[Glorantha] Re: Grandmother, a patriarchal concept?

Jamie (Orlanth Umathi):    

  > 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.

  I'm not sure I understand properly. Kinship/line-of-descent is not necessarily a Patriarchal concept, or is it? Even in matrilineal families there will be ideas of kinship based on the primal mother-child link in various degrees.    

  > 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?"

  In Russian, Babushka means "grandmother" and is used as a general term for old women, an honorific as a term of respect to an old woman and to mean grandmother as parent's mother. In Bashkiri, Apai means Aunt and is used as aunt, as an honorific for a woman of advancing years and as a general term for women of such an age. (Dedushka/grandfather and Babai/uncle are used in the same way for men.) So, I can't see a problem with the term "Grandmother" both for actual blood-relatives and also for elderly women in general.

  > 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.
   

  Was it? I didn't realise that. I thought that Esrolia had inherited the Earth Goddesses and their framework, always having been a matriarchy. Even when the Only Old One ruled the Shadowlands, he pretty much left the individual areas alone to govern themselves. The Pharoah didn't make Esrolia a patriarchy, as far as I know. So, when was Esrolia 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.

  Simon     Received on Mon 10 Jul 2006 - 10:26:11 EEST