Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to a matriarch or to matriarchy; relating to the superior importance of mothers (in certain respects, as the reckoning of descent) in a family, clan, or tribe; characterized by matriarchy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to a matriarch; governed by a matriarch or matriarchs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Governed by (or as if by) a matriarch
  • adjective Governed by females, rather than by males.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective characteristic of a matriarchy

Etymologies

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Examples

  • However, unless the viewer knows those stories already, they can only be guessed at; for these are explosive painterly meditations on the idea of matriarchal power (with only the occasional Hebrew name to anchor them more precisely) rather than explicit descriptions of historical figures.

    Artists: Contemporary Anglo. 2009

  • It is popular with domestic tourists for its mountain and lake views as well as for the local Mosuo (摩梭) people, who are officially listed as a subgroup of the Naxi (纳西族) people and are best known as a matriarchal society, a label which can be misleading at times.

    TravelPod.com Recent Updates 2009

  • The assumption made by the colonial ethnographer about their societies having been "matriarchal" in composition is potentially misleading because matrilineality, while perhaps giving the preponderance of importance for purposes of inheritance to the female line, is not necessarily commensurate with female governance or domination.

    Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

  • Ms. Kay compares the imagined "matriarchal" imposition of loose sexual morals which, again - from what fevered imagination did this come? against the sexual oppression imposed by the patriarchy and finds the former more insidious.

    Archive 2007-08-12 2007

  • Ludacris cited, inexplicably, in her article as evidence of this "matriarchal" culture of porn - last time I checked?

    Archive 2007-08-12 2007

  • Ludacris cited, inexplicably, in her article as evidence of this "matriarchal" culture of porn - last time I checked?

    Desperate Feminist Housewife Moms Rule The World! 2007

  • Ms. Kay compares the imagined "matriarchal" imposition of loose sexual morals which, again - from what fevered imagination did this come? against the sexual oppression imposed by the patriarchy and finds the former more insidious.

    Desperate Feminist Housewife Moms Rule The World! 2007

  • Another implication of these results, Ian wrote, was that it was unlikely Çatalhöyük was the kind of matriarchal society that James Mellaart and Marija Gimbutas had imagined.

    The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

  • In some societies at one time misunderstood as "matriarchal" women occupy pivotal statuses in succession to kin group membership, political office, inheritance, and residence (things of great importance in other societies).

    Was It Matriarchy? Webster, Steven 1973

  • More generally, rights of dynasty were inherited through the mother's side, making Egypt a "matriarchal" society.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

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