wi Queendom

Maybe have the kings running off and fighting wars all the time, and getting killed, so the Queens spend a long time being the real power before eventually being accepted.
 
The Meroitic Queens (Kandakes) led armies, ruled land, even when they had husbands (who played a junior role as royal consorts) and sons. It didn't happen always and it's not clear to me how succession worked, but it's plenty to work with. Given the right POD/TL you could potentially make it the norm or default.

Right. Thank you. Had forgotten about them.
 
there is a people (I can't remember their name) in the Assam region of India that is highly matriarchal. If I remember correctly, all property is in the name of women and when they marry their husbands property is transferred to their name. Also inheritance is matrilineal.
 
there is a people (I can't remember their name) in the Assam region of India that is highly matriarchal. If I remember correctly, all property is in the name of women and when they marry their husbands property is transferred to their name. Also inheritance is matrilineal.

There is a few peoples around the Himalaya and tibetan plateau I heard, who do such, polyandry - many husbands (albeit relatives more first).
 
Yeah, there are a few matriarchal societies around the himalayas where a man moves in with his wifes family and all that.
And then there were matriarchical elements of primitive societies elsewhere- men going off hunting and dying a lot leaving a lot of power with the old women.
But such stuff doesn't really expand into full urbanised civilization for logical reasons. Matriarchy is cheating really.
 
Yeah, there are a few matriarchal societies around the himalayas where a man moves in with his wifes family and all that.
And then there were matriarchical elements of primitive societies elsewhere- men going off hunting and dying a lot leaving a lot of power with the old women.
But such stuff doesn't really expand into full urbanised civilization for logical reasons. Matriarchy is cheating really.

Again, with enough 'magical' power (or tech), things may be different... Alternate history and Eberon's creators shown me that some changed things may bring lomg reaching changes - like techs (or magic if common) may bring societal changes...
 
Again, with enough 'magical' power (or tech), things may be different... Alternate history and Eberon's creators shown me that some changed things may bring lomg reaching changes - like techs (or magic if common) may bring societal changes...

With magic anything is possible. I'm trying to think of how to do this with real world rules however, it grew out of thinking in a hard fantasy setting (i.e. sans magic, ancient technology, etc...) but then it came to mind that it would make for an interesting AH challenge.
 
With magic anything is possible. I'm trying to think of how to do this with real world rules however, it grew out of thinking in a hard fantasy setting (i.e. sans magic, ancient technology, etc...) but then it came to mind that it would make for an interesting AH challenge.

The exact word would be 'Low fantasy' at least. *Pendantry mode*

But I believe again it fail a certain... well, you copy history again, and follow a bit too much maybe some idées communes, historical determinism ('there was never real matriarcate, why it would be different')... Why not going otherwise?

(And when there is no magic at all, all mudane, it's not fantasy anymore, more a severe form of alternate history maybe...)
 
In OTL, Russia had men reigning for under 5 years out of the 71 years between 1725 and 1796. Peter II died (natural causes) after 3 years of reign (all of it as minor), Ivan VI was minor AND overthrown in less than a year, Peter III did rule and got himself overthrown in under a year. And plausible male candidates were passed over a few times - Peter II was passed over in favour of Catherine I in 1725, Jelizaveta Petrovna in 1741 chose to seize throne, not just regency, and Paul I was passed over in 1762.

Madagascar had men reigning for 2 years out of the 68 between 1828 and 1896. Again, the one male ruler (Radama II) was overthrown under 2 years of reign. IIRC, the 3 last queens acceded under a formally announced succession law excluding males.

Lobedu have had Rain Queens for over 2 centuries.

So... how about having throne limited to female holders because the ruling oligarchy does not like the prospect of returning to male rulers who would be expected to take more personal leadership? And entrenching this requirement in succession laws?
 
But the Amazons IMHO probably were real, given the number of Greek classical references; some details even have some consistency. I'd google them and decide for yourself what looks reasonable. Thougb, if it's fantasu, you might not care about consistency.

So were the Sarmatian steppe horse nomade said to be Amazon daughters with a different kind of steppe nomad tribe next to them.

In the Caribbean, there was less sexism, apparently, and there were a good share of women Caciques (chief).

There, I've given you two paths.
Correct and as Steven Pressfield states in the afternote of his famous book "Last of the Amazons":the appearance of battling Amazons on the Pediment of Parthenon and the building of Amazonium in the middle of Athens as well as other toponymical references did not come to the Athenians out of the Blue;we speak about 1250 BC and the lack of direct records(in what language?) is no evidence of the non-existence of Amazons.We also have no archaeological evidence about the Huns but only indirect evidence in other's writings and the same about many other things:winkytongue:roximity of time saved the memory of the Huns and nothing else; ditto about the Amazons.
Also the great tribes of the Amazons were said to leave south of the Sarmatian steppe covering also nowdays Georgia and more south to Armenia and certain part of the Pontus.
Sergei Aizenstein in his film 'Alexandr Nevsky' also shows Russian women fighting in the first line of battle,and apart from Stalin's propaganda as some have claimed, it was also a true fact...
 
