A matriarchal religion is a religion that emphasizes a goddess or multiple goddesses as central figures of worship and spiritual authority.[1] The term is most often used to refer to theories of prehistoric matriarchal religions that were proposed by scholars such as Johann Jakob Bachofen, Jane Ellen Harrison, and Marija Gimbutas, and later popularized by second-wave feminism. These scholars speculated that early human societies may have been organized around female deities and matrilineal social structures. In the 20th century, a movement to revive these practices resulted in the Goddess movement.
History
editThe concept of a prehistoric matriarchy was introduced in 1861 when Johann Jakob Bachofen published Mother Right: An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the Ancient World. He postulated that the historical patriarchates were a comparatively recent development, having replaced an earlier state of primeval matriarchy, and postulated a "chthonic-maternal" prehistoric religion. Bachofen presents a model where matriarchal society and chthonic mystery cults are the second of four stages of the historical development of religion. The first stage he called "Hetaerism", characterized as a paleolithic hunter-and-gatherer society practicing a polyamorous and communistic lifestyle. The second stage is the Neolithic, a matriarchal lunar stage of agriculture with an early form of Demeter the dominant deity. This was followed by a "Dionysian" stage of emerging patriarchy, finally succeeded by the "Apollonian" stage of patriarchy and the appearance of civilization in classical antiquity.[2] The idea that this time period was a golden age that was displaced with the advent of patriarchy was first described by Friedrich Engels in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State.[3]
The British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, the main rediscoverer and promoter of Minoan civilization, believed that Minoan religion more or less exclusively worshiped a mother goddess, and his view held sway for the first part of the 20th century, with a wide-ranging influence on thinking in various fields. Modern scholars agree that a mother or nature goddess was probably a dominant deity, but that there were also male deities.
The extent of matriarchal influence, particularly from the Minoan civilization, remains a topic of debate among scholars due to limited archeological evidence. Nevertheless, Greek art and literature reflect a nuanced interplay between patriarchal and matriarchal themes, suggesting a multifaceted cultural landscape. This dynamic balance between different societal paradigms underscores the richness and complexity of ancient Greek civilization.[1]
In the early 1900s, historian Jane Ellen Harrison put forward the theory that the Olympian pantheon replaced an earlier worship of earth goddesses.[4]
Robert Graves postulated a prehistoric matriarchal religion in the 1950s, in his The Greek Myths and The White Goddess, and gave a detailed depiction of a future society with a matriarchal religion in his novel Seven Days in New Crete.[5]
Inspired by Graves and other sources was the Austrian Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen who, in his painting Pays interdit ("Forbidden Land"), draws an apocalyptic landscape dominated by a female goddess and, as symbols of the male gods, fallen, meteorite-like planets.
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edit- ^ Andersen, Margaret L.; Taylor, Howard Francis (2010). Sociology: The Essentials. Cengage Learning. p. 439. ISBN 9780495812234.
- ^ Bachofen, Johann Jakob (1992). Myth, Religion, and Mother Right: Selected Writings. Princeton University Press. p. 93. ISBN 9780691017976. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
Although the struggle of matriarchy against other forms is revealed by diverse phenomena, the underlying principle of development is clear. Matriarchy is followed by patriarchy and preceded by unregulated hetaerism.
- ^ Eller, Cynthia (2006). "Ancient Matriarchies in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Feminist Thought". In Rosemary Skinner Keller; Rosemary Radford Ruether; Marie Cantlon (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253346872. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
It restated the theories of Bachofen and Morgan but construed the era of ancient matriarchy as a golden age of sorts and described the patriarchal revolution as simultaneous with the evils (and benefits) of private property and the state.
- ^ Wheeler-Barclay, Marjorie (2010). "Jane Ellen Harrison". The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860-1915. Victorian Literature and Culture Series. University of Virginia Press. p. 231. ISBN 9780813930107.
[I]t was her interest in matriarchal religion and her insistence on its importance that most distinctly set her apart from other British scholars.... As early as 1900, she made note of the evidence of an older stratum of religion--the worship of earth goddesses--lying beneath Olympianism and supplanted it.
- ^ Smeds, John (Winter 1990–1991). "Graves, Bachofen and the Matriarchy Debate" (PDF). Focus on Robert Graves and His Contemporaries. 1 (10): 1–17. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2012.