[Glorantha] Re: Grandmother, a patriarchal concept?

In message <20060703120750.46910.qmail@web51011.mail.yahoo.com> Simon Phipp writes:
>Jamie (Orlanth Umathi):

>> For instance, do we really want to model Esrolian society purely on
>> ideas that would confuse Heortling males, or feel familliar to our world
>> view with a twist. I don't. If it is an issue where MGV, then so be it.

I can't imagine anything Esrolians do being particularly confusing to Heortling males. They will rationalise differences as being "what happens when you let women take charge". It's easy to regard Esrolian and Heortling cultures as patriarchal and matriarchal extremes but they aren't. It's a shared culture with a different slant on male and female roles. Esrolia also has a much bigger population which alters the social structure. In Sartar the clans are independant and largely self sufficent whereas in Esrolia even the tribes are interdependant.   

>> Terms like Father and Mother in Catholicism are inherently Patriachal
>> concepts, I do not agree that you can flip them round within a
>> Matriarchal one. The family group would look different and parenting is
>> often a more extended concept. If your mother has a similar standing to
>> your aunt, I doubt a higher authority would be conceptually modelled on
>> the idea of a greater mother.
>
> How is Mother a Patriachal concept?

Jamie seems to be arguing that because the RC church is a patriachal organisation the use of "Mother" and "Father" as titles for authority figures is in itself patriachal. I've not seen any evidence to support that argument and doesn't in any case apply to the use of "mother" and "father". Also, as has been mentioned before, we aren't writing in Esrolian so we need to translate as best we can when we are dealing with concepts which don't have direct equivelents in English.    

> In no situation does your mother have the same status as your aunt
>- one is your mother, the other is your mother's sister.
>
> Uncles are different, though, as you are more closely related to
>your uncle than your father. In families where the mother is married
>to more than one man, there may not even be the concept of father.

I think there will be a word for "adult males in the family" which best translates into "fathers". The patriarchal obsession with knowing who the physical father is won't exist however. They are going to be more socially important than uncles simply because they are present. The majority of uncles will have been married away so although the relationship is technically closer than the fathers the social relationship is going to be the same as the patriarchal clan's child's relationship to their aunts.    

> The Greater Mother concept is important as you are born of your
>mother, she of her mother, she of her mother and so on to an original
>ancestress. That is fundamental and primal.

Except there will be people who don't know their mothers, maybe they were orphaned or abandoned and taken in by strangers. The rarer this is in a society the less status and security such people have. I can see Esrolian society being particularly harsh on such unfortunates - "You don't know who your great grandmother was! She must have been a slave or stickpicker to abandon her child".

>> I would prefer to start with a historical context for the society
>> and extrapolate based on family views then clan outlooks and then
>> lastly a cultural context. So, if there is possible confusion for
>> a term for Matriarch within a family context I would suggest it is
>> unlikely to have developed this way.
>
> Better, if Gloranthan terms, to start with a religious context and
>work down from that.

Whichever means we use doesn't affect whether particular terms confuse outsiders. Language often uses terms which are ambigious without the context and the fewer words in the language the more common that is. If I say "I'm going to town." it is meaningless to you - which town am I talking about? If I say it to a neighbour they know precisely where I'm going even though Manchester city centre is a specific part of a city and not a town. If I say it to someone ten miles away they will assume I'm talking about the local town or city centre which may or may not be correct.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/