The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
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The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future is a 2000 book by Cynthia Eller, professor of Women's Studies and Religious Studies at Montclair State University, deconstructing the hypothesis of a prehistoric matriarchy as developed in 19th century scholarship and taken up by 1970s second wave feminism following Marija Gimbutas as mistaken, and its continued defence as harmful to the feminist agenda.
Eller sets out to debunk what she describes as feminist matriarchism as an "ennobling lie".
She argues that the feminist archaeology of Marija Gimbutas had a large part in constructing a myth of historical matriarchy by examining Eastern Europe cultures that she asserts, by and large, never really bore any resemblance in character to the alleged universal matriarchal suggested by Gimbutas or Graves. She asserts that in "actually documented primitive societies" of recent (historical) times, paternity is never ignored and that the sacred status of goddesses does not automatically increase female social status, and believes that this affirms that utopian matriarchy is simply an inversion of antifeminism.
Eller concludes that "inventing prehistoric ages in which women and men lived in harmony and equality is a burden that feminists need not, and should not bear." In her view, the "matriarchal myth" tarnishes the feminist movement by leaving it open to accusations of "vacuousness and irrelevance that we cannot afford to court."
Marler (2003) bemoans that Eller, who in her 1993 Living in the Lap of the Goddess had been "hailed by leading spiritual feminists as an illuminating study of the feminist spirituality movement in America" with her 2000 book contributed to "eviscerating" the same movement.
Editions
- The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future, Beacon Press (2000), ISBN 978-0807067925.
