but they did, many times, and they weren't tribes, someone just posted that above you dumbass
well done, this post just called for all the incels to come out of their caves
Someone didn't look up any of the tribes on the list.
Ask the average person on the street to name their favorite matriarch and they probably won't even know what a matriarch is, because it's the one in a million exception to the rule, and the rule is that men rule.
The best advice i've ever seen regarding the writing of any cultural aspects in a story was... don't worry too much about it.
Real cultures are strange, and they often don't make as much sense as we think they do. We may trace down one or another reason to explain why something is the way it is but reality isn't always as simple and deterministic.
I don't see why this would be unique to matriliniarity? If blood is "passed down" through descendants, then why would it matter if its passed down from the mother's side or the father's side?
Cause the dear queen might have cheated on her husband with the court jester, thus the king's son may not be his real son. On the other hand, if it was the queen's whose bloodline mattered, everyone would've seen her pregnant and herself would know her daughter came out of her.
Someone brought up drow. Only females can be priestesses of Lloth. The houses of Menzoberanzan are all led by devout followers of the spider goddess. It is like a state religion. If someone wanted to lead a house that wasn't a priestess of Lloth it would make a good excuse for everyone to gang up on them.
Though, in the case of a bloodline ability I think it could go either way. Yeah having some pretender brought in to replaced an heir that they wanted to keep the death hidden could be the same no matter what the gender of the monarch is. But it wouldn't work either way if the bloodline ability doesn't manifest. Though I think mortality rates would be a valid reason.
In a story where it is more about intrigue having it not be 100% clear cut all of the time would make for more angles of conflict. For example, only a male can inherit a title and land. But if all the offspring are female then it would be the oldest female until they are married.
(In line with what melchi pointed out), I think that "certainty of succession" is less of an issue here than it is in real world feudalism, given the observability of what they're trying to pass down.
As for the benefits/disadvantages listing you included, the possibility of a woman being infertile isn't what I would consider the mirror to a man's ability to sire more children, since that can apply all the same, the limited number of heirs is. (as well as the inherent danger of giving birth itself, unless you have medicine, or in this case magic, to reduce the mortality)
Which is something I would consider critical (even if not necessarily succession related) for the world you used as an example. If this fighting prowess is so substantial that it justifies risking their person in battle where a mortal leader would not have, wouldn't it be obvious to have as many as possible?
That said, to me, "the reason" for a society doing something some way won't ever be be more than belief, even for the people in question, so as long as a story makes it plausible enough for you to be able to live with it, I think it's good enough.
Someone brought up drow. Only females can be priestesses of Lloth. The houses of Menzoberanzan are all led by devout followers of the spider goddess. It is like a state religion. If someone wanted to lead a house that wasn't a priestess of Lloth it would make a good excuse for everyone to gang up on them.
On the other hand, not all drow worshiped Lolth. There were cities, that worshiped Vhaeraun, and neutral cities, that permitted different faiths. All of them tended to be ruled by males.
Not all Matrilineal societies are Matriarchies. You can have a Matrilineal society that is Patriarchal. I suppose the reverse is also true, but I do not know real world examples for the reverse.
Not all of them are Matriarchies on your list. Some maybe Matrilineal but are Patriarchal in government. The Tuareg for instance are Matrilineal in descent, but are very much Patriarchal in government.
Others are transitioning from Matriarchal to a Mixture: The Mosuo and may very well end up Patriarchal due to pressure from outside.
Others that are Matrilineal but are neither Matriarchal, nor Patriarchal. They divide up certain jobs between the sexes, especially ceremonial ones, but government is mixed.
Oh and a big one that is not on your list of Matrilineal societies; Orthodox Judaism. Even if the various orthodox versions are all very staunch Patriarchies. Though recent discussions/decisions on descent within some Jewish groups is changing it to look like they are both or Patrilineal.
Khasi were definitely patriarchal. They had several siems (kings), obviously all male. I don't know about Garo people historical rulers, but society is nevertherless patriarchal. Though both Khasi and Garo are matrilineal communities.
Indo-Aryans were originally matrilineal, but changed to be patrilineal at some point. We can even see the exact moment while studying parampara sections of Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad. The parampara (line of scripture transmission) starts with "son of particular mother" and changes to "son of particular father" at some point.
You brought interesting points to queendoms in manga. It would be important to note that a person can't rule alone, so the gender of the noble heads might be more relevant to the political influence of patriarchy or matriarchy. You could end up with a patriarchal queendom or a matriarchal kingdom where only the crown's gender is switched compared to their common society norm.
That's... actually an incredibly interesting point. Ascendance of a Bookworm is just about my hands-down favorite series in terms of the intense levels of micro-level societal world-building it does, and one of the interesting things in that series is just how powerful women are in this society that is very strongly based off the pre-WWI German aristocracy. (Although a lot of the reason women are so powerful in this society is justified more with fantasy rules than actual historical stuff.)
In the aristocratic world of AoaB, the amount of mana a child has at birth is largely dependent on the amount of mana the mother had. The father matters too, but only in so much as the father is unable to get the woman pregnant if his mana is too far below hers. Also, 3/4 of all children born to nobles are female, so that's another significant factor in the power of women in this world.
Despite all these things, most of the political positions are held by men. This is mostly because, during pregnancy, the woman has to pour a large amount of her mana into supporting the child's growth, and this renders her less able to participate politically. But, while women don't have political positions often, they are practically the true rulers of the entire society behind the scenes.
This is shown most in the political factions. The behind-the-scenes organized groups that do the actual string-pulling to get things done politically, and all the back-room negotiation. Nearly 70% of all this activity is done by women, and women also tend to be the leaders of these behind-the-scenes political factions more often than not. Just about every time a major political movement happens in the series, it ultimately gets traced back to one of the women who are leading one of these back-room political factions.
Once you really get to understanding the way politics works in the AoaB world, it starts to look more and more like the men occupying political offices are just puppet leaders, and it's the women (sometimes not even women in their own family) who are the real leaders of the nation.
EDIT:
By this logic, you could actually say Rosemine becomes the de-facto leader of the entire duchy of Erenfest almost the very moment she gets adopted into the Archduke family. I mean, not literally from the start, but she really does start consolidating power and influence at an alarming speed to the point where it might as well have been from the very beginning.
She starts by joining the Florencia faction, the faction supporting the Duke's wife, which is in actuality run by Elvira and not Florencia. She pretty much has Elvira's ear and Elvira does almost everything Rosemine suggests, and this means that Mine actually does have more power than any other woman in the Erenfest dutchy, and it's concealed behind about 3 layers of removal from the actual political position she's leveraging.
Someone didn't look up any of the tribes on the list.
