question for the masses

[tea_and_ink]

So, dear, lovely, awesome, unparalleled ladies of my flist I come here today to suck up to you ask you a very serious question of great import: what do you think a matriarchal society should have/be like/work like? Why? (okay, so two questions, then).

I'm sort of playing around with world-building sandboxes and this may never percolate into anything beyond a mental exercise, so be warned. However, isn't this a great mental exercise? (hint: it is)

Comments

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Ooh, always an interesting exercise, considering the difficulties in us being able to think outside the patriarchal box with any reliability in the first place!

One think I've seen come up in a book I once read with a matriarchal premise was the idea of legitimacy vs. illegitimacy. In a matriarchal society inheritance would likely favour/have favoured in history, the female line. But when that happens, why would there be as much need for the whole legitimacy/illegitimacy thing to happen. There would be way fewer questions because of the length of time for a pregnancy etc., so it's way less likely for there to be be secret children hidden off anywhere. And chances are, if the focus is primarily on the mothers genetic line, it could potentially turn into a case where it doesn't matter much who the father is in the first place. Depending on which ways you want to expand that you could probably make a good case for completely changing the history/definition of marriage.

I think what I find most interesting is the idea of women and work. Without the patriarchal influence, would women still be as home oriented? Would childcare form to the men? Or would the driving force for 'success' in business be a little less demanding and cold than it is today. I'm never too sure on the answer. Would a demanding job make more allowances for home commitments, or only for the physical process of pregnancy and birth before getting back to the idea of a high powered job like we have?

I guess what most major stuff would come back to is how would the idea of femininity change, and I guess my answer is pretty much: fucked if I know, I live in a patriarchy! ;)