Matrilineal

Mothers and Brothers

Adult social authority in a child's life is represented by the mother together with her brother, the children's maternal uncle. The uncle is the male disciplinarian, while the father is the nurturing emotional figure. The father might shoulder some significant economic responsibilities in the child's upbringing, such as among the Ashanti from west Africa, but this does not give him authority over the child. The mother and the uncle can punish the child, but not the father. Among the Mosuo from southwest China, the social role of father does not even exist, and attempts by the Chinese government during the 1970s to force marriage and paternal control onto the Mosuo met resistance and failure.

Western observers believed that the maternal uncle played the same role as the Western father. While such a conclusion might at first appear to be correct from the child's perspective, it leaves out a most critical factor: namely, the relationships among the adults in question. The disciplinary figures in the matrilineal setting—the mother and her brother—share a socioeconomic bond but not a sexual relationship. This creates power dynamics that differ from the patriarchal setting, where the economic and sexual bond are shared by the same people—the mother and the father—with the latter having more control and authority than the mother.

The patriarchal family is rooted in this interconnectedness of sex and economics, which is experienced and legalized through the marital bond, whereas in the matrilineal setting, the sibling bond is the dominant and socially significant relationship. This also means that men do not exercise authority in their sexual persona as husband and father, but share it with women as their brothers, and the role of mother/sister becomes more important and structurally relevant than that of wife. It is significant to note that both sexes grow up with these gender dynamics as guiding principles. A boy learns early on to acknowledge and respect women's authority and not to embrace a standard of male heterosexual authority, which may explain why rape seldom occurs in these societies. Girls learn to be self-confident and aware of their social importance, knowing that their society has confidence in and high expectations toward women.

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