The Iberians: matriarchy or just a myth of sanctioned infidelity?

The Iberians: matriarchy or just a myth of sanctioned infidelity?

To what extent was Iberian society a matriarchy where women decided matters of fidelity? The question, raised in a history forum, has sparked a war of interpretations. On one side, the thesis of a mercantile and cultured people where women were heads of household and property owners –a rarity in the Iron Age– and where adultery, according to some, was managed with community pragmatism. On the other, the view of a society obsessed with war, patriarchal and with few freedoms for women, judging by the archaeology.

The couvade and matrilineality

The couvade rite –the husband lying in bed simulating childbirth while the woman returned to work– is cited as an example of matrilineality. According to some interpretations, it served to keep the man faithful in a society where paternity could be in doubt. But critics point out that Strabo described this custom among the Cantabrians, not the Iberians, and that its function was more symbolic than political. The very word "matriarchy" is often confused with matrilineality: power was exercised by the maternal uncle, not the mother.

Sanctioned infidelities or community control?

The hypothesis that Iberian women could have extramarital relations with the group's consent clashes with the evidence of a warlike and strongly stratified society. Burials and votive offerings show a warrior obsession, and the known names –Indibil, Indortes, Orison– are male. Only Himilce, Hannibal's vvife, is mentioned. One participant notes that the family was sacred and that breaking a marriage meant the adulterer's expulsion, which in a violent world amounted to a death sentence. Hard to square that with sensual freedom.

The ideological battle over the past

The debate goes beyond archaeology. Contemporary readings that try to see the Iberians as a pre-patriarchal feminist paradise are criticized, while others defend Marija Gimbutas's work and the possibility of a matriarchal "golden age" in the Paleolithic. The truth is that written sources on the Iberians are scarce and biased: Greco-Roman chroniclers tended to exaggerate differences to underline the "barbarism" of conquered peoples. On such shaky ground, any sweeping claim about Iberian sensual is, at the very least, a gamble.

In the end, the original question –"sanctioned infidelities"– remains unanswered. Perhaps the most instructive thing is that, 2,500 years later, the Iberians are still an ideological battleground. History, like sens, lends itself to stories each of us chooses to believe.