Minangkabau matriarchaat is an established social system that appears to be drawn largely from the customary practice (adat) that involves tracing inheritance through the matrilineal line and giving prominent roles to women in public ceremonies.
Minang women uphold these pre-Islamic adat customs, which not only trace ancestry through the female line but also involve a complex social system in which women and men share power and control based on the principle of interdependence and mutual responsibility.When couples marry, the groom moves to the bride’s house. Nearly all household decisions are made only after being deliberated by both husband and wife.
The Akan people of Ghana have a social organization that is fundamentally built around the matriclan, which determines lineage, inheritance, and position in the group. “All matriclan founders are female, but men traditionally hold leadership positions within the society. These inherited roles, however, are passed down matrilineally — meaning through a man’s mothers and sisters (and their children).”
Many indigenous cultures have this sort of power balance as an intrinsic aspect of their societies. Men may hold political power, but only with the support and consent of women. Land is nearly always held and passed down through the female line. Clan mothers or other female elders may wield as much power as a chief, albeit a slightly different kind of power.
The Iroquois clan mother is responsible for the welfare of the clan. She names all the people of the clan and holds a position in nominating the next Chief, where then the members of the clan have the final say whether the nominee is suitable for the position. They are considered the life givers. The clan mother’s position is hereditary; her title rests within the clan and is usually passed on to her female relatives, looking first at her eldest sisters, other sisters, then her eldest daughter and other daughters.
For the Mosuo of China, it’s typical for women to handle business decisions and men to handle politics. Children are raised in the mother’s household and take her name. There’s functionally no such thing as marriage or even fatherhood, although men living in their mother’s houses help to raise the children of their sisters and cousins and are much more involved in their day-to-day care than is typical in the West.“
Mosuo men are feminists by any standards,” says (author Choo) Waihong. “Boys think nothing of looking after their baby sisters, or taking their toddler brothers by the hand everywhere. I was once made to wait before talking business with an elderly Mosuo man until he had bathed his family’s twin baby girls and changed their nappies.”
To call these matriarchies is a misnomer, however, because they are centered in balance and egalitarianism. Gender roles may exist but they don’t have the same kind of rigidity that we see in patriarchal cultures, where men doing “women’s work” is often looked down upon, and anything feminine is considered less than.
