Re: Old Europe and male-dominated IE?

Greetings, All!

One of the biggest problems with Gimbutas is the way that she
sparked the neo-pagan imagination with tales of a peaceful,
Goddess-worshipping, matriarchal society which was destroyed by the
evil-sky-god-worshipping-patriarchal-Indo-Europeans (all one word, as I
tend to tell my students).
Ultimately, we do not know if any of the societies in question
were peaceful, or matriarchal, or Goddess-worshipping, much less if any
of these concepts inevitably lead to the others. The so-called Venus
figurines from the neolithic are being reconsidered in terms of new
knowledge about the evolution of religion. For example (although in
Cyprus), the cruciform figurines which were taken by the Karageorghises
as goddess figurines-early Aphrodite images are now more understood as
maternity amulets.
In the field of comparative anthropology, anthropologists who
were studying differences between nomadic vs sedentary Kalahari dwellers
noted that the nomadic population tended to be egalitarian, with both
sexes visibly contributing to the survival of the group. By contrast,
the sedentary population became increasingly more patriarchal, as the
women were more burdened with child-bearing (having a child more or less
per year, as opposed to every 4-5 years as with the nomads), leading to a
life spent more in the house, invisible, and tus not visibly contributing
to the survival of the family. Or, in short, contemporary evidence seems
to suggest that societies which become patriarchal are more likely to
have begun egalitarian, not necessarily matriarchal, as Gimbutas seems to
imply.
Finally, not all I-E cultures are equally patriarchal. The
ancient Irish had a series of laws (the best known are the Brehon laws, I
believe... it's been a while...) which seemed to imply a sexually
egalitarian society. In marriage, for example, authority was given to
whichever marraige partner brought more goods and "money" to the
marriage. The wealthier wife wears the pants in the family, so to speak
(the plot of the Tain Bo Cuailgne is often interpretedd in this context,
whereby Queen Medhbh has to get the great white bull to make her
possessions equal those of her husband).
Furthermore, non-I-E cultures exhibit alot of patriarchy as
well. A quick glance at some of the Assyrian law codes will make that
quite evident.
Personally, based on some of my own research, it appears that
there is a loose relationship between the belligerence of a society and
the degree of patriarchy. Here in the US, for example, the feminist
movement made its greatest strides during and immediately after the
Vietnam War, when the society went from a pro-war mentality to a strong
anti-war mentality. If the Indo-Europeans were prone to nomadism,
conflict and frequent war-fare, this might be more of a contributing
factor in the rise of patriarchy in some of their cultures (although, once
again, keep the Irish example in mind!). I don't think that you can say
that any culture was "originally" patriarchal, only that they became so.
As for Gimbutas, I think that she got a bit of a bad rap. She is
best remembered for her goddess theories, which themselves have been
rather bastardized in recent years by a small, over-enthusiastic,
un-scholarly community. It's kind of like only remembering L. Ron
Hubbard for Scientology, instead of his Sci Fi writings and his
contributions to science.

Stephanie L. Budin
University of Pennsylvania