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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vespucci" data-source="post: 5596904" data-attributes="member: 6675688"><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  You know that Karl Marx, the famous historical determinist, also believed that "the choices people make influence the structure of society that develops", right?  But now I see what you mean.  This is completely superficial.  X happened because X happened, which "ultimately" means that there was some other process at work.  Historical matriarchies existed without easier childbirth or magic.  I think you're overlooking the role of slavery in the transition from matriarchy to partriarchy.  Martial prowess in itself doesn't mean as much as property. Matriarchy simply meant that women held title over communal property key to the survival of primitive peoples.  This was socially necessary because kinship on the mother's side is fairly obvious, while determining the father in primitive conditions tended to be a matter of opinion - if that.  (I understand there is recent research suggesting this social organisation has its roots in a female sexual strategy of kin solidarity.) Patriarchy arose because men fighting other tribes laid claim to their captives as their own property.  (Much as they did when hunting non-human game.)  While this had a fairly short-term payoff during the period of cannibalism, slavery made this a long-term proposition.  And once a male held property of his own that might outlive him, the question of who would have it after he died became very important. So, given the complications of magic, how do you get from matriarchy in the primitive commune to a matriarchal monarchy?  A matriarchal monarchy might arise in a sword-and-sorcery society if there was powerful magic in some lines of women, though this isn't a matter of "choices that resulted in how things are" - other than those of the author.  If the scenario is based on choices - i.e. an individually powerful sorceress could have bequeathed her power to her daughters, grand-daughters, etc. you get rule by spellcasters, rather than women - one presumes that at least a few male sorcerers would get the same idea!  (If that just "doesn't work as well", then we go back to crude historical determinism. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />)  "Two legs bad, four legs good", eh? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> A lot of your other ideas are more robust in that they are simply adopted from historical examples.  If you are going to be superficial - and it's a fine approach for setting design - copying and adapting is definitely the way to go.</blockquote>

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