Matrilineality

Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. In this article matrilineality also is a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the matrilineal inheritance of property and/or titles.

A matriline is literally a mother line; one's matriline is one's mother and her mother and her mother and... ad infinitum, one's nearly infinite line of mothers, and is thus a line of descent for one.

Matrilineal is simply the adjective form of the noun matriline. The corresponding adjective form, mother-line, is easier to use, with only three syllables. Mother-line and matrilineal will be used interchangeably, and similarly father-line and patrilineal.

A matriline, defined above, also may be given a restricted definition closer to Webster's as follows: A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothers. In a matrilineal descent system an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as her or his mother. This matrilineal descent pattern is in contrast to the more common modern pattern of patrilineal descent which underlies the whole Family name article, for example.

The matriline of historical nobility was also called her or his enatic or uterine ancestry, to match the patrilineal agnatic ancestry treated in depth in the article Patrilineality.

In some ancient cultures, membership in their groups was (and still is if in bold) inherited matrilineally. Example cultures include the Cherokee, Gitksan, Hopi, Iroquois, Lenape, and Navajo of North America; the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, Indonesia; the Nairs and the Bunts of Kerala and Karnataka in south India; the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo of Meghalaya in northeast India; the Mosuo of China; the Basques of Spain and France; the Akan of west Africa; and the Tuaregs of west and north Africa. Some of these examples are discussed in this article, see Contents below.

Throughout this article, matrilineal complications caused by adoptions or other exceptions are ignored, for readability.

Contents 1 Matrilineal surname 1.1 Double surname 1.2 Consequences 2 Genetic genealogy 3 In mythology 4 Various cultural patterns 4.1 Lenape 4.2 Clan names vs. surnames 5 India 6 Akan 7 China 8 Tuareg 9 Judaism 10 Endnotes 11 References 12 See also

Matrilineal surname

Matrilineal surnames or mother-line surnames are inherited or handed down from mother to daughter (to daughter) in matrilineal cultures, similar to the more familiar patrilineal surnames which are inherited or handed down from father to son (to son) in patrilineal cultures (or societies). See Family name for an in-depth treatment of patrilineal or father-line family names or surnames. The terms family name or surname are used interchangeably in this article -- and similarly father-line or patrilineal, and mother-line or matrilineal, as already stated in the introduction.

For clarity and for brevity, the scientific terms patrilineal surname and matrilineal surname will usually be abbreviated as patriname and matriname,^[1] used interchangeably with fathername and mothername.

Matrinames have existed since before patrinames and since even before 1600 BCE, see China section below.

Note that the term "maternal surname" might be confused with "matriname" but maternal surname actually means mother's surname, which is a patriname (instead of matriname) for most cultures today^[1] –– see the whole Family name article. Note also that one's mother's patriname(s) may be inherited from either or both of one's mother's parents, in some patrilineal cultures in the Family name article. Such patrilineal cultures would permit matrinames to co-exist with patrinames there, as follows:

The mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA is handed down (or inherited, or passed) from mother to child, and the Y chromosome or Y-DNA from father to son, whether or not any surname even exists in that society. In patrilineal cultures, the patriname is handed down from father to son with their (built-in) Y-DNA, while in matrilineal cultures such as one in China in this article, similarly the matriname is handed down from mother to daughter with their built-in mtDNA. Thus, even within a patrilineal culture, if any women who thus share the same built-in mtDNA are able to choose a surname and then hand it down to successive generations, by definition that surname would become a matrilineal surname or matriname within a patrilineal culture.

The usual lack of matrinames to hand down in patrilineal cultures, see the whole Family name article, makes traditional genealogy more difficult in the mother-line case than in the normal (father-line) case.^[1] After all, father-line surnames originated partly "to identify individuals clearly" and/or were adopted partly "for administrative reasons," see Family name (History); these patrinames help now in searching for facts and documentation from centuries ago. Thus, patrinames are identity-surnames, surnames which identify one, whether now or in the past or future; and so are (or will be) matrinames.

Relatively recently, in its 1979 "Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women," or CEDAW, the UN officially adopted the following provision: "States ... shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women: The same personal rights as husband and wife, including the right to choose a family name, a profession and an occupation."^[2] (Italics added.) These three rights are just part of the document's long list of gender equality rights which women need to have, the same as men need them. Women's rights is a related article. The United States has not yet ratified this UN Convention, or multilateral treaty, see CEDAW.

