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The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Won't Give Women A Future^[1] is a 2000 book by Cynthia Eller, a professor at Montclair State University.

The author, a self-described feminist, argues that the idea of prehistoric matriarchy put forward by authors such as Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler and Elizabeth Gould Davis in The First Sex ^[2]is not supported by detailed studies in anthropology or archaeology. Eller instead claims that the myth of matriarchal prehistory is a kind of wishful thinking, i.e., something believed out of need or desire rather than evidence.

The early part of Eller's work focuses mainly on why the theory of matriarchal prehistory developed and why it has so much appeal among feminists today. According to Eller, the matriarchal myth began with early archaeologists like Bachofen. It was adapted by radical feminists in the late 1960s and achieved its modern character as "paradise lost" in the 1970s. By the 1990s, the myth was widely embraced in mainstream US culture. Eller argues that the modern theory of ancient matriarchies was largely influenced by the work of Marija Gimbutas in researching ancient European cultures. But the character of the societies (Kurgan, Semite) who are supposed to have established patriarchy does not correlate well with the ideas of the matriarchalists. Furthermore, she claims that the continued survival of the patriarchy, given that it was "such depths of depravity", is poorly explained in the literature.

Archeology : the Woman of Willendorf.

Eller's next target is the idea that women's reproductive powers were the cause of their being regarded as sacred is not likely to have been real. Indeed, she shows that it is, at the bottom line, merely an inversion of antifeminist attitudes used to separate the sexes. This can best be seen in the way matriarchalists stress the nurturing qualities of women and motherhood in exactly the same way as Protestant and Catholic fundamentalists. She says that gender, in fact, can actually be thought of as only existing to achieve oppression.

In the next part of The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, Eller aims to show that in fact archaeology and anthropology of prehistory and of still-extant primitive societies in no way show evidence that women had a higher status in these societies than in modern, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Indian or East Asian societies. She shows in particular that in documented primitive societies, paternity is never ignored and that the sacredness of motherhood or the presence of female deities does not of itself improve the status of women. Notably, male imitation of female reproductive powers actually reduces the status of women, and in modern societies it is sometimes argued, as Marina Warner has suggested in her Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary, the status of women is actually, at least in the most advanced societies, reduced by goddess worship. Eller then shows how matriarchalists interpret difficult-to-interpret archaeological finds in a manner contrived to show the existence of prehistoric matriarchy, notably in the way so many dissimilar images are seen as images of "the moon" or "women". Reconstruction of artifacts by supporters of matriarchal prehistory is shown to have had the same effect.

The last part of The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory aims to show that there is no evidence for a "patriarchal revolution" as described in books like The First Sex. She shows that the archaeological and biological evidence is in favour of suggesting that in fact the pre-Indo-European speaking people were equally patriarchal compared to the Kurgans who form the proto-Indo-European group according not only to matriachalists, but also to non-feminist linguists. Thus, what supporters of matriarchal prehistory say was a complete change in social structure and culture was in fact an ordinary takeover of Neolithic Europe by another ethnic group.

Eller's position was recently criticised by Joan Marler, ^[3] who provides review of the whole debate.

1. ^ Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future. Beacon Press 2000. 276pp. ISBN 0-8070-6792-X
2. ^ Davis, Elizabeth Gould. The First Sex.Penguin 1972, 384 pp. ISBN 0-14-003504-4.
3. ^ Marler, Joan. The Myth of Universal Patriarchy: A Critical Response to Cynthia Eller’s Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. Feminist Theology, Vol. 14, No. 2, 163-187 (2006)

• External link to Belili: The Myth of Universal Patriarchy: A Critical Response to Cynthia Eller's Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory"

History of feminism