it, facial hair would have disappeared. But, it was women choosing mates they were attracted to, that kept the beard in the male genes."

So... I'd suggest, first consider why you have a female-dominated society, and how fr it goes and how completely males are cut out of the ruling class. Consider why your men aren't fit. If it's fungus, I'd simply consider making the fungus have some effect that made certain people more attractive and the results are that certain males survived more readily than your typical clannish, warmongering chieftain. Because, typically, that kind of society favors strong male leaders. If you're going for something else, decide WHY it is different. And, if it's something sudden, like "last century, all the men got stupid" , I think considering the fallout of that kind of change would be appropriate. Like I said... I can't imagine if the stupid men I've known got stupider. Society would turn violent, in my opinion, not docile.

Hope that gives you some things to think about.

 

[Sam Evren]

Maybe instead of having an effect in the present day, you could simply explain the males evolved to be less intelligent from long periods of history of consuming it.

Or, to take another page out of history, keep education in the hands of the ruling elite---in this case the matrilineal elite, the women.

That wouldn't keep inherently bright individual males from existing, but as the society wouldn't prize them, they might be relegated to lesser roles, even ostracized. In essence, they could be branded as witches.

 

[TopHat]

Thank you all for your comments, you guys have pointed out A LOT of stuff I never considered.

Now I'm actually considering skipping the fungus, maybe I can achieve the gender-differences without it. Because, like WooHooMan pointed out, why would they keep eating it if its not actually good for them?
And I agree with Caged Maiden, making the men stupider might not be such a good idea. It would get really violent. Somehow I want the women to be the dominant gender. The men and women will still have equal rights but the women should be more dominant, favored, or outrank the men. I guess I could make it a social or religious factor:

The religion has a big importance in the society, these people worship all the common gods but favor the goddess of the Ocean and Love more. According to the legend the women originate from the mermaids, the daughters of the goddess. That is why only women are the only ones who can perform magic, that's their gift from the goddess.
(I'd like to point out that not all women can do magic though).
Because of their heritage, these women are also naturally very beautiful. Being a priestess is the highest ranked position in the society. Yes, they are in fact a coastal people and the sailors often pray to the goddess for protection.

I mentioned that because of their heritage the women are naturally beautiful. For some reason I'd like these men to be naturally stronger than the average men in the rest of the world. Any ideas on that?

How does all this sound?

 

[Saigonnus]

I mentioned that because of their heritage the women are naturally beautiful. For some reason I'd like these men to be naturally stronger than the average men in the rest of the world. Any ideas on that?

Perhaps it is something as simple as they train physically from a young age; like the Spartans, to take yet another example out of history. Working out constantly, wrestling or martial combat tends to make people fit when done for long periods of time. I don't know that it would necessarily make them look stronger or physically larger; which is largely reliant on their physique, for example skinny guys don't generally get to be super "buff", but they'd certainly have the "fitness" to bethe most deadly S.O.B's around.

If you have gladitorial contests or public spectacles where the winners are showered with accolades and allowed access to the most beautiful women, it could drive the men to pursue this avenue over more mundane careers.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

To wade just in the very shallow end of this rather deep discourse. There have been very few matriarchal societies in history, and none (well maybe one) if the context of what you have been describing were used as the template. Most people when they consider matriarchies think it means women ruling. However most anthropologists when discussing the idea are using a more egalitarian concept where men and women have more or less equal power in the society. And even where women tend to find themselves in political control anthropologists often tend to use terms such as Matrifocal to describe them, because mothers and grandmothers often become the focus of the society. The reason is usually that men go off to hunt etc at an early age and die young leaving women, especially older women, in a sort of power vacuum. The Iroquois would be an example of this in my view. As I understand it in that society women play an important / central role in political structures and also define a lot of the society's values, morality etc. In Maori society women did not have great political power but did carry the property / inheritance down their lines.

The only society I can think of which would serve as a template for a matriarchal society in the sense that women actually rule the roost at all levels of society would be one that was brought about by accident more or less. The island of Lesbos. (Where the term lesbian - meaning women taking on the roles of men came from.) In this unfortunate case most of the men went off to fight in the Greek wars and never came back, leaving an island almost bereft of men, and women were forced to take on traditional male roles at all levels of society.

