Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The position or power of a matriarch.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The office or jurisdiction of a matriarch; a matriarchal form of government.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
matriarchy
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a form of social organization in which a female is the family head and title is traced through the female line
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word matriarchate.
Examples
-
The term "matriarchate" encouraged this fallacy and has gone out of use.
Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals William Graham Sumner 1875
-
"The matriarchate is a system of relationship according to which the child is related only to his mother and to the persons connected with him through the female line, while he is looked upon as not related to his father and the persons connected with him through the male line.
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
-
Nor does this all seem to be solely a survival of the historic matriarchate through which all nations pass,—it appears to be more than this,—as if the great black race in passing up the steps of human culture gave the world, not only the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil, and the domestication of animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea.
DARKWATER W.E.B. DU BOIS 2004
-
Traces of the matriarchate survived to the present among some of the Arabs of North Africa, ancient home of "Libyan Amazons."
Archive 2008-02-01 Jan 2008
-
As in Europe, the change from matriarchate to patriarchate came about only gradually and with much strife.
Archive 2008-02-01 Jan 2008
-
For the matriarchate of Estcarp did have powers beyond any human explanation, and they used them ruthlessly when necessary.
Witch World Norton, Andre 1963
-
Raith Cremthainn, but the place where the parents had first met -- which would be an instance of the husband dwelling with the wife's people, as is frequent under the matriarchate.
-
Following out these views to their legitimate conclusions, and both experience and observation verify them, it is obvious that there is no evidence of the matriarchate system in Manóbo-land.
The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir John M. Garvan
-
In these lists the mothers are always prominently mentioned, the reason for this most likely being the fact that Edomites attached importance to the line of maternal descent, and yet this fact could hardly point to a matriarchate.
Exposition of Genesis: Volume 1 1892-1972 1942
-
Besides, it may be well to append a list of the instances where the father or the mother give the names to their children and so to show the futility of the contention that the matriarchate prevailed of old according to the Scriptures.
Exposition of Genesis: Volume 1 1892-1972 1942
qms commented on the word matriarchate
Should mantises on Noah's ark mate
The male must embrace a stark fate:
Only she will debark
From that saving ark
To rule in her matriarchate.
N. b., I understand that current science teaches that the female praying mantis only sometimes eats her mate during copulation, but I have it on good authority that this was standard practice in Noah's day.
May 8, 2016