posted on Feb, 18 2004 @ 08:39 AM
I'm studying mythology and have learned about
patriarchal societies and matriarchal societies..
It's interesting to note that before pa and ma societies were created there was a stage of hetairism, aka barbaric stage. In this earliest stage,
either males or fems were dominant, this was a period of widespread sexual promiscuity when children did not know their fathers, women were
defenseless, rape took the place of marriage, and family life was citually nonexistent. The characteristic goddess in greek mythology during this
period, was aphrodite, goddess of love, with no aspect of order or morality.
Next, women banded together for their own defense, leading to the development of mat society that replace the chaos of hetairism. THis phase saw the
first blossom of civilization, laws, agriculture, and the arts. Love of the mother and worship of a mother goddess were also characteristics of this
age, which was symbolized for demeter, the goddess of crops. In an important greek myth, demeter's daughter kore is seized by force from her mother
by hades, the lord of the underworld.
The greek myths of fierce female warriors, the Amazons, are an ancestral memory of women banding together for protection. If you interpret the myth of
Oedipus you get three phases of this struggle: The sphinx, who was hermaphroditic, having both f and m genitalia, Oedipus then marries his own mother,
who is the ruler of Thebes, the tragic events describing her downfall were interpreted thus as a thinly veiled account of the transition from ma to
pat society. Another belief is that the oppression of women by men as adults was an overcompensation for the dependence felt by male children toward
their mothers. This maybe a conscious persistence of an unconscious ancestral memory of a time when adult men were ruled by women.
It's also interesting to note that in our "own time" during the fight for the ratification of the U.S Equal Rights Amendment, the opponents of the
bill warned of a type of hetairism (although they never used the word) that would result from the equality of the sexes.
[Edited on 18-2-2004 by TrueLies]