Matriarchy

Feb 28, 2018

You know, I was reading Luck in the Shadows and realized how both close and far away the concept of matriarchy seemed to me.

Matriarchy in Luck in the Shadows seems like patriarchy, with a change in the gender of the head of the state. Captain Rhal still accuses a lonely noble wife of being a runaway, tries to seduce her, and would have ‘gotten into her skirts’ had it not been for Alec the squire. I don’t think that’s an accurate portrayal of a society in which the expectations and social images of women are different, and most of all they are treated differently.

Or maybe I’m thinking wrong. Maybe matriarchy doesn’t influence the ways of society much at all, and maybe the idea that in a matriarchal society women’s social positions are higher is not plausible. Or maybe I just read the book wrong.

The way Lynn Flewelling sets out the Skalan society is really quite intriguing, because the way she interprets or imagines a matriarchal society to be is different from what I would expect. I would expect that if Skala truly has had such a long history of female rulers, mandated by some Oracle, women would have been viewed as more powerful than men. They would have taken the place of men in a patriarchal society, meaning they would be the principal earners of a family or the royal babies celebrated for the birth, those that have more social position and more privilege, just by being the gender that the ‘gods’ chose to be the ruler. Flewelling imagines a matriarchal society a little differently – after all, her world of Luck in the Shadows is full of real sorcery and magical creatures, which are bound to play a role in forming culture. In her matriarchal, magical society, women are given more chances of becoming heads of communities, and her society merely differs from a modern patriarchal one in that women don’t seem to have a certain lesser position than men do. Those in the position of power are treated with respect, those who are not are treated as expected. This is the same for men, those who have power are respected but those who don’t, aren’t.

All I see is that men and women have similar social positions, and to go further, gender probably isn’t that much of an importance in this society because roles can vary for all gender (or, all gender are capable of taking any role). You know, I’m not sure but I think I now sort of agree with Flewelling’s nuance on the effect matriarchy would have on the social position and expectations of women. I think her matriarchy would be better for everyone than my imagined matriarchy.

3 responses to “Matriarchy”

kaitlynegp

March 2, 2018 at 12:08 am

I definitely agree with your thought process and you did a wonderful job explaining it above! The only thing that I don’t entirely agree upon, and you also mentioned it, was the retaining of the sexual intentions of Captain Rhal. The sexual-predator was not something I think was necessary for this world, but its inclusion ties it more closely to our own. But this is a common criticism of literary works: commentary on fiction, but especially high fantasy, often includes derision on the inclusion of various real-world traits such as racism or sexism. I would hope that, in a matriarchal realm such as this, would have less sexual harassment, assault, etc. Otherwise, I find Lynn’s world refreshing and intriguing, and I can completely understand why her society is not suddenly perfect just because women are running the show.

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annabilly

March 2, 2018 at 3:44 pm

I really enjoyed your post and I agree with what you have said! I think Flewelling’s choice to label Skala a matriarchy is intriguing because the connotation it carries is similar to that of a patriarchy. Both terms imply that one gender rules over another, yet the world that Flewelling creates does not align with it’s definition. Her world is filled with gender equality. As Kaitlyn has mentioned, maybe employing a gender equal world is a way for her to comment on society today and have representation of what her ideal world looks like (a similar tactic that she uses to represent non cishet people in order to help “normalize”). Her role as author allows her to weild enormous power and influence over her audience so maybe she uses it as a political tactic?

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sarahweinberg24

March 3, 2018 at 1:28 am

You make really interesting points! We talked about this in class, but I was really surprised how physical the descriptions for female characters were. I suppose physicality in general was not shied away from in the novel, but it still was a bit strange to me that we had such powerful women in charge yet we don’t see much of them. I liked Beka’s character, though I wished we got to see more of her (maybe in future novels?) Flewelling didn’t disrespect the women in power, at least not that I can immediately recall, but as you said, other women were treated very sexually/similar to how women are treated in our world. I would expect women to be treated with a little more respect, but maybe part of that is the fact that characters come from outside of Skala as well or Flewelling didn’t consider authority figures to have such an affect. I don’t think you read the book wrong–everyone is bound to have different takes on the story. I agree with Kaitlyn, you did a great job outlining your thoughts and they make a lot of sense in my opinion!

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