The word Matriarchy conjures up images of a culture where women have total control of men and total control of the society and everything that goes on within it. Which is not true. Matriarchy is not the exact opposite of Patriarchy. In a Patriarchal society, women are repressed and are not allowed simple freedoms that we take for granted today. Men actually do have power over everything and even a woman’s word is deemed foolish and unimportant. In a Matriarchal society, women have power, but so do men, there is no repressing of the other therefore making it an egalitarian, or equal, society. There are many authors, archaeologists and anthropologists alike who say that a matriarchal society never existed. I think this is a little closed minded, as there have been hundreds and hundreds of cultures before us that lived for thousands of years. Is it really impossible to think that maybe some of those cultures could have been matriarchal?