In a similar vein you could consider WWI and WWII countries where women were forced to shoulder many traditional male occupations as the men went off to fight, and see how that impacted on society. WWII America is a prime example of this, and you can see the repercussions of this through the next thirty, forty or more years as the feminist movement suddenly found its feet and women started working and refused to stay home with the kids. The societial upheaval's that followed and the reactions to it (especially feminist writers) may give you some insight into how a matriarchal society should look.

But don't buy into the persistent myth that prehistoric human societies were all matriarchal, and that primitive societies are simply holdovers from ancient times. Though feminists for awhile seeme to buy into these nineteenth century romanticisms this is largely discredited by anthropologists.

Hope that helps though it may be a little off target.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Lycan999]

One quick thought, it is never said if they are actually human. If they are not human the matriarchal society could be more easily explained like drow society in R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy. The drow females are naturally large, stronger, and (supposedly) smarter than the males. You could have the females being naturally smarter than the males.

 

[Kn'Trac]

One quick thought, it is never said if they are actually human. If they are not human the matriarchal society could be more easily explained like drow society in R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy. The drow females are naturally large, stronger, and (supposedly) smarter than the males. You could have the females being naturally smarter than the males.

That would have been my suggestion as well, as Drow are the Quintessential Matriarchical society in the Dungeons and Dragons universe (and one of the very few I've seen done well tbh).

 

[ACSmyth]

Also bear in mind that there's a difference between matriarchal and matrilineal. A matriarchy can be matrilineal or patrilineal.

 

[Scribble]

The source of most of our cultural artifacts is the need to sort out property and taxes. Who's property goes to who and who has to pay the taxes. In a patriarchal society, we have conventions like marriage, rules for divorce, sexual taboos, religious practices and ceremonies, etc... all based on the cementing of property and taxation within an orderly system of lineage.

In a patriarchal society men need to know who their offspring are, to secure not only their genetics but to secure their wealth (whatever that consists of). In a matriarchal society, I imagine children as belonging to the "clan" much as in a Kibbutz. The male children don't need to be identified as the son of so-and-so, and therefore no special care needs to be taken in that regard. If they are raised by all the group, then they will likely feel a strong clan identity and have less of a stake in their identity as part of a lineage.

Conversely, everyone knows who their mother is. Female offspring of matriarchs, if the society is matrilineal, would likely hold higher status than other females and certainly higher than males. This would be to secure the passage of property, leadership, taxation, etc... In that mode it would be the matriarch of the clan who, in a pyramid fashion, would draw taxes from her subordinate females to pay the state/empress/clergy/etc...

Older males may take a role in the care and raising of young children. I imagine that they would care for low status children. High status female children would be cultivated for leadership, and have stronger tutelage. Sons of high status matriarchs may have "preferred" status, but it would fall below that of daughters.

There may be "rogue" males who buck society and seek to be dominant. This could be a source of social unrest on the fringes. That conflict could serve to create a cultural idea of a "bad male", one who is dominant, a bogey-man of sorts. Since there would be no place for them in society, they would be cast out, unable to find a niche and so slide to the fringes of society.

 

[Jabrosky]

One idea I came up with was a tribal society modeled after elephants. You would have the women living with their children in matriarchal family groups while the men get kicked out when they come of age, spending their adult lives either roaming the world alone or hanging out in bachelor groups.

 

[Scribble]

the men get kicked out when they come of age, spending their adult lives either roaming the world alone or hanging out in bachelor groups.

Sounds like trouble!

 

[Scribble]

Sons of high status matriarchs may have "preferred" status, but it would fall below that of daughters.

It occurred to me that the sons of high status matriarchs, if they are kept from field labor (and therefore not suited for it by lack of exposure to it, being "soft"), may be sent to work in the houses of other favored matriarchs when they reach a "certain" age. Being in proximity with the women, the genes of the matriarch are most likely passed along to her favored subordinates.

Thus, the genetic and social influence of powerful and fertile matriarchs can spread far and wide.