[Glorantha] Re: Grandmother, a patriarchal concept?

Donald asks some directed questions that my help me with clarifying my point

Donald R. Oddy wrote:
Maternal ancestry is not just a mirror of paternal ancestry. You might

>> quote your lineage as:
>>
>> I am Ria
>> Daughter of Glenda
>> Niece of Glenna
>> Who's Aunt is Helen the Green, Matriarch of our Clan.

>> In this structure your brother, sisters and cousins have a roughly 
>> equal standing, and so, I propose, would an adopted child.

Firstly to directly answer Glenda & Glenna are sisters.

I chose this lineage example to try and demonstrate specific points.

Firstly, and I thought obviously but some felt I was arguing against it, the Mother Daughter relationship is important and closer in many profound ways to the Aunt Niece relationship. However, in a household with three generations of female relations the Aunt (and her husband) has a specific role that is more central to Ria than one in which the Aunt has no responsibility for bringing her up and probably lives miles away with her husband. Indeed in some instances she would 'outrank' the mother.

Secondly, Aunt Glenna is included because the lineage shows more than who is related to who, it conveys meaning about how power is passed from one relative to another. i.e. Helen rules us and confers with Glenna, Glenna is the head of our family unit and confers with Glenda, Glenda is my mother and confers with me.

Thirdly, I deliberately chose a person who would not trace this responsibility based lineage via a grand parent. My point being, grandparents are de-emphasised in this style of family, as only a fraction of the youngest generation will have grand parents in positions of responsibility. In a Patriarchy, you are more likely to view grand parents as authority figures because the responsibility based lineage is often the same as the parental one.

Hence my question "Is Grandmother a Patriarchal concept?"

Or to rephrase:
"In this specific imagined example of a Matriarchy, Grandparents are not as important, does this suggest that our views on the importance of grandparents are skewed by our culture and should be placed to one side when deciding on titles used in such societies?"

Please note, I am not saying this is definitely how Esrolia would be, only that we need to think outside of our cultural view to get to the heart of how it would be. Indeed, Esrolia was once a patriarchy.

The adoption point is a minor issue, but I suspect that a culture that can handle shared parental responsibility is better equipped to take in children without parents. Whether or not they actually do so is purely up to the individual game.

---
Jamie