Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Alleged supremacy of the mother in the primitive family and clan; in reality, the supremacy of the male relatives of the wife or mother as opposed to the supremacy of husband or father.
- noun That social order in which descent is traced from mother to children, so that the children belong to the mother's family and inherit from their mother's brothers: same as
matriarchy .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word mother-right.
Examples
-
"Orphaned maidens," deprived of their inheritance by new patrilineal laws, also took refuge in such castles of women; so did older widows who were no longer permitted to inherit property as under the former laws of mother-right.
Archive 2008-04-01 Jan 2008
-
The position of the father among those peoples with whom strict mother-right prevails is thus sketched by Zmigrodski (174.206): --
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
-
This came about not only because military success gave the women of conquered tribes into the absolute power of the conquerors, and broke for such the social bond of remaining mother-right, but because of the special training of boys and young men which the military systems of all ages have initiated.
The Family and it's Members Anna Garlin Spencer
-
The system of mother-right prevails widely over the whole globe; in some places, however, only in fragmentary condition.
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
-
Scotland, were organised on the system of mother-right, in which property and descent and kinship are all traced through the maternal side of the ancestry.
-
When the social world was written in terms of mother-right, the religious world was expressed in terms of mother-god.
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
-
Dr. Brinton says, concerning mother-right among the Indians of North
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
-
Modern High German _Muttersohn, Mutterkind_, which, with the even more significant _Muttermensch_ (human being), takes us back to the days of "mother-right."
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
-
The course of law in respect to the inheritance of children during the Middle Ages can be read in the pages of Deneus and the wider comparative aspect of the subject studied in the volumes of Post, Dargun, Engels, etc., where the various effects of mother-right and father-right are discussed and interpreted.
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
-
[1] It is unfortunate that the accepted English equivalent of Mutterrecht (literally, mother-right) is matriarchy, which derivatively connotes the idea of dominion.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.