[Glorantha] Re: Matriarchy

Malk Williams:   

  > I think I'm right in saying that some of the Nomad tribes actually are
> matriarchies, and that the others are supposed to be matriarchies, but are
> led by the Khans on a more or less permanent basis, because the violent
> world they inhabit makes it necessary. And also, the men don't necessarily
> see the world in quite the way the priestesses do.

  Possibly. Female herd beasts (i.e. breeding stock) are owned by females, eatable herd beasts are owned by males. But Khans trace their ancestry paternally back to Waha, so I am not so sure. Some clans would be matriarchal but I'm not certain it would cover all clans.    

  The Paps, however, is dominated by the Earth Goddesses and anyone living there permanently would be matriarchal in nature.   Donald R. Oddy:   

>>Parhaps not quite a matriarchy, but one could argue that the >>women held more wealth and power than the men.

> I don't think this is matriarchy at all. It's typical of rural
> communities across Europe before the industrial revolution and
> I've encountered remnants within my lifetime. It's a division
> of labour thing - the man rules outside the house while the
> woman rules inside. Even in England when women were legally
> little more than chattels upper class women used to run their
> husband's houses and all hundreds of staff.
   

  Where this is an ancient practise, it may have come from an originally matriarchal society, the customs surviving in a reduced form.

> I'll agree that a lot of the SF/fantasy depictions of matriarchy
> are silly but that's because they haven't been thought through.
> Then there are others which are satire or reflect an imaginary
> golden age for women. I think this is true of some of the early
> writing on Esrolia but the more recent stuff I've seen takes a
> more sophisticated approach.

It's odd because one of the sources for Heortling (and hence some Esrolian) backgrounds is the Celtic system and that was originally matriarchal. But, I suppose much of that has been lost over the years.    

  See Ya   

Simon     Received on Wed 05 Jul 2006 - 11:59:43 EEST