Let it be said in advance: This 'ritual dominance' of females was by no means whatsoever a matriarchy, for there never existed a female aequivalent t… - Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg

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Let it be said in advance: This 'ritual dominance' of females was by no means whatsoever a matriarchy, for there never existed a female aequivalent to the social structure we refer to as 'patriarchy' today. [...] Yet, a number of the findings which 19th century ethnologists and sociologists (even socialists) based off their figments of a proto-historical global matriarchy are certainly valid, and some of these features are empirically observable in primitive peoples even today. These findings only require to be interpreted more reasonably, that is less biased to one side or the other. Thus, one is more justified in speaking of maternal rather than "matriarchal" cultural elements when addressing these socio-cultural affairs. [...] The cultural traits we are dealing with here, and that in the modern period have become extremely rare in this combination, may be summarised as the following: Lineal descent was maternal, children were regarded as descendant from the mother. Property, at times also authorisations were passed down the maternal line, either from mother to daughter or from maternal uncle to the son on the sister's side of the family. Residential affairs were matrifocal, i. e. a husband joined the bride's family and he moved in with them. Both sexes were free to be promiscuous prior to marriage, whereas females were free to choose their marital spouse, they were entitled to wide-reaching rights even as wifes, and it was easy for them to get a divorce. The ritual and religious role of females was more relevant than that of males. Biological fathers were not considered related to their children, their role as educator and caretaker was held by the mother's brother who was the social father for all of her children, even if they were fathered by different men. [...] Having only briefly summarised the dominant social order above, none of these traits we know hint in the slightest towards the idea that the people [of the Maternal Megalith Culture] in question were at their time aware of the causal relation between sex and giving birth.

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About Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg

Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg (born 2 August, 1929) is a German sociologist, ethnologist, sexologist, and writer further specializing into the fields of psychology, Indo-European studies, religious studies, philology, linguistics, and philosophy, since 1980 also increasingly anthropology. Being especially active in the fields of sexuology, homophobia, and prejudice studies, she was until her retirement a leading member of the German Society for Social-Scientific Sexuality Research.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Gisela Ingeborg Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg

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The proto-historic religious festivities [of the Maternal Megalith Culture] were strongly sexual in nature. They commonly culminated in what today is referred to as group sex and is socially regarded as extremely negative nowadays. In fact, the inherent potential of sexuality is to decrease social conflict, for indeed sexual activity not only gratifies, it pacifies as well. Our biological anthropological heritage disposes humanity to far more diverse varieties of sexual behaviours than our modern repressive culture permits or deems 'socially acceptable'. Abhorring them as unmentionable immoralities, white colonial masters often gladly took to using all the sexual customs of many autochtonous peoples as excuses to oppress and severely decimate the tribes in question, even doing so with a perfect peace of conscience. Islam's campaigners in the Orient, pioneers of Confucianism in China, and Caucasian Christians used their best endeavours to destroy root and branch of all surviving sexual rites they came across; that which had priorly been sacred practice became re-defined as sinful lewdness and perversion. These religious processes yielded widespread absence of such customs even in many primitive cultures by the modern period. Similar proto-historic customs [of the Maternal Megalith Culture] were wiped out in a comparable fashion [by Indo-Europeans], with structurally similar yet not identical reasonings given, for all patriarchal ethnics regard orgiastic indulgences as corruptive to their social fabric.

Wherever people prefer to call upon "offenses against moral sentience", upon "moral terms" rather than adhere to one's rationally derived scientific criminological approach [dividing irrational, ethnocentric "moral offenses" from actual crimes], one is fully justified in speaking of prejudice's total victory over reason.

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Alle Menschen gehören als Gattung zu den gruppenhaft lebenden Geschöpfen, was lebensgefährdende innerartliche Aggression von vornherein ausschließt. Mit anderen Worten: Hätten schon in der Vergangenheit unserer Spezies solch schwere Konflikte [...] geherrscht wie während der letzten rund viereinhalb Jahrtausende und noch gegenwärtig, dann wären wir niemals zu Menschen geworden, sondern längst vorher ausgestorben. Denn Wesen, die als einzelne Individuen im Vergleich zu den vielen Raubtieren, die ihnen nachstellen, derart schwach und hilflos sind wie wir, brauchen Deckung und Rückhalt von anderen der gleichen Art, um überleben zu können. Wir haben weder Klauen noch Reißzähne, noch genug Muskelkraft, um allein unseren großen Freßfeinden erfolgreich Widerstand zu leisten, doch in der Gruppe gelingt es, wenn auch nie ohne selbstlose Opfer und Mut. In jener fernen Frühzeit, als unsere vormenschlichen Ahnen anfingen, in Trupps zu leben, um sich bei Gefahr zusammenzuschließen und einander beizustehen, haben sie ein Verhalten entwickelt, das man 'soziale Intelligenz' nennt: Die Fähigkeit, mit Angehörigen der eigenen Gattung zusammenzuwirken, um das Gedeihen aller zu gewährleisten. Dies Potential haben wir auch jetzt noch, aber es erweist sich als nachhaltig gestört. [...] Es muß sich um eine friedliche Welt gehandelt haben, weil die frühen Siedlungen zumeist nicht gegen menschliche Feinde gesichert sind. Für ein, zwei Jahrtausende [nach der letzten Eiszeit] haben Menschen in solchen Lebensverhältnissen offenbar ein glückliches Dasein verbracht.

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