Thus, in non-discriminating States, women may eventually gain the same right to their own matriname as men have traditionally had (within father-line cultures) to their own patriname. And similarly, within mother-line or matrilineal cultures, men may gain the right to their own patriname. In other words, the handing down of both matrinames and patrinames would co-exist within each culture in order to avoid discriminating against either women or men. (Note that with regard to surnames such a culture would be an ambilineal or both-lines [mother-line and father-line] culture.)

This surname symmetry between the two genders – this surname gender symmetry – will be mentioned again in the Double surname subsection below.

Actual use of a matriname would involve, first, the women who share one's built-in mtDNA choosing/inventing their new matriname (perhaps like men choosing/inventing their surnames, originally) and then, one's using it in each new daughter's birth record (or birth certificate).

This use of the mother's matriname would be parallel to and symmetric with the normal use of the father's patriname in each new son's birth record. Note well, this is the above-mentioned "handing down of both" the matriname and the patriname.

It should be mentioned that the patriname is always a single surname, like Smith or Jones, never a double surname like Smith-Jones or Smith Jones, see Family name – and similarly the matriname would always be a single surname, never a double surname. (In contrast, the birth surname, in the above-mentioned birth record, may be either the matriname or the patriname, or else a double surname – containing one or even both of these, the matriname and/or patriname.) And, just as men normally never change their patriname, so also women would normally never change their matriname.

Note that one's birth surname is one's legal surname – unless one changes the latter, such as women in patrilineal cultures traditionally do at marriage (see Name change).

Actual use of the two parents' coexisting surnames within a nuclear family is handled in the article French name in its subsection Changes of names — of course with this matriname or mothername replacing that French mother's patriname. In particular, that (French name) subsection presents the concept of a "usage" surname used by family members in their daily social lives – whereas the two coexisting legal surnames (from the two parents) must be used in legal documents and may also be used in the members' professional/vocational lives.

Here is a specific example to illustrate and summarize these concepts: the mother and daughters in the family have the matriname Mamaname while the father and sons have the very-familiar patriname Smith. The family may just live with their two coexisting surnames or they may choose/invent and then all share one "usage" name – possibly choosing one of their two surnames (or inventing any other name).

This "Matrilineal surname" section has focused on the single surname, or identity-surname, for simplicity and clarity, but then covers the double surname in its own subsection, which follows.

Some current use of matrilineal surnames, in China and northern Africa, is described later in the sections for China and the Tuareg within this article.

Double surname

Double surnames may combine the above matriname with a normal patriname – thus providing the desired gender symmetry. The following double surname system does combine them, as proposed^[1] in a book The Seven Daughters of Eve, and proposed and discussed in a "feature" article which is available online.^[3] As an example of this double surname system, let the matrinames be Mamaname and Momline and let the patrinames be Smith and Jones. The mother (with birth surname Mamaname-Jones, say) and the father (with birth surname Momline-Smith, say) keep their legal or birth surnames unchanged throughout their lives, with their daughters and sons receiving the gender-symmetric birth surname, Mamaname-Smith : The mother hands down the matriname part of her birth surname while, symmetrically, the father hands down the patriname part of his birth surname. In this example the order is matriname-patriname, but the reverse order patriname-matriname could equally well be used. The family in this example could choose to handle its three coexisting double surnames by using a single "usage" name in daily life, just as for single surnames above. (Note, in patrilineal cultures today the mother would normally hand down a patriname instead, giving the children the birth surname Jones-Smith in this example.)^[3]

Rather than keeping their birth surnames, the parents in this example might prefer, at marriage, to change their legal surnames to Mamaname-Smith the same as their children-to-be, so that their nuclear family would all share this one legal surname. These parents could also choose to continue using their birth surnames as usage names. And one's single surname (the matriname Mamaname or the patriname Smith, in this example) is permanently available (within one's birth record), if one wishes a simpler usage name.

Note that while single surnames, above, enjoy the advantage of being simpler and briefer, these double surnames do display (and record on legal documents) both matriname and patriname, and have the advantage of being shared by all of one's children as in this example.^{[1][3] [4]}

Consequences

The longterm consequences, of having matrinames as well as patrinames within any culture, might unfold over decades if not centuries – but three short-term consequences may be stated now:

(1). Both men and women can now have their own patriname or matriname, their own identity-surname (the surname which identifies one). Without matrinames, women must use a man's patriname instead and do not have their own identity-surname. Traditionally, women use their husband's or father's or maternal grandfather's patriname as their identity-surname, or two of the three in double-surname cultures, see the Family name article.

