Pre-history Sexual division of labour Some preconditions for the eventual development of patriarchy were the emergence of increased
paternal investment in the offspring, also referred to as
fatherhood, and of a
sexual division of labour. Several researchers have stated that the first signs of a sexual division of labour dates from around 2 million years ago, deep within humanity's evolutionary past. In the 2009 book
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, British primatologist
Richard Wrangham suggests that the origin of the
division of labor between males and females may have originated with the invention of cooking, which is estimated to have happened simultaneously with
humans gaining control of fire between 1 and 2 million years ago. The idea was proposed early on by
Friedrich Engels in an
unfinished essay from 1876.
Sex hierarchies Anthropological,
archaeological and
evolutionary psychological evidence suggests that most
prehistoric societies were relatively
egalitarian, and suggests that patriarchal social structures did not develop until after the end of the
Pleistocene epoch, following social and technological developments such as
agriculture and
domestication. According to
Robert M. Strozier, historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event". Historian
Gerda Lerner asserts in her 1986 book
The Creation of Patriarchy that there was no single event, and documents that patriarchy as a social system arose in different parts of the world at different times. Some scholars point to social and technological events, notably the emergence of
agriculture, about six thousand years ago (4000
BCE).
Marxist theory, as articulated mainly by
Friedrich Engels in
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), assigns the origin of patriarchy to the emergence of
private property, which has traditionally been controlled by men. In this view, men directed household production and sought to control women in order to ensure the passing of family property to their own (male) offspring, while women were limited to household labor and producing children. Lerner disputes this idea, arguing that patriarchy emerged before the development of class-based society and the concept of private property. Domination by men of women is found in the
Ancient Near East as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history". Steven Taylor argues that the rise of patriarchal domination was associated with the appearance of socially stratified hierarchical polities, institutionalised violence and the separated individuated ego associated with a period of climatic stress.
Ancient Western history A prominent Greek general
Meno, in the Platonic dialogue of the same name, sums up the prevailing sentiment in
Classical Greece about the respective virtues of men and women. He says: The works of
Aristotle portrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and to serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous. Not all ancient Greek thinkers believed that women were inferior. Aristotle's teacher
Plato laid out his vision of the most just society in his work
Republic. In it, Plato argues that women would have complete educational and political equality in such a society, and would serve in the military. The
Pythagoreans also valued the participation of women, who were treated as intellectual equals. Lerner states that Aristotle believed that women had colder blood than men, which made women not evolve into men, the sex that Aristotle believed to be perfect and superior.
Maryanne Cline Horowitz stated that Aristotle believed that "soul contributes the form and model of creation". This implies that any imperfection that is caused in the world must be caused by a woman because one cannot acquire an imperfection from perfection (which he perceived as male). Aristotle had a hierarchical ruling structure in his theories. Lerner claims that through this patriarchal belief system, passed down generation to generation, people have been conditioned to believe that men are superior to women. These symbols are benchmarks which children learn about when they grow up, and the cycle of patriarchy continues much past the Greeks. As for
Egypt,
Herodotus left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of
Athens. He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in
trade. In ancient Egypt,
middle-class women were eligible to sit on a local
tribunal, engage in
real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath
property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents.
Athenian women were denied such rights.
Greek influence spread, however, with the conquests of
Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle.
