Matrilineality

Lore & Background

Scholars disagree on the nature of early human kinship. In the late 19th century, most scholars believed, influenced by Lewis H. Morgan's book Ancient Society, that early kinship was matrilineal. Friedrich Engels took this up in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and the thesis that the first domestic institution was the matrilineal clan became communist orthodoxy. However, by the 20th century most social anthropologists disagreed, although during the 1970s and 1980s, feminist scholars often revived it.

Reader's Guide

Matrilineality has been documented across many cultures worldwide, including many Native North American groups such as the Cherokee, Hopi, Iroquois, and Navajo; the Minangkabau of Indonesia; the Akan of Ghana; and the Nairs of Kerala, among others. Genetic evidence has shown matriliny among Celts in Iron Age Britain, among Ancestral Pueblo People in Chaco Canyon, and in late neolithic China. The title of the Rain Queen in South Africa is inherited via matrilineal primogeniture, with only females eligible to inherit. Modern anthropologists refute the earlier monolinear theory of a gradual transition from matrilineality to patrilineality, proving the flexibility of transition models in both directions depending on external and internal factors.

Did You Know?

• Matrilineal surnames are names transmitted from mother to daughter, in contrast to patrilineal surnames transmitted from father to son.
• In some matrilineal cultures, an 'uncle-father' or social father takes care of his nieces and nephews instead of his sons.
• Among the Akan, lineage property is inherited only by matrilineal kin, with men inheriting before women and seniors before juniors.
• Genetic data has established matriliny and matrilocality of an elite among Ancestral Pueblo People from the 8th to 11th century AD in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.