Cows and Patriliny

[Angela]

The basic thesis is that the adoption of cattle herding led to the decline of matriliny and the rise of patriliny. It's an interesting theory, anyway.

See:
http://courses.washington.edu/evpsych/cows & matriliny.pdf

 

[halfalp]

This is an interessting theory, i dont think we can say cattle herding is the origin of patriliny, but world wide cattle herding population are often patriliny. Herders are young boys in search of grass for their animals, this is a very independant and difficult activity. I think that in the overall we can say that cattle herding can be an origin to a male-biased migration, but patriliny is also something that we found in very stratify society, with cattle or not.

 

[davef]

But why patrilinearity? My guess is that back then, cow meat wasn't edible unless it was tenderized, so given that men are on average stronger than women in the upper body, a man was needed to take a hammer and repeatedly pound the dead cow after it was killed to soften the meat.

 

[halfalp]

Well i'm pretty sur that themselves didn't know why patrilinerity or matrilinerity apart of some cultural symbolism. So naturally herding gonna selected men against women for the job.