Study on matrilineal and matriarchal societies (third part) So in this region of the world, women own the houses and the lands but also get to go working in the city during men stay in houses to take care of babies and make sure that the house stays clean. This tribe is a perfect example of matrilineal society because we see clearly women controlling everything and men obeying to their wife and also to their mother in law. You have to understand that the power hold by women in khasis ‘system is huge: they decide on everything: in which school the kids will go, how spend the family’s incomes, even the small decisions are making by women, like visit a village near house. To resume, nothing can be realised in the family without the agreement of the mother. Outside the family, women still get the advantage on men in professional career. Effectively, in Khasis society, women are everywhere; they can occupy physical as well as intellectual jobs like butcher, general in the army or judge. Also, in the Khasis society women are not embarrassed at all by conventions or traditions, it’s usual in Meghalaya to see women going at the church on Sunday with lipstick and wearing skirt, or driving and listening to rock music with open windows or even talking about how great it is to be a single woman. The destiny of a men is totally different, when his mother died, he gets almost nothing, and when he get married, he has to leave his family’s house to go to live in the family in law’s house. So barely a man gets married and so succeeds to escape to the authority of his mother that he has immediately to obey to his mother’s in law! Then during his life, the men can’t participate to families’ reunions, is expel from his wife and children. This matrilineal tradition is deeply included in history of the tribe. Even the language of this society is influenced by the predominance of women. Indeed, in grammar, masculine ling is reserved for objects without life. For example, the wood of a tree is masculine but a piece of wood altered or sculpt by someone, he gets to be a feminine word. When we reflect we realise that on our patriarchal society the exact opposite exists. Effectively, in French language the rule imposed that when an action is lead by at least one man, the masculine win on the feminine even women are more than men. What is now more complicated to understand is that the Khasis’ tribe is not a matriarchal society because never in their history women succeed to get in the top of power. Effectively, the state has always been run by men. Nevertheless, even in the royal system of Meghalaya women were principal character: to transmit his power, the king had to choose the son of his youngest sister. We can also say that since the independence of the state of Meghalaya on 1972, all the chief have been men. So, we can resume the Khasis’ tribe to a society run by men who give the power to women