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A persistent notion suggests that in some bygone periods of human history, females enjoyed equal standing to men, or even dominated, resulting in more harmonious and less violent societies. Subsequently, the patriarchy arose, bringing centuries of conflict and oppression.

The Origins of the Gender System Discussion

The concept of female-led societies and patriarchy as polar opposites—with a decisive switch between them—was seeded in the 1800s through Marxist thought, entering anthropological studies with little proof. From there, it spread into popular consciousness.

Social scientists, however, tended to be less convinced. They observed great diversity in sex roles among human societies, both contemporary and historical ones, and some theorized that this diversity had been the norm in ancient times too. Confirming this was difficult, partly because identifying biological sex—not to mention social gender—frequently proved hard in ancient remains. Then around two decades back, that shifted.

The Breakthrough in Genetic Analysis

This much-touted ancient DNA revolution—the ability to extract DNA from old remains and analyse it—meant that suddenly it became possible to identify the sex of ancient people and to examine their kinship ties. The chemical makeup of their skeletal remains—particularly, the proportion of elemental variants present there—indicated whether they had resided in various locations and experienced dietary changes. The evidence emerging due to these new tools indicates that diversity in sex roles was absolutely the norm in ancient eras, and that there was no clear turning point when a particular model yielded to its mirror image.

Hypotheses on the Rise of Male-Dominant Systems

One influential theory, actually attributed to Marx’s collaborator, suggested that early societies were equal before farming expanded from the Near East approximately 10,000 years ago. Accompanying the more sedentary way of life and building up of resources that farming introduced arose the necessity to protect that wealth and to set rules for its succession. When populations expanded, men took over the leading groups that formed to coordinate these affairs, partly because they were more skilled at warfare, and wealth gravitated to the male line. Men were additionally more likely to remain in place, with their wives relocating to join them. Women’s subordination was often a byproduct of these changes.

Another view, proposed by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in the 1960s, held that woman-centred societies prevailed for longer in the continent—until five millennia back—when they were toppled by incoming, male-ruled migrants from the steppe.

Evidence of Matrilineal Societies

Matrilinearity (where property is inherited through the female line) and matrilocality (where women stay together) often co-occur, and both are associated with greater female status and authority. In recent years, U.S. geneticists discovered that for over 300 years around the 10th century, an high-status mother-line group lived in a canyon site, in what is now the southwestern U.S.. Later, in a recent study, Asian experts reported a female-line agricultural community that thrived for a comparable duration in China’s east, more than 3,000 years earlier. Such discoveries add to others, implying that matrilineal societies have existed on all inhabited continents, at least from the advent of farming forward.

Influence and Agency in Ancient Societies

However, even if they possess greater status, women in matrilineal societies may not make decisions. This generally remains the domain of men—just of maternal uncles rather than their husbands. And because ancient DNA and isotopes don’t reveal much about female agency, gender power relations in prehistory remain a matter of debate. Indeed, such research has forced scholars to consider what they understand by authority. Suppose the wife of a male ruler influenced his court via support and informal networks, and his own policies through counselling, was she any less powerful than him?

Experts know of several instances of couples sharing power in the bronze age—the era after those migrants arrived in Europe—and subsequent historical records confirm to high-status women shaping decisions in such ways, continents apart. Perhaps they did so in earlier times. Women wielding soft power in male-dominated societies could have predated Homo sapiens. In his recent publication about sex and gender, Different, primatologist Frans de Waal described how an alpha female chimp, Mama, chose a successor to the top male—who outranked her—with a gesture.

Elements Shaping Gender Relations

Lately something else has emerged. Although Engels was likely broadly right in linking wealth with patrilinearity, additional elements shaped sex roles, too—such as how a society makes a living. Recently, Chinese and British researchers reported that traditionally female-line villages in a highland region have grown more gender-neutral over the last 70 years, as they transitioned from an farming-based system to a market-oriented one. Conflict additionally has a role. Although female-resident and male-resident societies are just as prone to conflict, notes researcher Carol Ember, internal strife—as opposed to war against an outside group—pushes societies towards male residence, because fighting groups prefer to have their male offspring nearby.

Females as Hunters and Leaders

At the same time, evidence is mounting that women fought, hunted and served as shamans in the ancient world. No role or position has been closed to them always, everywhere. And even if women leaders may have been uncommon, they haven’t been absent. New genetic analyses from an Irish university show that there were at least pockets of matrilinearity throughout the British Isles, when ancient groups dominated the land in the metal period. Combined with physical finds for female warriors and ancient descriptions of women leaders, it looks as if Celtic women could wield direct as well as indirect power.

Modern Matrilineal Societies

Mother-line societies still exist nowadays—the Mosuo of China are an example, as are the a Native American tribe of Arizona, descendants of those Chaco Canyon lineages. Their numbers are declining, as national governments assert their male-dominant muscles, but they serve as testaments that some extinct societies tilted more towards sex parity than numerous of our present-day ones, and that every culture have the potential to change.