Lawrence Krader

On a Demographer's View of Prehistoric Demography

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A Marxist Reappraisal of the Matriarchate [and Comments and Reply]

The question of the matriarchate remains unresolved nearly 120 years after its introduction by Bachofen. The idea has separate histories in idealist and materialist thought and in non-Marxist and Marxist science. The origin of the matriarchate-the claim that the maternal clan or descent in the female line was a general stage in culture history which preceded paternal descent and authority-lies in the idealist thinking of Bachofen and McLennan. Morgan and Engels accepted the idea and infused it with a materialist interpretation. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State presents a materialist analysis of the history of human society, the general outlines of which have been validated by subsequent ethnological studies. Criticism of Engels for his acceptance of the priority of matrilineal descent has prevented a more general acceptance in the West of The Origin of the Family as a work of anthropological significance. There is evidence to suggest that Marx and Engels differed in their evaluations of Bachofen and Morgan, and Marx appears not to have been an advocate of the thesis of the matriarchal epoch. Anthropological scholarship in the West in this century has led many to the conclusion that matrilineality is a case of specific rather that general evolution. The question is currently under review in scholarly circles in the socialist countries, long believed in the West to be doctrinaire in their interpretation of Marx, Engels, and Morgan. A number of controversial questions regarding the nature and periodization of precapitalist society, including the anteriority of matrilineal descent, are being discussed in Soviet ethnology and historiography. This article selectively reviews the historical literature on the matriarchate and studies most intensively the history of the idea in materialist and Marxist writings. In this context, it seeks to place the idea in a fresh perspective. The author invites constructive dialog on this question.