Certainly all humans have capacity for violence but it's not a universally human value the way it is for men in a patriarchal context. Neither is controlling your partner or trying to prevent them from leaving through violence and intimidation. Traditional masculine norms in our culture include aggression, domination of others and "controlling your woman." That’s not true of men in all cultures. Patriarchy is a dominance-based hierarchy that involves more than just power differentials between men and women. It's an entire social stratification maintained by intimidation and Might Makes Right.
This is what the term patriarchy actually refers to from a social science perspective — a male-dominated social hierarchy established and maintained through intimidation, coercion, violence, and fear. The war chieftains who are the most violent and most ruthless rise to power and prestige, and an ethos of Might Makes Right prevails. Culture becomes more authoritarian and much more hierarchical and stratified. Women and weaker men are at the mercy of the domination and violence of the stronger men. For the first time in human history, some people count and other people don’t.
Conversely, the Aché of Paraguay considers a man and a woman sleeping in the same hut to be married. The marriage dissolves if one of them takes his or her hammock to another hut. “Marriages generally did not last long, and were interspersed with short romances in which one spouse might temporarily desert for a few days or weeks. Postreproductive women report a mean of thirteen spouses in a lifetime. However, marriages did tend to become more stable after two or more children were born to the couple.
In a traditional Canela marriage ceremony, the bride and groom lie down on a mat, arms under each other’s heads, legs entwined. The brother of each partner’s mother then comes forward. He admonishes the bride and her new husband to stay together until the last child is grown, specifically reminding them not to be jealous of each other’s lovers.
As the batterer-intervention counselor Lundy Bancroft observes in his deeply insightful book Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, many men who batter have internalized cultural beliefs about manhood that legitimize — in their own minds — their controlling and abusive behaviors. These beliefs did not appear out of thin air. These men are not from some other planet. Batterers often seek to minimize and deny their abusive behavior. Men who are ordered to seek counseling for assaulting their girlfriends or wives are commonly defiant — at least initially. In the face of compelling evidence to the contrary, they often flat out deny they have done anything wrong. They also frequently invert the truth and argue that they are the true victims. She’s the problem. She’s a manipulative bitch. She should be here, not me. None of this is surprising. Men who batter are products of a society that is in deep denial about men’s violence and, when forced to face reality, seeks to blame victims instead.
Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox (p. 33). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.
