The Feminist Appropriation of Matriarchal Myth in the 19th and 20th Centuries Cynthia Eller Montclair State University Abstract Beginning in 1861 with the publication of Das Mutterrecht (Motherright) by the Swiss legal scholar Johann Jakob Bachofen, there has been a continuous interest in the theory that prehistoric societies were matriarchal or at least woman-centered, only to be disrupted by the assumption of male power, usually around 3000 BCE. This idea has been enormously appealing to feminists, particularly in late-twentieth-century America. In some feminist circles, what I have called the myth of matriarchal prehistory has reigned as political dogma; in others it has provided food for thought; while in yet others it has served as the basis of a new religion. This article describes the ways in which first and second wave feminists respectively have adapted matriarchal myth to their political needs and disseminated it to a wider audience. From classical Greece to communist China, from South America to Indonesia and many places in between, people have speculated on the possible existence of cultures ruled by or centered upon women. The ancient Greeks imagined these matriarchal societies to be contemporaneous with their own, but thought that they occupied different geographical spaces (a space that kept retreating from Athens as purported Amazon homelands were found not to contain Amazons at all). More often, however, ideas about matriarchal societies have been historical in nature: they are based on the presumption that present male-dominant cultures were preceded by matriarchal ones. This notion – what I have called the myth of matriarchal prehistory – is implausible from the perspective of history and archeology. There are no known societies that, upon rigorous examination, can be regarded as definitively woman-centered and goddess-worshipping, let alone matriarchal. And material evidence from prehistoric eras, such as the prevalence of female figurines, the richness of female grave goods (or the equivalence of male and female grave goods), and absence of defensive fortifications or substantial weaponry do not prove that ancient societies were woman-centered, goddess-worshipping, or even peaceful. The thesis that human societies were matriarchal in organization up until a cataclysmic patriarchal takeover around 3000 BCE does not stand up under reasonable scrutiny. 1 Still, the © Blackwell Publishing 2005 History Compass 3 (2005) NA 179, 1–10