A New Definition of Patriarchy: Control of Women’s Sexuality,Private Property,and War

Abstract

Carol P. Christ discusses her new multi-pronged definition of patriarchy as an integral system: male dominance is enforced by violence which is a product of war; the control of female sexuality ensures the transfer private property and slaves which are the spoils of war in the male line; and the system as a whole is legitimated by religion. She argues, based on the new research on matriarchies (which are not the mirror image of patriarchies) that patriarchy is not eternal or universal, but that it arose in history, and is inseparable from the rise of warfare and other forms of domination.