Their social fabric is based upon clearly marked exogamous groups, with patriarchal principles of marriage and inheritance; they call these by a Khasi name (kur), but have no trace of the matriarchal family as known among the Khasis.
This absence of matriarchal institutions strongly marks off the Mikirs from the Khasis, from whom they have in other respects borrowed much.
It is also just possible that it is a relic of the matriarchal period, when the ancestors of the mother only were known, and consequently invoked.
The father has no kinship with his children, who belong to their mother's clan; what he earns goes to his own matriarchal stock, and at his death his bones are deposited in the cromlech of his mother's kin.
But really pristine man and woman can have had no houses, no matriarchal rule of women.
Almost all races have a "golden age" myth; faint traditions of a period when things were better; which seems to coincide with this background of matriarchal rule.
If the matriarchal period can be shown to have produced worse evils than these then it was a blessing to lose it.
The woman of the remote past, the far distant matriarchal age, had the beauty of freedom and the beauty of power; though their hands were large, doubtless, and assuredly strong.
From the simple beneficent activities of a matriarchal period we follow the same lamentable steps; nation after nation.
On the conditions preceding history we know little save that they were matriarchal as to culture and of an industrious, peaceful and friendly nature.
To prevent possible confusion, it may be desirable to note specifically that the Seri government is not matriarchal in any proper sense.
But it does not follow that polyandry and a matriarchal state always and necessarily preceded polygyny and a patriarchal state.
Tibet is one of the few regions where polyandrous customs, intimately associated with the matriarchal state, still persist almost in their pristine vigour.
Here as among the lower hunters it is the paternal gens which forms an actual union for the common life; and there is "not the least ground for assuming" that a patriarchal gentile constitution has replaced an earlier matriarchal form.
It is nearly impossible to discover his conclusion as to whether a purely patriarchal or matriarchalfamily is differentiated in the process.
Maine regarding the patriarchal theory, rejecting entirely for the Aryans the matriarchal hypothesis.
Here prevails the matriarchal marriage*rite, with the first espousal to the snake-guarded tree that represents the mother's family.
The evidence from direct historical statements as to the prevalence of the matriarchal family, and inheritance through the maternal line.
Doubtless the worship of the female energy prevailed under the matriarchal system, and was practised at a time when women were the recognized heads of families and when they were regarded as the more important factors in human society.
Among this people are still to be found certain remnants of the matriarchal age--an age in which women were the recognized heads of families and the eponymous leaders of the gentes or clans.
Thus below even the characteristically patriarchal civilisations, an earlier matriarchalorder is often becoming disclosed.
For some years past certain progressive women have shown signs of a reversion to the matriarchal state--or shall we say a disposition to revive it?
He found a typical example of a matriarchal state among the ancient Lycians of Asia Minor with whom, Herodotus stated, the child takes the name of the mother, and follows her status, not that of the father.
This is attributed largely to the fact that Mahommed belonged not to Medina, but to Mecca, where traces ofmatriarchal custom still survived (W.
At one time it was widely held that in early states of society, before the establishment of the patriarchal stage which places women under the protection of men, a matriarchal stage prevailed in which women possessed supreme power.
It would seem that we may fairly take as a type of the matriarchal family that based on the ambil anak marriage of Sumatra, in which the husband lives in the wife's family, paying nothing and occupying a subordinate position.
The Yaos of Africa have what may be regarded as a matriarchal organisation.
To do this, the first step will be to examine, with considerable detail, the evidence for the matriarchal theory as it is given by its two great supporters.
Since the publication of Das Mutterrecht much has been written that has tended to raise doubts as to the soundness of the matriarchal theory, at least in the form held by its early supporters.
Bachofen here suggests a pre-matriarchal period in which the elementary family-group was founded on and held together by a common subjection to the oldest and strongest male.
And what I want to make clear is that in such negation of all father-right rested the inherent weakness in the matriarchal conditions--a weakness which led eventually to the re-establishment of the paternal family.
It is on such insecure foundations he builds up his matriarchal theory.
It is, I think, impossible to avoid giving to this a matriarchal interpretation.
But out of this feeling the sexual modesty of women, which had been non-existent in the matriarchal condition of society, was perhaps gradually developed.
In the matriarchal society the girl was allowed openly to pick her lover, and forthwith he went with her.
We may associate the position of women in Galicia with some of the oldmatriarchal conditions.
III Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India, and other Countries.
It would rather seem that property was originally entirely in the hands of women, as is usual under the matriarchal system.
The modern civilised man cannot easily accustom himself to the idea that in the old matriarchal family the dominion of the mother was accepted as the natural, and, therefore, the right order of society.
The Matriarchal Family in America Traces of mother-descent are common everywhere in the American continent; and in some districts mother-rule is still in force.
The Temple of the Goddess, high on the Acropolis, stood as a relic of matriarchal worship.
This is, of course, a survival of the old matriarchal custom.
Nor does the child suffer, for among these matriarchal people the bastard takes an equal place with the child born in wedlock.
Now the institutions of both the Cham and the Cambodians show traces of descent from an earlier organization of which the matriarchal system was the distinguishing feature.
It is well known that the ancient matriarchal system of government and ownership still flourishes among certain peoples who inhabit the peninsula of the Ganges and some groups of Malayo-Polynesian origin.
Better to suffer matriarchal displeasure, he thought, than to risk a damage suit by a millionaire.
The matriarchal form of inheritance was thus a necessary consequence.
The Nambutiri household is described by Mr. Subramani Aiyar as representing a condition intermediate between the impartible matriarchal form of the Nayars and the divided patriarchal form of the other coast.
This mountain stood as the meeting point of the two confederacies of the patriarchal tribes and the matriarchal races.
The preceding details appear to show that whereas a northern patriarchal race would naturally symbolize axial rotation by the fire-drill, a southern matriarchal race would adopt the spindle for the same purpose.
Therefore, matriarchal polygamy is comparatively more nearly moral than is patriarchal polygamy, and when all is said and done, historic morality is comparative.
Marriage by capture grew out of the matriarchal system and came as the very natural revolt of the male from the female rule, in which he had no rights and no home with his spouse.
As a matter of fact, the matriarchalsystem prevailed in the majority of the American tribes; and this alone is sufficient to show that woman had some rights.
As we consider the principles of government among the North American tribes we find that the matriarchal system prevailed.
The fact that matriarchal law was formerly in force in Scotland is proved by the royal family of the Picts, who according to Beda observed female lineage.
Kovalevsky's argument turns on the proposition that the patriarchal household is a typical stage of society, intermediate between the matriarchal and monogamic family.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "matriarchal" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
