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osprey_archerA few years ago, I got tired of fantasy books about girls who fight against the patriarchy. There’s something very tiresome about watching girl after girl insist that she’s “just as good as the boys”; it’s such a predictable story, and so unnecessary in a fantasy book, where there’s no reason that society has to be patriarchal.
Thus, I decided to build a fantasy setting with matriarchal society. The ground rules:
1. The society must be matriarchal from conception, not formed because women overthrew the men.
2. Men are not trying to overthrow their overladies, because that’s just tiresome. However, there may be men who are trying to carve out roles for themselves that are not traditionally masculine.
3. The story, although it is set in the matriarchy, is not about the matriarchy, anymore than Lord of the Rings is about the patriarchy. The matriarchy is background detail.
4. This is a traditional society, which means it’s conservative. Its values probably are not what we would consider “conservative values,” but whatever they are, the society will hold to them tenaciously, and to the detriment of whoever breaks them.
For the sake of this discussion, so I don’t have to discuss every possible societal iteration, let’s assume that the birth control methods available are about as reliable as birth control in the eighteenth century.
As promiscuous sex is likely to result in pregnancy, promiscuity is frowned on, especially among the young. Youthful pregnancies are too likely to harm the girl (and, unless food is very cheap or the need for labor is very high, too hard on society) for it to be otherwise.
However, in the event that a girl gets in the family way out of wedlock, the blame is probably apportioned more fairly than on Earth. Her paramour is going to be punished just as much as she is.
I suspect, given that this is a traditional society, that they’ll be forced to marry. Not so much to keep the bloodlines neat (assuming a matriarchal society is matrilineal, which won’t necessarily be the case, Daddy’s bloodline is only important insofar as you need to prevent incest) as to create a functioning economic unit to bring up the child.
Admittedly, this is not strictly necessary. There is a society in China where children are brought up by their mothers and uncles, and marriage doesn’t exist, so marriage isn’t the only way to go.
But marriage does have advantages beyond creating an economic unit. It does make it easier to prevent incest; it makes it an imperative for a father to support his offspring (and this imperative would be much better enforced than in a patriarchy); and it makes it easier to punish infidelity. Most women do want their lovers to be faithful, and that’s rather easier to achieve if they’re living together.
Divorce would probably still be difficult because of economic factors, though.
As for how marriage is set up—obviously wife-beating is considered appalling, and the wife probably has the final say (or her mother does).
And then there are the children to consider.
Motherhood would be accorded the respect that soldiering is here—and soldiering the respect we give motherhood. Ergo, soldiering has occasional paeans written to it but it’s basically considered dirty and menial and silly, although necessary, while motherhood is extolled in story and song as great, glorious, honorable, and generally awesome.
Ignore the urge to make the matriarchy have a good attitude to non-mothering women. The patriarchy despises men who don’t make good soldiers; there’s no reason for the matriarchy to be kinder to women who don’t want to mother.
The sticky problem is what, precisely, women are expected to do in order to be good mothers. Have children, obviously (how many probably depends on infant mortality rates; these are important for discussions of female employment and social life, but at the moment the exact number of children is unimportant.). But how much raising is she expected to do?
I doubt she’s expected to stay home until the kids are out of the equivalent of high school.
(As a tangent—a matriarchal society would probably have different boundaries between work and home than we do. A lot of what we regard as office work could easily be done at home, and artisans and farmers routinely worked at home up through the Victorian period. Farmers still do. For the purposes of discussion, by “staying at home” I mean “devoting herself almost entirely to the care of her children and her house.”)
I think it would make sense for her to stay home at least until her children are weaned, because nursing has health benefits both for mothers and children. However, someone could probably make a good argument for upper-class use of wet nurses.
Of course children can be weaned at different ages—in some societies they nurse until they’re about four—and I think that, whether or not her children are nursing till they’re four, that age would be a good age for the kids to be sent out to school (or some sort of baby-sitting facility) and the mother to get a job.
Obviously there are going to be variations, both within and between societies. Any society will have a time they consider ideal for marriage, weaning, pushing a kid out of the nest, but societies will probably vary in how much deviation from the ideal is allowed before said deviation becomes socially problematic.
Part of the fun of a story is watching characters interact with these ideals. Do they follow them? Do they reject them? Do they feel guilty about it?
Obviously this isn’t an exhaustive list of even all the topics covered in sex, marriage, and children. How would a matriarchy view prostitution, homosexuality, polygamy (or polyandry—or polyamory)? What are considered good child-rearing practices? But this post is getting long already, so those will have to wait for another day.