(2). Both also can now have the same stability of their identity-surname that men have "always" had (in most cultures), since both naturally will hand down their patriname or matriname similarly, along with their built-in Y-DNA or mtDNA. But without matrinames, women's borrowed patrinames change every generation, yielding very unstable identity-surnames – making women's history and genealogy investigations very difficult.^[1]

Fortunately, a thoughtful and well-written article on the topic of matriname is available online which develops its topic all the way up to and including a third short-term consequence, which is quoted in item 3 below in order to provide the clearest possible wording here.^[5]

But first, here is another quote from the same source showing the importance of item 2 above: "The history of our men is valuable and worth knowing; so is the history of our women."^[5] Also, note that mothername, in item 3 below, is interchangeable with matriname.)

(3). "Names are important. They influence how we perceive our world and ourselves. Their influence runs deep within us, infusing our view of things so completely that we rarely think to notice their effect. Names represent what we consider the 'givens,' and this is precisely where the potential of a mothername lies: to make it a given that both women and men are indispensable to the story – to our story."^[5]

Genetic genealogy

The fact that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited maternally enables the matrilineal lines (or lineages) of individuals to be traced scientifically through genetic analysis, see main article, above.

Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who, by matrilineal reckoning, is the most recent common ancestor (mrca) for all living humans. She is the person from whom all mtDNA in living humans is derived.

She is believed by some to have lived about 150,000 years ago in East Africa, in or near present-day Tanzania. The time she lived is calculated scientifically, based on the molecular clock technique of correlating elapsed time with observed genetic drift, see Mitochondrial Eve.

Genetic genealogy builds upon (and helps) traditional genealogy – the latter was touched upon in the above section Matrilineal surname. For further information on genetic genealogy, or tracing of matrilineal lines via mtDNA testing, see the article Genealogical DNA test.

In mythology

While Indo-European peoples mainly were patriarchal and patrilinear, certain ancient myths have been argued to expose ancient traces of matrilineal customs that existed before historical records.

The ancient historian Herodotus^[6] is cited by Robert Graves in his translations of Greek myths as attesting that the Lycians^[7] of their times "still reckoned by matrilinear descent" as did the Carians.^[8]

In his two-volume work The Greek Myths, Robert Graves notices that in Greek mythology, while the royal function was a male privilege, power devolution often came through women, and the future king inherited power through marrying the queen heiress.^[9]

This is illustrated in the Homeric myths where all the noblest men in Greece vie for the hand of Helen (and the throne of Sparta), as well as the Oedipian cycle where Oedipus weds the widow of the late king at the same time he assumes the Theban kingship.

This trend also is evident in many Celtic myths, such as the (Welsh) mabinogi stories of Culhwch and Olwen, or the (Irish) Ulster Cycle, most notably the key facts to the Cúchulainn cycle that Cúchulainn gets his final secret training with a warrior woman, Scáthach, and becomes lover both to her and her daughter; and the root of the Táin Bó Cuailnge, that while Ailill may wear the crown of Connacht, it is his wife Medb who is the real power, and she needs to affirm her equality to her husband by owning chattels as great as he does.

A number of other Breton stories also illustrate the motif. Even the King Arthur legends have been interpreted in this light by some. For example the Round Table, both as a piece of furniture and as concerns the majority of knights belonging to it, was a gift to Arthur from Guinevere's father Leodegrance.

Arguments also have been made that matrilineality lay behind various fairy tale plots which may contain the vestiges of folk traditions not recorded.

For instance, the widespread motif of a father who wishes to marry his own daughter -- appearing in such tales as Allerleirauh, Donkeyskin, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, and The She-Bear -- has been explained as his wish to prolong his reign, which he would lose after his wife's death to his son-in-law.^[10] More mildly, the hostility of kings to their daughter's suitors is explained by hostility to their successors. In such tales as The Three May Peaches, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, or The Griffin, kings set dangerous tasks in an attempt to prevent the marriage.^[11]

Fairy tales with hostility between the mother-in-law and the heroine -- such as Mary's Child, The Six Swans, and Perrault's Sleeping Beauty -- have been held to reflect a transition between a matrilineal society, where a man's loyalty was to his mother, and a patrilineal one, where his wife could claim it, although this interpretation is predicated on such a transition being a normal development in societies.^[12]

Various cultural patterns

There appears to be some evidence for the presence of matrilineality in pre-Islamic Arabia, in a very limited number of the Arabian peoples (first of all among the Amirites of Yemen, and among some strata of Nabateans in Northern Arabia)^[13] ; on the other hand, there does not seem to be any reliable evidence for the presence of matrilineality in Islamic Arabia, although the Fatimid Caliphate claimed succession from the Islamic Prophet Mohammad via his daughter Fatima.

