Matriarchy never existed: the myth debunked by archaeology

Matriarchy never existed: archaeology buries the myth of the mother goddesses

There was a time when people sold the idea of an idyllic past with women in power, free love, and peaceful societies where everyone shared everything. It was a lie. Archaeology and anthropology have been accumulating data for decades pointing in the opposite direction: matriarchy as a form of political organization never existed. And yet the story keeps circulating with the force of a dogma.

From Bachofen to Engels: the myth is born in the 19th century

The theory of primeval matriarchy was not born at an excavation site, but at a desk. In 1861, Johann Jakob Bachofen published "Das Mutterrecht" (Mother Right), in which he divided human evolution into four phases, from the promiscuity of hetairism to patriarchy. It was philology, not archaeology: Greek and Roman myths interpreted to prop up an evolutionary scheme. Twenty years later, Engels turned that speculation into Marxist dogma with "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," imagining a primeval communism with female rule. The ideological baggage was sealed.

The Paleolithic venuses and Gimbutas's mirage

The next chapter was written by Marija Gimbutas: a matriarchal, peaceful Neolithic Europe worshipping a mother goddess, wiped out by Indo-European invaders. Archaeology has not left a single piece of that story standing. The famous Paleolithic venuses —with exaggerated breasts and hips— are interpreted as female deities, but the thousands of erect phallus statuettes from the same period are conveniently glossed over. If a venus is a goddess, what is a phallus? At Göbekli Tepe, which predates the Neolithic (9,500–8,000 BC), the standout iconography is a male figure with an erect penis; there is no trace of a mother goddess. Gimbutas herself ended up repudiating the feminist appropriation of her work.

Matrilineality is not matriarchy

The confusion between inheritance through the maternal line and political power remains the foundation of the myth. Societies such as the Mosuo of China pass down property and inheritance through the maternal line, but no one has ever documented women ruling. Marvin Harris already pointed out that matrilocality or matrilineality do not imply matriarchy. Jewish matrilineality is not ancient either: the genealogies of the Old Testament are patrilineal, and the rule that a Jew is the child of a Jewish mother appears in the Mishnah, around the year 200. Minoan matriarchy is another invention: the evidence suggests the Minoans practiced human sacrifice, something uncomfortable for the new age tale.

The myth endures because it serves a political function: offering a lost paradise to return to. Once it is dismantled, what remains is the uncomfortable work of explaining how human societies were actually organized. And that, for now, remains a black hole.