Sex in history (1954) – Gordon Rattray Taylor [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
[About] 50 years ago, a book was published which accurately predicted the results of the 2004 [North American] election. No, this wasn’t a book of psychic predictions. It was a book called “Sex in History” by Gordon Rattray Taylor, a sociologist. In this book, he talked about how societies swing back and forth between two tendencies, each of which places particular prominence on one of the genders. The patrist side is the ascendant male, and the matrist side is more focused on the female. Comparing characteristics of the two cultural tendencies looks almost exactly like a comparison of the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties.
| Patrist | Matrist |
| Restrictive attitude to sex | Permissive attitude to sex |
| Limitation of freedom for women | Freedom for women |
| Women seen as inferior, sinful | Women accorded high status |
| Chastity more valued than welfare | Welfare more valued than chastity. |
| Politically authoritarian | Politically egalitarian |
| Conservative: against innovation | Progressive: revolutionary |
| Distrust of research, enquiry | No distrust of research |
| Inhibition, fear of spontaneity | Spontaneity: exhibition |
| Deep fear of homosexuality | Deep fear of incest |
| Sex differences maximised | Sex differences minimised |
| Asceticism, fear of pleasure | Hedonism, pleasure welcomed |
| Father religion eg. “Thou shall not break the Ten Commandments or you will burn in hell” |
Mother religion eg. “God is all loving, all forgiving and all understanding” |
HMMM… I WONDER WHICH ONE OF THESE WON THE ELECTION…?
Seriously though. This is probably the single-most accurate model to explain why Bush won. It fits in precisely with what I wrote yesterday about how Bush’s people tapped into the fear of the average male that their cultural importance was at risk.
Keywords in contemporary culture which denote matrist values are, “feminism,” “metrosexual,” and “equal rights”. Keywords which currently denote a more Patrist attitude are “family values,” “traditional values,” “fundamentalism”. —Pop Occulture
That’s an interesting analogy indeed. It’s not just Bush, it’s the History of the Western (judeo-christian) civilisation. Which countries are truly matriarchal societies though?
The only thing that puzzle me is the first line. It does correspond to the patriarchal society to impose chastity and faithfulness to women (which is explained by the fact only the mother can tell who is the baby’s father, so preserve DNA lineage men must impose virginity to women), but men never really followed such recommendation for themselves. I’m not sure men are less adultary among the conservative republicans than anywhere else…
Note to self: I like “histories from below” and this is a very nice one, indeed.
I should add that “patrist societies” thrive in eras of financial crisis and “matrist societies” thrive in periods of economic abundance.
Matrist eras that serve as an example: the gay twenties (the flapper era was over when the Great Depression started); the sixties counterculture era was a period of sexual liberation but it largely ended with the arrival of the austere seventies.
It seems that sexual liberation needs money.
what is the difference between “patrist” and “patriarchal”?
If you’re interested, this is an interesting book : “La revanche du chromosome X – Enquête sur les origines et le devenir du féminin” by JC Lattès, explains how the male domination is genetically programmed in our spieces, and that dogs, bonobos and humans might be the only spieces that tamed themselves (socially) out of wild animality. It also says that anthropologists agree there was never a human society dominated by women, contrary to the myth. Female bonobos dominate their males, and the sexual liberation is also notable, so it corroborates the matrist pattern (I’m not sure about the incest part).
I think patrist is the more ‘friendly’ version of patriarchal, but that is just a guess.
I am very much interested in sociobiology. Much of what I know about it is informed by Camille Paglia’s early ninenties boos. However, I could’nt find much info on JC Lattès’s book. Have you read it?
BTW, congratulations on the success of your blog-a-thon.
Jan
Jan
Looks like Lattes is the editor… my bad 😉 The author got to be Olivier Postel-Vinay. I didn’t read it, I just her the guy on the radio yesterday. Maybe you can listen to it online (you understand French right?).
I’m fond of ethology myself. Boris Cyrulnik, a psychiatrist, writes excellent books on animal social behaviors and the relatonship to us.