Women in Ancient Times: from Matriarchy to Patriarchy Essay examples --

Women in Ancient Times from Matriarchy to PatriarchyIn addition to age, gender is one of the universal dimensions on which status differences atomic number 18 based. Unlike sex, which is a biological concept, gender is a social execute specifying the socially and culturally prescribed roles that men and women are to follow. Women have always had lower status than men, but the extent of the gap between the sexes varies across cultures and time. Images of women, well-nighly figurines of the same type as the "Venus" of Willendorf*, Lespugue** and Laussel*** (old statuettes representing obese women, women whose wombs and hips are extremely exaggerated) all dating to the Paleolithic period, far outnumber images of men. This has locomote to speculation about the place of women in Stone Age ships company. slightly have argued that these female figures denote the existence during this period of a freehanded female deity identified usually as the Earth female parent or the Mother divinitydess. On the basis of this assumption, it has been suggested that, unlike today, women played a considerably more important, if not dominant, role in Paleolithic society that possibly a matriarchy existed and women ruled. That means men havent always been the leaders its not an inborn quality (as a lot of them suggest) Johann Bachofen was a 19th Century Swiss archaeologist and classical scholar who was among the first to recognize the presence of an early matriarchic represent in proto-European cultural evolution. Bachofen used Greek myth to support his arguments. He felt up that there were three cultural shows that the early European culture went through. In his view the first stage was a barbaric or hetairistic stage (from the Greek word hetero meaning both) where both or actually neither sex was really in control for there was no control. The unshakable took advantage of the weak, and there was wide-spread "wanton" sexual activity, uncontrolled by d etermine or morals. Bachofen thought that Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, was the chief deity of this time. The second stage was the matriarchal stage, where women banded together for their own defense. Strong Greek hunter/warrior goddesses much(prenominal) as Artemis and Athena were thought by Bachofen to have come from antediluvian patriarch fragments of memory stemming from this time, as well as the mythic Amazons and Furies. This middle stage saw the development of agriculture, and the rise of... ...e largely unobserved it was a new kind of union composed of husband and wife, distinctly different pains the former rank union of sisters and brothers. The two were in fundamental abhorrence to each other. Thus, although marriage was introduced by the mothers within the framework of the maternal clan structure, in the end marriage would undermine the matriarchy. Therefore womankind gave up its most powerful weapon in maintaining its dominance in a human of fatherless children and brought about itself the torments of patriarchy, by instutionalizing marriage. Unfortunately, unlike the matriarchy, patriarchy has lasted to our present day. Of programme there has been major progress since the days of the Roman Empire, now it is smuggled to consider women lower then men in any reek (at least in some countries), yet most of us even so see the world through the patriarchal curtain that covers our eyes. BibliographyWomen out of muniment a herstory anthology by Ann Forfreedom The Underside of history by Elise Boulding Womans evolution from matriarchal clan to patriarchal family by Evelyn Reed When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone http//www.yahoo.comhttp//www.google.com