Thoughts?
Thus, I decided to build a fantasy setting with matriarchal society. The ground rules:
1. The society must be matriarchal from conception, not formed because women overthrew the men.
2. Men are not trying to overthrow their overladies, because that’s just tiresome. However, there may be men who are trying to carve out roles for themselves that are not traditionally masculine.
3. The story, although it is set in the matriarchy, is not about the matriarchy, anymore than Lord of the Rings is about the patriarchy. The matriarchy is background detail.
4. This is a traditional society, which means it’s conservative. Its values probably are not what we would consider “conservative values,” but whatever they are, the society will hold to them tenaciously, and to the detriment of whoever breaks them.
For the sake of this discussion, so I don’t have to discuss every possible societal iteration, let’s assume that the birth control methods available are about as reliable as birth control in the eighteenth century.
As promiscuous sex is likely to result in pregnancy, promiscuity is frowned on, especially among the young. Youthful pregnancies are too likely to harm the girl (and, unless food is very cheap or the need for labor is very high, too hard on society) for it to be otherwise.
However, in the event that a girl gets in the family way out of wedlock, the blame is probably apportioned more fairly than on Earth. Her paramour is going to be punished just as much as she is.
I suspect, given that this is a traditional society, that they’ll be forced to marry. Not so much to keep the bloodlines neat (assuming a matriarchal society is matrilineal, which won’t necessarily be the case, Daddy’s bloodline is only important insofar as you need to prevent incest) as to create a functioning economic unit to bring up the child.
Admittedly, this is not strictly necessary. There is a society in China where children are brought up by their mothers and uncles, and marriage doesn’t exist, so marriage isn’t the only way to go.
But marriage does have advantages beyond creating an economic unit. It does make it easier to prevent incest; it makes it an imperative for a father to support his offspring (and this imperative would be much better enforced than in a patriarchy); and it makes it easier to punish infidelity. Most women do want their lovers to be faithful, and that’s rather easier to achieve if they’re living together.
Divorce would probably still be difficult because of economic factors, though.
As for how marriage is set up—obviously wife-beating is considered appalling, and the wife probably has the final say (or her mother does).
And then there are the children to consider.
Motherhood would be accorded the respect that soldiering is here—and soldiering the respect we give motherhood. Ergo, soldiering has occasional paeans written to it but it’s basically considered dirty and menial and silly, although necessary, while motherhood is extolled in story and song as great, glorious, honorable, and generally awesome.
Ignore the urge to make the matriarchy have a good attitude to non-mothering women. The patriarchy despises men who don’t make good soldiers; there’s no reason for the matriarchy to be kinder to women who don’t want to mother.
The sticky problem is what, precisely, women are expected to do in order to be good mothers. Have children, obviously (how many probably depends on infant mortality rates; these are important for discussions of female employment and social life, but at the moment the exact number of children is unimportant.). But how much raising is she expected to do?
I doubt she’s expected to stay home until the kids are out of the equivalent of high school.
(As a tangent—a matriarchal society would probably have different boundaries between work and home than we do. A lot of what we regard as office work could easily be done at home, and artisans and farmers routinely worked at home up through the Victorian period. Farmers still do. For the purposes of discussion, by “staying at home” I mean “devoting herself almost entirely to the care of her children and her house.”)
I think it would make sense for her to stay home at least until her children are weaned, because nursing has health benefits both for mothers and children. However, someone could probably make a good argument for upper-class use of wet nurses.
Of course children can be weaned at different ages—in some societies they nurse until they’re about four—and I think that, whether or not her children are nursing till they’re four, that age would be a good age for the kids to be sent out to school (or some sort of baby-sitting facility) and the mother to get a job.
Obviously there are going to be variations, both within and between societies. Any society will have a time they consider ideal for marriage, weaning, pushing a kid out of the nest, but societies will probably vary in how much deviation from the ideal is allowed before said deviation becomes socially problematic.
Part of the fun of a story is watching characters interact with these ideals. Do they follow them? Do they reject them? Do they feel guilty about it?
Obviously this isn’t an exhaustive list of even all the topics covered in sex, marriage, and children. How would a matriarchy view prostitution, homosexuality, polygamy (or polyandry—or polyamory)? What are considered good child-rearing practices? But this post is getting long already, so those will have to wait for another day.
Thoughts?
