Talk:Matriarch

list of women; famous

The list of women shown in a former version are no matriarchs at all. First: they belong to patriarchal societies. And second: matriarchs become not 'famous' to outsiders. 'To be famous' is not characteristic for matriarchal societies.-- sybilla 19:54, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

consensus?

"A matriarch can never rule or govern over the members of the community because matriarchies always decide by consensus."
On what evidence is this piece of information based ? -- Dr.S

Move to Wiktionary

I agree it should be moved to the Wiktionary. However, could it be redirected as to not disturb the flow or ease of access? Eluchil 06:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

consensus?

"A matriarch can never rule or govern over the members of the community because matriarchies always decide by consensus." You're kidding, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.26.235.204 (talk • contribs) 01:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

And how about...

"The title can be inherited, mostly by the youngest daughter"

What society is that from? Certanly not the modern family context. Ocicat 20:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

A matriarch is usually well respected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.114.206.97 (talk • contribs) 20:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

list of "biblical matriarchs"

In the See also section, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah were listed. I took them out. Their articles are not primarily about them as exemplars of matriarch or their relationship to matriarchy. As such, they simply stand for the common reference of "Biblical matriarchs". If there were an article about the Biblical matriarchs, that might be a reasonable link; but just to start linking to every woman who might at some point be described as a matriarch is too much. --lquilter 23:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Matriarchy

This article reads like a dictionary definition. The terms and concepts are already described in the Matriarchy article, so I have proposed an article merger. --Mezaco (talk) 20:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support Walter Siegmund (talk) 04:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

animals, elephants

It seems that in discussion of elephants, most people forget that this is a species which also includes adult males. Those are fefinitely not living in matriarchy what so ever, and although this has been described by (female) authors, its wrong to describe the social system among elephants as matriarchy. Elephants, as a species, including all adult individuals of the gene-pool, are NOT living in matriarchy. Dan Koehl (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this article is about to be merged soon anyway, but just to clarify, the article doesn't actually say that elephants as a species are dominated by matriarchs.So maybe the wording could be changed slightly, but I still think that the role and importance of matriachs within elephant families deserves merit.

Although there are some groupings of male bachelor herds, their organization is loose and most male elephants spent their time alone and not in a family environment (correct me if I'm wrong). The point is, most mammal species that live in herds or family groupings are dominated by males (including chimpanzees, gorillas, lions, etc). Elephant families, on the other hand, are matriarchal societies led by females and no elephant family would be led by an adult male (they in fact kick out the males at adolescence). So you can change the wording if you like, but I still think the leadership role of females within elephant families deserve mention. (Oh, and I'm a guy not a female author by the way) --Mezaco (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I do understand from where you got your thoughts, but still the term has been misinterpreted over the years, and lack scientific proof. To "think" things does not really give a scientific platform for social terms, and regarding mammals, the terms should be ethological, since terms for human societies does only confuse people.

Most people reading the article now, will probably believe: 1) elephants have a "leader". 2) This leader is always a female.

And thats nothing but a lie. If its your opinion that teenagers surfing the wikipedia absolutely must believe this, then I will rest my case, and for the ethologist students that I held speaches for, and read such things on the wikipedia, I can only explain that wikipedia unfortunately expose a lot of false information, since the members in some circumstances use sources in a non critical way, probably out of subjective, emotional reasons.

Elephants social system can not be cmpared to humans, and to use the term Matriarch is falsely but popular used, which however does not mean that ELEPHANTS live in Matriarchy. Contrary as to what is described, the elephants social system goes beyond the obvious visual appearence one can study through a pari of binoculars inside a landrover on a savanna. They communicate over large distances and exacltly WHAT they communicate is not fully researched. When adult bulls meet one or several females, or what can be described as a group, during one hour, a day, or even weeks, they do absolutely not live in a Matriarchy.

To try to educate people on wikipedia, saying that that elephants (normally refered to as members of the family Elephantidae, which actually extends to include mammoths, and no living person as far as I know have an idea how they lived, by the way) which is written on the first line on the article Matriarchy, or that African Bush Elephant (written further down) which scientifically includes ALL members, males and females of Loxodonta africana) should live in Matriarchy is pure nonsens.

A term, intended for human societies, and obviously under great discussions rgearding its existence, should probably not be used for other mammal species at all, unless they show large similarities to humans. Female elephants groups are not "lead" at all, and elephants "groupings" are extremely difficuult to interprete, and still today, there are many questions, especially as to asian elephants and forest elephants, but one things is for sure, but it must be obvious that if adult males, does not accept being "led" by halfsize females, elephants are under no circumstances living in Matriarchy.

The fact that adult female elephants can dominate juvenile, or semiadult males, is no proof what so ever, that elephants are living in Matriarchy.

-The term is misused, by mislead persons, who has an agenda, they think its "nice" that elephants live in Matriarchy. But thats only in their dreams, it doesnt reflect the reality. The latest 20 years has seen a lot of "new-age" influence, and people nowdays interprete a lot of things, according to their political and religious views.

Among those beliefs is that elephants are very friendly, caring for their dead ancestor bones, and are lead by females.

For some people this sounds wonderful, and if you tell them that elephants are extremely aggressive, mostly doesnt care for any bones at all, and subordinate to the bossiest, strongest individual they interact with, it may be a male or a female, they simply dont want to belive you, since its destroying their constructed world of "truths".

When an adult male meet adult and subadult females, the females often line up, and urinate all at once, lowering their heads, keeping their ears close to the heads, and making noises, where all those signs are a clear message; we subordinate, PLEASE dont attack us. (Which the bulls sometimes does anyway...)

If two bulls starts to fight, no female "leader" will even try to split them up, or interfer, they want even go close. Does this sounds like Matriarchy to you?

If this is Matriarchy, then I guess the whole article Matriarchy must be rewritten...

When I was a child, I sometimes passed a girl boarding school. In that school older females were "leaders" and they would "lead" juvenile, semiadult, and adult females. ONLY. Does this make Stockolm citizens live in Matriarchy? Should we we add Swedes to the list of people living in Matriarchy?

Dan Koehl (talk) 00:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Dan, can you provide a single reliable source that supports your ideas? I've looked and I can't find any. I did find Raman Sukumar describing the Asian Elephant as matriarchal, so perhaps that should be added as well. Surely you can find at least one reliable source on elephants that supports your position? Viriditas (talk) 09:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Viriditas, lets just see this as an intelligence test.

lets presume asian elephants includes all adult male individuals as well, lets not forget them. If none of those adult males never in their eintire adult life subordinate under females, where is then the matriarchal structure? If females only "lead" other females and juvenile males, how ever can this be described as matriarchal society?

You dont need any sources for this, its simple, its a matter of intelligence.

But if you want, I can write Sukumar, and ask him to explain that 5 tons elephant bulls does not live in a matriarchal society, and that they dont subordinate under females half their size...

I already explained how this term was misused in books, and noone didnt bother to put this on rails. Still, theres no meaning of lying for wikipedia visitors, whatever you find in books.

Dan Koehl (talk) 10:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

How do you define matriarchy? Viriditas (talk) 11:28, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the entire list from matriarchy pending further sources. I've contacted the original editor here. Viriditas (talk)

Still unreferenced in this context, so I'm adding a soft redirect to Wiktionary. Viriditas (talk) 14:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)