A modern example from South Africa is the order of succession to the position of the Rain Queen in a culture of matrilineal primogeniture: Not only is dynastic descent reckoned through the female line, but only females are eligible to inherit.

Lenape

Occupied for 10,000 years by Native Americans, the land that would become New Jersey was overseen by clans of the Lenape or Lenni Lenape or Delaware, who farmed, fished, and hunted upon it. The pattern of their culture was that of a matrilineal agricultural and mobile hunting society that was sustained with fixed, but not permanent, settlements in their clan territories.

Villages were established and relocated as the clans farmed new sections of the land when soil fertility lessened and when they moved among their fishing and hunting grounds by seasons. The area was claimed as a part of the Dutch New Netherland province dating from 1614, where active trading in furs took advantage of the natural pass west, but the Lenape prevented permanent settlement beyond what is now Jersey City.

"Early Europeans who first wrote about these Indians found matrilineal social organization to be unfamiliar and perplexing. ... As a result, the early records are full of 'clues' about early Lenape society, but were usually written by observers who did not fully understand what they were seeing."^[14]

Clan names vs. surnames

In general, a matrilineal clan (such as the Lenape clans above) might possibly contain from one to several or many descent groups – the clan might be descended from one or several or many unrelated female ancestors.

If the clan contains only one descent group, then the clan is a family group and the (matrilineal) clan name is by definition a matrilineal surname (or matriname).

If the clan contains more than one descent group, however, then the clan is not a family group and its clan name is neither a surname (family name) nor a matrilineal surname. Still, an individual or an individual matriline in such a clan might invent and use their own matriname, in addition to their clan name.

India

Several communities in South India practiced matrilineality, especially the Nair in the state of Kerala and the Bunts in the states of Kerala and Karnataka. The system of inheritance was known as Marumakkathayam. It was exceptional in the sense that it was one of the few traditional systems in western historical records of India that gave women some liberty and the right to property.

In the matrilineal system, the family lived together in a tharavadu which was composed of a mother, her brothers and younger sisters, and her children. The oldest male member was known as the karanavar and was the head of the household, managing the family estate. Lineage was traced through the mother, and the children belonged to the mother's family. All family property was jointly owned. In the event of a partition, the shares of the children were clubbed with that of the mother. The karanavar's property was inherited by his sisters' sons rather than his own sons. For further information see the articles Nair and Bunts.

The Marumakkathayam system is not very common in Kerala and Karnataka these days for many reasons. Society has become much more cosmopolitan and modern. Men seek jobs away from their hometown and take their wives and children along with them. In this scenario, a joint-family system is no longer viable. But conceivably, there might still be a few tharavads that pay homage to this system.

Akan

The Akan live in Africa, particularly in Ghana. See also their subgroup, the Ashanti. The Akan social and political organization was based on matrilineal lineages, which were the basis of inheritance and succession. A lineage was defined as all those related by matrilineal descent from a particular ancestress. Several lineages would be grouped into a political unit headed by a chief and a council of elders, each of whom was the elected head of a lineage. Public offices were thus vested in the lineage, as was land tenure and other lineage property. In other words, lineage property had to be inherited only by matrilineal kin.^[15]

The political units above were likewise grouped into eight larger groups called abusua: Aduana, Agona, Asakyiri, Asenie, Asona, Bretuo, Ekuona and Oyoko; or sometimes more than these. The members of each such abusua were united by their belief that they were all descended from the same ancient ancestress – so marriage between members of the same group (or abusua) was forbidden. One inherited or was a lifelong member of the lineage, the political unit and the abusua of one's mother, regardless of one's gender and/or marriage.^[15]

According to this source^[16] of further information about the Akan, "A man is strongly related to his mother's brother (wɔfa) but only weakly related to his father's brother. This must be viewed in the context of a polygamous society in which the mother/child bond is likely to be much stronger than the father/child bond. As a result, in inheritance, a man's nephew (his sister's son) (wɔfase) will have priority over his own son. Uncle-nephew relationships therefore assume a dominant position."^[16]

"The principles governing inheritance stress sex, generation and age – that is to say, men come before women and seniors before juniors." .... When a woman’s brothers were available, a consideration of generational seniority stipulated that the line of brothers be exhausted before the right to inherit lineage property passed down to the next senior genealogical generation of sisters' sons. Finally, "it is when all possible male heirs have been exhausted that the females" may inherit.^[16]

Other aspects of the Akan culture were determined patrilineally, rather than matrilineally. Thus their culture was both matrilineal and patrilineal, or ambilineal. There were 12 patrilineal Ntoro (which means life force, or spirit) groups, and everyone was a lifelong member of one's father's group. Each Ntoro group had its own surnames, taboos, ritual purifications and forms of etiquette – its own part of the Akan culture.^[15]

China

Originally, Chinese surnames were derived matrilineally, although by the time of the Shang Dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE) they had become patrilineal.^[17] The Chinese character for "surname" (姓) still contains a female radical, suggesting its matrilineal etymology.

