Matrilineality: descent through the female line and its social roles

Matrilineal descent, both male and female descendants, is formed only by the female ancestral line, the line of the mother. This can have the consequence that the descendants of non-same-sex siblings belong to two different lines, i.e. that only the children of the daughter, but not the children of the son - these are attributed to the kinship group of their mother - belong to the same line. This can play a role in marriage, especially cross-cousin marriage. Also, on the death of a chief, the chieftaincy passes to his brother (as the son of a common mother) rather than to his son. The group created by common unilineal descent is called a lineage.

The largest matrilineal (and matrilocal) culture worldwide is the Minangkabau on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with over 3 million members. In northeast India, matrilineal societies can be found among the Khasi (1.5 million) and the Garo (1 million), in Africa among the Tuareg in North Africa (about 3 million) as well as among many Bantu peoples of the Congo region, in South America among the Wayuu (about 0.5 million), and in North America among the Iroquois.), in North America among the Iroquois peoples (about 70,000), in China among the Mosuo (about 40,000) and among more than 100 other ethnic groups outside Europe (see list of matrilineal societies). In Africa, the ethnologist Audrey I. Richards demonstrated in 1950 the existence of a matrilineal belt among the Bantu peoples between southern Gabon and southern Tanganyika, as exemplified by the Bakongo, Mayombe and Bemba.

Mary Douglas and others point to the decline of matrilineality with the transition to large-scale cattle breeding and under the influence of colonization. In fact, however, the spread of cattle rearing in Africa precedes the decline in matrilineality, which Holden and Ruth show for Malawi and Kenya. Yet as recently as 2018, economist Sara Lowes finds a clear inverse relationship (a negative correlation) between matrilineality and cattle rearing among the Bantu households she studied in the Congo region, which are often ethnically mixed due to migration. In this region, matrilineality is often associated with matrilocality, but less often with the payment of a bride price. The German ethnologist Gerd Spittler sees as a disadvantage of the connection between matrilineality and matrilocality (using the example of the Bemba) that numerous female relatives or her older brother assert claims against the owner of the millet storehouse for the supplies stored there; this lowers the owner's motivation to keep it filled at all times.

Matrilinearity is rare when a plough is needed to work the soil. This was also confirmed in the study by Sara Lowes. Matrilineality would therefore be most common in horticultural cultures where field cultivation or large animal husbandry are not possible, but horticulture (horticulture) with the planting wood and hunting of small animals dominate. In Africa this belt ends south of the equatorial forests. As early as 1724, Joseph-François Lafitau pointed out the leading role of women in the economy of the Wyandot - North American forest dwellers who practiced horticulture, fishing and hunting - and the strong position of women in relation to men.

In Europe, cattle breeding began with the Linear Pottery culture (Bandkeramiker) from about 6000 BC and was accompanied by a change in the rules of descent towards patrilineal structures. This development was reinforced by the transition to the Kurgan culture in south-eastern and central Europe, through which the importance of pastoralism increased further and the inheritance of property and status was patrilineal.

The development of advanced civilizations in Latin America also showed a gradual transition to patrilineality: In the Chaco Canyon culture of New Mexico, positions of power were apparently still inherited matrilineally. For the Anasazi of the Pueblo Bonito in Colorado, the existence of a matrilineal elite was proven for the centuries between about 800 and 1130 by means of mtDNA. The end of this period coincides with the disappearance of intensive agriculture in Chaco Canyon. Among the Maya and the Inca, on the other hand, pure matrilineality was considered a "lower" principle of descent - the nobility also had a patrilineal lineage.

Matrilineality as the sole rule of descent is followed by 13% of all indigenous peoples and ethnic groups recorded worldwide (1998: 160 out of 1267). In addition, there are 63 ethnic groups (5 %) where matrilineality applies only to some of the social groups (lineages, clans), while others follow patrilineal, paternal descent (see also the bipartite moiety).

A practical example illustrates differences from purely matrilineal societies:

• The small Ngaing people in Papua New Guinea follow a double, bilinear descent rule: In a village, the patrilineal descent groups (patri-lineages) have a depth of 3 to 5 generations and form patri-clans, which make up the basic unit of the settlement. Through them, the rules of exogamy (marriage outside one's own group), land rights (for horticulture and hunting), and ritual rights (such as for male cult ceremonies) are passed down and inherited. Similarly organized are the matrilineal descent groups (matri-lineages), entitled in parallel to men, who hold totem rights and thus exercise animistic protective spirit functions. The groups live scattered in the settlement area, for they follow the matrimonial residential rule of patri-locality: the residence of a married couple is established with the husband, who lives with his father. Gatherings for joint activities do not take place.

In Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, the mother is decisive for religious affiliation: only those who are the child of a Jewish mother are Jewish. In the State of Israel, too, only those whose ancestors were Jewish up to four generations back, i.e. in a purely maternal line back to their own great-great-grandmother, are officially considered Jews.