Re: Old Europe and male-dominated IE?

Hello,
I know it's a little late to answer to this, but I just reread your
message and somehow stumbled over this:

>and when the feminine did appear, it was clearly the (morphologically)

marked counterpart of the masculine gender. Still, to take this as
evidence of PIE discrimination against women would probably be unfair.<
I wasn't taking this as discrimination (I'm not very traditionally
'feminist' at all, I love males!), I was just wondering how this might
have come about. Why give a thing a gender if there is no
linguistic/social/ political(?) need? A society generally subscribing
the female under the male might have a reason for this (maybe just: we
got fed up with the old 'mother is everything' mode). But I was also
thinking of the model (I don't remember who invented the idea) of the
possibility of a moment in time when males realized how they could be
sure that offspring was their own (and by this - ! - owerthrowing
matriarchal law of succession): controlling the women (and their
lovers) resulting in an `owner-inferior' process etc...)
How do you think it came to be?
Greetings from Crete
Sabine



gpiot-@... wrote:
original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/cybalist/?start=49

> ivanova-@... wrote:
> original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/cybalist/?start=47
> > Dear Indoeuropeans,
> > I'd like to know very much your opinion of Marija Gimbutas' work,
> > especially her book 'The Language of the Goddess'(In Germany: Die
> > Sprache der Göttin, bei 2001). Archaeologists seem to frown
> > continuously when they hear her name, but I admire her work very

much,

> > especially her ability to see (and show her readers) similarities in
> > European Neolithic arts and their - non-language - meanings (she

also

> > adds Lithuanian - and other - folklore in places where I can see the
> > similarity, very interesting). She opened my eyes to the fact that
> > before humans used writing to convey their languages - for what

reason

> > ever - they had other, rather symbolic - means to express their
> > religious beliefs or their adoration of nature and life.
> > I find it especially important to note the fact that in the

substratum

> > 'Old European' regions men and women seem to have lived on in equal
> > status, a fact that may have been one of the reasons for its

longevity.

> > But is it true that Indoeuropeans were male dominated as I have read
> > again and again? If yes (judging from archaeological finds - but

they

> > are very much subject to modern interpretations): does this fact

show

> > in PIE/early IE languages?
> > And I don't mean the fact that there was a male god 'ruling' the IE
> > pantheon (because that's probably interpretation again), I'd rather

be

> > interested in more general proof (e.g.the use of a male pronoun if
> > speaking about a mixed group or other 'male' generalizations).

Somehow

> > I'm not convinced of the 'male dominant' IE community yet.
> > Looking forward to your opinions
> > Sabine Ivanovas
> > Crete
> >
> Dear Sabine,
>
> I greatly admire Gimbutas's imaginative visions, but I doubt if they

reflect the historical reality. I am against making up mythologies to
cover up our ignorance. The problem of associating the archaeological
cultures of ancient Europe with "Indo-Europeans" or "Old Europeans"
cannot be handled using the principle "one folk, one culture, one
language, one pantheon" (to parody G. Kosinna). For all I know, the
"Old Europeans" may have consisted mostly of ethnic groups speaking IE
languages.

>
> As regards sexist elements in PIE, the very division of nouns
> and adjectives into feminine and masculine is post-PIE -- something
> that even many linguists fail to realise because of the prevalence
> in academic teaching of the late-nineteenth-century reconstruction
> of PIE as a three-gender language. One of the genders was animate
> a.k.a. common, the other inanimate (or neuter). To be sure, there
> were morphological devices (suffixes) for deriving nouns referring
> specifically to women, and when the feminine did appear, it was
> clearly the (morphologically) marked counterpart of the masculine
> gender. Still, to take this as evidence of PIE discrimination
> against women would probably be unfair.
>
> As for gods, *Die:us is indeed the best-preserved divine name,
> which doesn't automatically mean that its bearer was the supreme
> god of the PIE pantheon. Personifications of the "earth" term are
> also well attested and who knows? Father Sky and Mother Earth
> may have been a divine pair rather than a tyrant and his victim.
>
> Of course in their individual histories some of IE-speaking
> communities evolved into strongly patriarchal and male-dominated
> sociaties, with a cult of warriorship and warrior gods. But the
> equation Indo-European = horse-riding + battle-axe-swinging
> + male supremacy + ... looks completely false to me.
> Piotr
>