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

Study on matrilineal and matriarchal societies (second part) The legend says that if amazons decided to keep male babies or male adults, they had to break their leg or arm or even made them blind to be sure that they will not represent a threaten for the community. Moreover, for amazons once males were handicapped, they represented good servants and great lovers because according to amazons they were not anymore tempted to abuse of their physical forces. So Amazons disliked men, but in order to make sure that the community will still exist and grow, they had one time per year sexual relations with man, but not with anyone, they made their choice among men on the standard of beauty. In spite of their cruelty towards men, amazons had values: for those women the most important was the loyalty of each member at the community and they also wanted to prove to others populations that they were real warriors who were in capacity to win in front of men. For example, to be as good as men in war they cut their right breast to not be disturb when they had to archery. After this description, it seems clear that Amazons are a perfect illustration of matrilineal but also matriarchal society. What is the most exiting is that recent researches made near Russia permit to tell that the story of amazons is maybe not a legend. Effectively, they found out coffins that contain warrior women who had with them weapons, (fleches) and jewels. This discovery show out that matriarchal society has maybe existed in the past. B- Reality: the society established by women of Meghalaya The state of Meghalaya, localised on the North-East of India, is the biggest matrilineal society of the world with five millions of people. In this state the power is given by the mother to his daughter since more 2 300 years. Meghalaya is composed by many tribes, which one of them (the largest) the Khasis give all credit to women. The Khasis’ tribe follows a matrilineal system of inheritance. In the Khasi society, it is only the youngest daughter who is eligible to inherit the ancestral property. It’s her who’s going to assume the higher function in the family but also in the society. If the youngest daughter dies without any daughter surviving her, her next elder sister inherits the ancestral property, and after her, the youngest daughter of that sister. Failing all daughters and their female issues, the property goes back to the mother';s sister, mother';s sister';s daughter and so on. Moreover when women get married they don’t have to bring a “dot” because they automatically inherit all the properties.

Study on matrilineal and matriarchal societies (first part) I'm going to present this subject at school, if you have some coments: go ahead! Like most countries, we are living in a society which is based on the principles of patriarchate. By patriarchate, I’m referring to societies in which men got the authority and transmit social status’ elements to children, as the last name, the inheritance and the duty to manage the family. As everyone know, in those societies the father transmit all his power to the older boy of the family. For us, this system is so usual that we forgot that is not the unique way to organise a society. So, in order to reflect on what others possibilities we have to establish a society on, we are going to expose you the principles and the mechanism of a matrilineal society. First, we have to distinguish matrilineal society to matriarchal society. Matrilineal refers to a society in which the mother is the main character in the family because she transmits her last name, the inheritance… to her children. Matriarchal means a society which’s dominated by women. After this explanation of vocabulary, we are going to approach this subject by present you a first part named “When the female sex is the strong sex” and a second part entitle “a blamed model but an original one even”. I- When the female sex is the strong sex A- Mythology: the amazons In Mythology the symbol of female power is represented by the amazons. According to the legend, amazons were a group of women living in the present turkey. They were known for their way of living: they were female warrior, and they set up a society in which men were almost inexistent. Effectively, in the society established by the amazons, men had to stay in houses to clean whereas women could make war and run the community. To make sure that they will keep the power under control, they killed their own babies when they were boys, or if they don’t kill them, they gave them to their fathers.