What Is Matriarchy, Exactly?

Spend five minutes online and you’ll almost certainly see someone say it. A man behaves badly. Another story about violence against women breaks. Someone talks about politics, dating or power. And somewhere in the comments comes the same response: “This is why we need a matriarchy.” I’ve seen it so many times that eventually I found myself asking a much simpler question. What exactly do people mean when they say that?

That question became the starting point for The Matriarchy Inquiry. In my introductory essay, I explained why I think this conversation deserves to be taken seriously - not as an online slogan or a culture-war argument, but as a genuine public inquiry into an idea quietly gaining traction.

This inquiry doesn’t begin by assuming matriarchy would be better or worse than patriarchy. It doesn’t assume women are naturally more peaceful, more caring or better at governing, and it doesn’t assume the opposite either. The purpose is simply to define exactly what is being proposed, separate evidence from advocacy, and test whether the available research supports the claims being made.

Every conversation I’ve had about matriarchy seems to run into the same problem. One person means women governing society. Another means inheritance passing through mothers. A third means a world organised around care or consensus. They’re all using the same word, but they’re not describing the same thing. As I worked through the research, one conclusion became difficult to ignore: matriarchy isn’t functioning as one clearly defined concept. Until we separate those different meanings, evidence for one idea is easily mistaken for evidence for another - and even the simple question, “Has matriarchy ever existed?”, becomes much harder to answer than it first appears.

Working through the available research, I kept finding the same pattern. The word matriarchy was being used to describe three quite different things.

The first is matriarchy as female political rule. This is the definition most closely reflected in standard dictionary and encyclopaedia definitions of the term, where matriarchy is understood as a system in which women hold primary political or institutional authority. It’s also the definition that provokes the strongest reactions, whether hopeful or fearful. It’s also the definition for which mainstream anthropology has found no verified historical or contemporary example. That’s an important finding - not because it settles the question forever, but because it tells us which claim the available historical evidence does, and does not, currently support.

The second refers to documented kinship systems: matriliny, matrilocality and matrifocality. These are real, well-studied ways of organising family and social life. Women may inherit property. Descent may pass through the mother’s line. Mothers may occupy the centre of household life. A society organised around mothers is not automatically a society governed by women.

The third meaning is something different again. Rather than arguing that women historically ruled over men, Heide Göttner-Abendroth’s work deliberately redefines matriarchy to describe societies organised around consensus, reciprocity and maternal values. In this framework, matriarchy isn’t presented as the inverse of patriarchy but as an alternative way of organising society altogether. Whether that is a legitimate expansion of the concept or a redefinition that changes its ordinary meaning remains a live scholarly debate.

One thing surprised me while researching this. I couldn’t find a systematic study asking contemporary advocates what they actually mean when they use the word matriarchy. So rather than speculate, I decided to examine the societies most often presented as evidence that matriarchy has existed - and ask what they actually show.

The Mosuo are probably one of the best-known societies described as a “matriarchy”. Women traditionally control the household and family property, while descent is traced through the mother’s line. But the evidence doesn’t describe a society in which women hold exclusive political authority. Instead, researchers describe a matrilineal, matrifocal society in which responsibilities are shared and many decisions are made by consensus. The Mosuo are a fascinating example of a different way of organising family life—but they aren’t straightforward evidence for female political rule.

The Khasi of northeast India are another society regularly described as “matriarchal”, largely because lineage and inheritance pass through women. Yet governance has traditionally remained more complex than that label suggests, with important political and community leadership roles continuing to be held by men. Whether the Khasi should be described as a matriarchy therefore depends almost entirely on which definition you’re using. They are strong evidence for matriliny. They are not uncontested evidence for female political rule.

The Minangkabau are the world’s largest matrilineal society and became one of the most important examples I encountered while researching this series. The anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday spent decades studying Minangkabau society and argued that Western observers have often misunderstood what they were looking at. Rather than a mirror image of patriarchy, she describes a society organised around maternal descent, shared responsibility and complementary roles between women and men. Whether readers ultimately agree with her redefinition of ‘matriarchy’ or not, her work is essential reading because it forces us to ask whether we’re imposing our own definition onto societies that understand themselves differently.

An interesting example I found is the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. They appear again and again in discussions about matriarchy, and it’s easy to see why. The Clan Mothers didn’t simply hold influence. They held a formal constitutional role. They selected the male chiefs who sat on the Grand Council and, just as importantly, they could remove them if those chiefs no longer served the people. That power to remove a leader is, to me, the more significant political fact. Appointing leaders matters. Building a recognised way to remove them tells you far more about where political authority ultimately sits.

Even here, though, the picture is more complicated than the label matriarchy suggests. Governance was shared. Chiefs and war leaders were men, while Clan Mothers held authority through the clans, including the power to nominate, warn and depose chiefs. That’s why scholars continue to debate how the system should be described. Some see it as one of the strongest examples of female political authority ever documented. Others argue it’s more accurate to describe it as a matrilineal system with powerful constitutional roles for women rather than a matriarchy in the conventional sense. I don’t think that disagreement weakens the evidence. If anything, it reinforces the point of this inquiry: before we can ask whether matriarchy has existed, we first have to agree on what we mean by the word.

I don't claim that the societies discussed in this first inquiry are every society that has ever been described as matriarchal. Throughout this series, I'll continue examining historical claims, anthropological research and examples readers send me. If your own community, culture or tradition describes itself as matriarchal, I'd genuinely like to hear about it. The purpose of this inquiry isn't to defend a predetermined conclusion. It's to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

If this first inquiry has shown anything, it’s that the answer isn’t something we can give until we agree on the question. Before we can ask whether matriarchy has ever existed, we first have to decide what we mean by matriarchy. That may not be the most exciting place to start, but I think it’s the most honest one. Without that foundation, we risk using evidence for one kind of society to make claims about another.

Next Wednesday, we’ll take the next step. Instead of looking at the living societies most often described as matriarchies, we’ll go back into the historical record. We will ask whether the archaeological and historical evidence actually supports them. Throughout, the question will stay the same: were these societies simply mother centred, or did women hold the institutions of political power itself - law, land, religion and armed force? And even if we do find evidence of a historical matriarchal arrangement, a second question immediately follows: what, if anything, does that tell us about how a future matriarchal society should be organised today?

I'd really love to hear what you think. Did anything in this first inquiry surprise you? Is there a society, historical claim or piece of evidence you think I should investigate as the series continues? Leave a comment below and let me know what you're hoping we'll explore over the next twelve episodes. I'll be reading the discussion, and there's a good chance your questions will shape future inquiries.

With Love, Ashanti - the Unpunishable Woman.