Jemini
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Let me start this one with a bit of a personal experience I had reading a manga recently.
I read this manga, and it featured a kingdom in which the ruling family is descended from a hero who is a master of the sword. This hero's bloodline, passed down through the royal family, also passes on the hero's gift of elevated strength, speed, and skill that is well beyond mortal bounds.
Kinda typical so far, but here's the thing that got my mind going. The government of this nation was a matriarchy, in which the Queen ran the country and only the Queen's daughters could be considered a viable heir to the throne.
At first, I found this a little strange for a nation ruled by swords and warriors and in which the royal family's gift was ability in personal combat. But... after a little thought, I realized this nation being a matrilineal matriarchy actually made perfect sense. If the royal family's value is the passing down of the hero's blood, there is no better way to absolutely garantee each descendent is a direct line from the first hero than to have the throne passed down from mother to daughter. That explains the matrilineality, but as for the matriarchy governance, that is also well explained by the fact that the hero's bloodline makes all members of the royal family powerful warriors. If men would be more physically strong than women, this would mean the men of the royal family would be expected to go to the front line and fight in person. This would pose a major problem for the survivability of male members of the royal family, and as such it would be the female members of the royal family that would make for more stable governance.
Once you really consider it, it is some really good world building that this series made this nation a matriarchy. It shows the artist really considered the implications and natural pressures that would influence governance.
With this in mind, I wanted to briefly consider and discuss some things that may influence matriarchy Vs. patriarchy and matriliniality Vs. patriliniality in a society.
Unique benefits of patriarchy.
Men don't get pregnant, and therefore will not require down-time, making for more consistent day-to-day governance.
Men are physically more imposing, and thus can gain more respect in foreign negotiations on a psychological level.
Unique benefits of Matriarchy.
Women are less likely to be sent to war and are at lower overall risk of death, making for more stable governance in the long term.
Unique benefits of patriliniality (passing down from father to son)
Men can have multiple wives and father more children, thus increasing the chances of producing an heir.
-Cons argument: This can also lead to very destabilizing succession battles due to the larger number of children, as well as the multiple wives who have political power supporting their own children and exacerbating the bloodiness of the conflict.
Unique benefits of matriliniality (passing down from mother to daughter)
There is zero risk of infidelity muddying the succession line. It is a virtual guarantee, barring adoptions or deceptions (which would be very visible), that the woman in question is absolutely the blood descendant of the woman who started the family line.
-(obvious cons argument, counter to the men's benefit argument, there is an existing chance the queen could be barren or otherwise fail to produce a viable heir, thus potentially ending the family line.)
This is, of course, barring the more controversial talk of psychological quirks of one gender or the other preferring various governance policies or being softer/harder, or more rational on various subjects. I have chosen not to get into those because those subjects are a giant can of worms. If you want to take those subjects into consideration for your own worldbuilding and such, be my guest. I'm not going to provide ammunition for one side or the other on the subject.
I would also like to add, if we look to the example of matriarchies in the real world, anthropologists have studied these communities and every single time it can be traced back as to why they became matriarchies it always turns out to be because the men were frequently absent due to things like war in older communities, or high fatalities in jobs like mining in younger matriarchal societies.
(An astute observer would note I did put a pretty major qualifier on that one. It's only in the cases that the reason can be traced back that this is the case. Not all cases of IRL matriarchies can have their origins traced back, and we could potentially have counter-evidence among those societies. We'd just need a time machine in order to check, so we can never know.)
I read this manga, and it featured a kingdom in which the ruling family is descended from a hero who is a master of the sword. This hero's bloodline, passed down through the royal family, also passes on the hero's gift of elevated strength, speed, and skill that is well beyond mortal bounds.
Kinda typical so far, but here's the thing that got my mind going. The government of this nation was a matriarchy, in which the Queen ran the country and only the Queen's daughters could be considered a viable heir to the throne.
At first, I found this a little strange for a nation ruled by swords and warriors and in which the royal family's gift was ability in personal combat. But... after a little thought, I realized this nation being a matrilineal matriarchy actually made perfect sense. If the royal family's value is the passing down of the hero's blood, there is no better way to absolutely garantee each descendent is a direct line from the first hero than to have the throne passed down from mother to daughter. That explains the matrilineality, but as for the matriarchy governance, that is also well explained by the fact that the hero's bloodline makes all members of the royal family powerful warriors. If men would be more physically strong than women, this would mean the men of the royal family would be expected to go to the front line and fight in person. This would pose a major problem for the survivability of male members of the royal family, and as such it would be the female members of the royal family that would make for more stable governance.
Once you really consider it, it is some really good world building that this series made this nation a matriarchy. It shows the artist really considered the implications and natural pressures that would influence governance.
With this in mind, I wanted to briefly consider and discuss some things that may influence matriarchy Vs. patriarchy and matriliniality Vs. patriliniality in a society.
Unique benefits of patriarchy.
Men don't get pregnant, and therefore will not require down-time, making for more consistent day-to-day governance.
Men are physically more imposing, and thus can gain more respect in foreign negotiations on a psychological level.
Unique benefits of Matriarchy.
Women are less likely to be sent to war and are at lower overall risk of death, making for more stable governance in the long term.
Unique benefits of patriliniality (passing down from father to son)
Men can have multiple wives and father more children, thus increasing the chances of producing an heir.
-Cons argument: This can also lead to very destabilizing succession battles due to the larger number of children, as well as the multiple wives who have political power supporting their own children and exacerbating the bloodiness of the conflict.
Unique benefits of matriliniality (passing down from mother to daughter)
There is zero risk of infidelity muddying the succession line. It is a virtual guarantee, barring adoptions or deceptions (which would be very visible), that the woman in question is absolutely the blood descendant of the woman who started the family line.
-(obvious cons argument, counter to the men's benefit argument, there is an existing chance the queen could be barren or otherwise fail to produce a viable heir, thus potentially ending the family line.)
This is, of course, barring the more controversial talk of psychological quirks of one gender or the other preferring various governance policies or being softer/harder, or more rational on various subjects. I have chosen not to get into those because those subjects are a giant can of worms. If you want to take those subjects into consideration for your own worldbuilding and such, be my guest. I'm not going to provide ammunition for one side or the other on the subject.
I would also like to add, if we look to the example of matriarchies in the real world, anthropologists have studied these communities and every single time it can be traced back as to why they became matriarchies it always turns out to be because the men were frequently absent due to things like war in older communities, or high fatalities in jobs like mining in younger matriarchal societies.
(An astute observer would note I did put a pretty major qualifier on that one. It's only in the cases that the reason can be traced back that this is the case. Not all cases of IRL matriarchies can have their origins traced back, and we could potentially have counter-evidence among those societies. We'd just need a time machine in order to check, so we can never know.)
