glossary

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies, they are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, and motherliness, which holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men and others alike.

Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon these maternal values and motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented. Their precepts aim to meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies, mothering – which originates as a biological fact – is transformed into a cultural model.

From a linguistic respect, there is no need to follow the current, male-biased notion of the term “matriarchy“ as meaning “domination by the mothers/rule by women“. The only reason to understand it in this way is that it sounds parallel to “patriarchy“. However, the Greek word arché has a double meaning: it means “beginning” and “domination/rule”. Therefore, “matriarchy” can accurately be translated as “the mothers from the beginning”. However, as far as the patriarchal form of society is concerned, the translation of “domination by the fathers/rule by men” is correct.

Patriarchy is a system

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The maternal gift economy movement is based on the idea that all children have to receive the satisfaction of their needs by their motherers unilaterally without a quid pro quo exchange. It is this unilateral giving and receiving model of interaction oriented towards the needs of the other that lays down the basic template of human existence, and our common heritage, not the contrary interaction of quid pro quo exchange. In fact Capitalism is parasitic on the gifts of the many, through unpaid labor in the home, surplus value and nature services. We are a maternal species that has been altered and distorted by the logic of quid pro quo exchange and its development as patriarchal capitalism. We need to reclaim this original paradigm, its values and interpretation of the world now in order to return to sanity and reestablish matriarchy as the human norm.