Although the elite social classes gradually began to develop a male-oriented system of etiquette as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties (16th to 3rd centuries BC), plebeian society continued to exhibit many throwbacks to an earlier matriarchal time.
特別中國上層社會在商周雖逐漸建立一套以男性為中心的禮制，下層社會卻不乏母系社會的痕跡。