Modern Western history Although many 16th- and 17th-century theorists agreed with Aristotle's views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. The patriarchal political theory is closely associated with Sir
Robert Filmer. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled
Patriarcha. However, it was not published until after his death. In it, he defended the
divine right of kings as having title inherited from
Adam, the first man of the human species, according to
Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. However, in the latter half of the 18th century, clerical sentiments of patriarchy were meeting challenges from intellectual authorities –
Diderot's
Encyclopédie denies inheritance of paternal authority stating, "... reason shows us that mothers have rights and authority equal to those of fathers; for the obligations imposed on children originate equally from the mother and the father, as both are equally responsible for bringing them into the world. Thus the positive laws of God that relate to the obedience of children join the father and the mother without any differentiation; both possess a kind of ascendancy and jurisdiction over their children...." In the 19th century, various women began to question the commonly accepted patriarchal interpretation of
Christian scripture. Quaker
Sarah Grimké voiced skepticism about the ability of men to translate and interpret passages relating to the roles of the sexes without bias. She proposed alternative translations and interpretations of passages relating to women, and she applied historical and cultural criticism to a number of verses, arguing that their admonitions applied to specific historical situations, and were not to be viewed as universal commands.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Grimké's criticism of biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published ''
The Woman's Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by feminist theory, which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition. In 2020, social theorist and theologian Elaine Storkey retold the stories of thirty biblical women in her book Women in a Patriarchal World'' and applied the challenges they faced to women today. Working from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, she analysed different variations of patriarchy, and outlined the paradox of Rahab, a prostitute in the Old Testament who became a role-model in the New Testament Epistle of James, and Epistle to the Hebrews. In his essay "A Judicial Patriarchy: Family Law at the Turn of the Century", Michael Grossberg coined the phrase "judicial patriarchy", stating that "The judge became the buffer between the family and the state", and that "Judicial patriarchs dominated family law because within these institutional and intraclass rivalries judges succeeded in protecting their power over the law governing the hearth."
Asian history In ancient
Japan, power in society was more evenly distributed, particularly in the religious domain, where
Shintoism worships the goddess
Amaterasu, and ancient writings were replete with references to great priestesses and magicians. However, at the time contemporary with
Constantine in the West, "the emperor of Japan changed Japanese modes of worship", giving supremacy to male deities and suppressing belief in female spiritual power in what feminist scholars in the field of religious studies have called a "patriarchal revolution." In ancient China, gender roles and patriarchy were shaped by
Confucianism. Adopted as the official religion in the
Han dynasty, Confucianism has strong dictates regarding the behavior of women, declaring a woman's place in society, as well as outlining virtuous behavior.
Three Obediences and Four Virtues, a Confucian text, places a woman's value on her loyalty and obedience. It explains that an obedient woman is to obey their father before her marriage, her husband after marriage, and her first son if widowed, and that a virtuous woman must practice sexual propriety, proper speech, modest appearance, and hard work.
Ban Zhao, a Confucian disciple, writes in her book
Precepts for Women that a woman's primary concern is to subordinate themselves before patriarchal figures, such as a husband or father, and that they need not concern themselves with intelligence or talent. Ban Zhao is considered by some historians as an early champion for women's education in China; however, her extensive writing on the value of a woman's mediocrity and servile behavior leaves others feeling that this narrative is the result of a misplaced desire to cast her in a contemporary feminist light. Similarly to
Three Obediences and Four Virtues,
Precepts for Women was meant as a moral guide for proper feminine behavior, and was widely accepted as such for centuries. In China's
Ming dynasty, widowed women were expected to never remarry, and unmarried women were expected to remain chaste for the duration of their lives.
Biographies of Exemplary Women, a book containing biographies of women who lived according to the Confucian ideals of virtuous womanhood, popularized an entire genre of similar writing during the Ming dynasty. Women who lived according to this
Neo-Confucian ideal were celebrated in official documents, and some had structures erected in their honor. In China's
Qing dynasty, laws governing morality, sexuality, and gender-relations continued to be based on Confucian teachings. Men and women were both subject to strict laws regarding sexual behavior, however men were punished infrequently in comparison to women. Additionally, women's punishment often carried strong
social stigma, "rendering [women] unmarriageable", a stigma which did not follow men. Similarly, in the
People's Republic of China, laws governing morality which were written as egalitarian were selectively enforced favoring men, with insufficient enforcement against
female infanticide in various areas, while infanticide of any form was, by the letter of the law, prohibited. ==Social theories==