Archaeological data supports the theory that during the Neolithic period, Chinese matrilineal clans evolved into a patrilineal property-owning families by passing through a transitional patrilineal clan phase. Evidence includes elaborate and highly adorned burials for young women in early Neolithic Yangshao culture cemeteries, but increasing elaboration of male burials toward the late Neolithic period. [1]

Relatively isolated ethnic minorities such as the Mosuo (Na) in southwestern China are highly matrilineal, and use matrilineal family or household names (see the Matrilineality section of the Mosuo article).

Tuareg

The Tuareg (Arabic:طوارق, sometimes spelled Touareg in French, or Twareg in English) are a Berber ethnic group or nation in Africa. The Tuareg were traditionally matriarchal, and still (2007) are "largely matrilineal".^[18][19] Tuareg is a name that was applied to them by early explorers and historians (since Leo Africanus), but they call themselves variously Kel Tamasheq, Kel Tamajaq "Speakers of Tamasheq", and Imouhar, Imuhagh, Imazaghan, or Imashaghen "the Free people".

The meaning of the word Tuareg long has been discussed, since it does not seem Berber. Probably it is Twārəg, the "broken plural" of Tārgi, a Ḥassānīya Arabic word whose former meaning was "inhabitant of Targa" (the Tuareg name of the Libyan region commonly known as Fezzan; targa in Berber means "[drainage] channel"). The Tuareg people also identify themselves with the concept Tamust, "The Nation".

The Tuareg today are found mostly in West Africa, but, as were many in Northern Africa, they once were nomads throughout the Sahara. They have a little-used, but ancient script known as Tifinagh. Their prehistoric Berber cultures may have predated the Ancient Egyptians.

Judaism

Matrilineality in Judaism is the view that people born of a Jewish mother are themselves Jewish.^[20] The conferring of Jewish status through matrilineality is not stated explicitly in the Torah, though Jewish oral tradition maintains this was always the rule, and adduces indirect textual evidence. In biblical times, many Israelites married foreign women, and their children appear to have been accepted as Israelite without question; the Talmud understands that the women in question converted to Judaism. (See the above-mentioned main article for more information. This section, Judaism, is simply a shortened version of that main article.)

In the Hellenistic period, some evidence indicates that the offspring of intermarriages between Jewish men and non-Jewish women were considered Jewish;^[21] as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. On the other hand, Philo of Alexandria calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a nothos (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother.^[22]

The Mishnah (Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) derives this law from the Torah. The relevant Torah passage (Deut. 7:3-4) reads: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods."

With the emergence of Jewish denominations and the modern rise in Jewish intermarriage in the 20th century, questions about the law of matrilineal descent have assumed greater importance to the Jewish community at large. The heterogeneous Jewish community is divided on the issue of "Who is a Jew?" via descent; matrilineal descent still is the rule within Orthodox Judaism, which also holds that anyone with a Jewish mother has an irrevocable Jewish status, and matrilineal descent is the norm in the Conservative movement. Since 1983, Reform Judaism in the United States of America officially adopted a bilineal policy: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification, formalizing a practice that had been common in Reform synagogues for at least a generation. Karaite Judaism, which includes only the Tanakh in its canon, interprets the Torah to indicate that Jewishness passes exclusively through the father's line. See the above-mentioned main article Matrilineality in Judaism for more-complete context and sources.

Endnotes

References

• Schlegel, Alice (1972) Male dominance and female autonomy: domestic authority in matrilineal societies. HRAF Press. (review)
• The origin of Matrilineal Descent in Judaism
• Why is Judaism passed on through the mother?
• Louis Jacobs, "There is No Problem of Descent"
• Matrilineal or Patrilineal Descent Lisa Katz
• Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen, "The origin of the Matrilineal rule in Rabbinical Judaism"
• Holden, C.J., Sear, R. & Mace, R. (2003) Matriliny as daughter-biased investment. Evolution & Human Behavior 24: 99-112. Full text

See also

• Family name
• List of matrilineal or matrilocal societies
• Married and maiden names
• Patrilineality
• Blanca de La Cerda y Lara, matrilineal ancestor (1317-1347) of Queen Victoria and other European royalty.
• Mater semper certa est, "the mother is always certain" – until 1978 and in vitro pregnancies.

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