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Rex Mundi

Banned
There are LOTS of matriarchal societies, although most are hunter-gatherer level. There are, of course, far more patriarchal societies, and weird mixtures (look at e.g. the Iroquois/Haudonosaunee practice of having men's councils and women's councils, and who made the decision depended on what the topic was, say. And inheritance was matrilineal.)

But getting a society complex and stratified enough to have a Queen/King and still have a full matriarchy would be difficult, I will certainly admit.

There have been exactly zero according to my personal research and from what every anthropology and sociology teacher I've had in college has told me. There are plenty of societies where heritage and inheritance were traced through the mother, societies where women held significant power through traditionally feminine roles (say, spiritual leader), societies where the monarch was a woman instead of a man, even societies where women theoretically had equal access to what we would consider traditionally masculine roles. There has not, however, been any society where women were appreciably more powerful than men as a general and long-term rule, much less a society where men were systematically excluded from the organs of power as happens to women in patriarchies. The closest thing we've had to matriarchy are those societies where certain positions are reserved for females; this does not imply that their women ruled over their men or that no positions existed for the men. To believe that patriarchy, or "rule by fathers", implies a society where men dominate women, while matriarchy, or "rule by mothers", is men delegating some of their power to the women, would be an inexplicable viewpoint and one rather demeaning to females.

Patriarchy in fact appears to be the default for great apes, though we've partially overcome that in certain countries (noticeably Iceland and in Scandinavia). To answer the OP's question, however, the lack of matriarchal societies is only an impediment to a 'queendom' and doesn't have to fully prevent it. There is, I believe, at least one African tribe/culture wherein the monarchy is always passed from the queen to her eldest daughter. They have male elders/nobles etc. who also hold political power, and their relationship with their wives/daughters arguably makes their culture a patriarchy, but the person at the top does happen to be a woman. So, a place that has a queen, most of whose advisors/generals/governors are male. Often when such a situation arises, the queen's function is perceived of in spiritual and moral rather than political and military terms, but you could probably change that with a significant enough POD.

Edit: Wikipedia states that "Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal ..." with five citations I didn't bother to check because I already know this. It goes on to state that "this reluctance to accept the existence of matriarchies might be based on a specific, culturally biased notion of how to define 'matriarchy': because in a patriarchy 'men rule over women', a matriarchy has frequently been conceptualized as 'women ruling over men', whereas in reality women-centered societies are - largely without exception - egalitarian." That part is nonsense; I entirely reject defining matriarchy in a radically different way than patriarchy has always been defined, because I'm not a chauvinist and to point at egalitarianism as the pinnacle of female 'power' seems incredibly condescending to me. Defining patriarchy and matriarchy by the same criterion isn't bias; it's the opposite of bias.

And sorry to quote Wikipedia to such a large extent - I don't have ready access to other relevant sources at the moment - but it also mentions "matrilinear, matrilocal, and avunculocal societies..." which I think people may have mistaken matriarchies with. They are not the same as a matriarchy (but will almost certainly be source of a "queendom").
 
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Women can control society only if they control the armed forces;all the rest is theory,and there comes the role of the Amazons.
Obviously there is no evidence of matriarchical societies since precede patriarchical ones and there ws characteristic absence of written documents for those periods;Clytemnestra is said to be one of the remnants of matriarchical society...
 
How not? There has never been one.

There were, but they have just never been big. There are examples of those in almost every region of the world, but they are limited to small tribal areas, and I don't think there ever was a matriarchal civilization.

EDIT: I'm remembering a history professor I had, who was teaching a course about China. He mentioned something about Matriarchal societies in Yunnan, in which women are the ones who have governing power and decide things for the rest of the community in their own assemblies, without men. There was, he said, even a language that was only taught to women and men were not allowed to use it.
 
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Rex Mundi

Banned
Women can control society only if they control the armed forces;all the rest is theory,and there comes the role of the Amazons.
Obviously there is no evidence of matriarchical societies since precede patriarchical ones and there ws characteristic absence of written documents for those periods; Clytemnestra is said to be one of the remnants of matriarchical society...

So your points are as follows:

1. Amazons, from Greek mythology
2. The absence of documentation, which doesn't prove anything either way (but which arguably is also irrelevant since we have observed modern hunter-gatherer societies in Africa, New Guinea, South America, etc.)
3. Clytemnestra, from Greek mythology
 

Rex Mundi

Banned
There were, but they have just never been big. There are examples of those in almost every region of the world, but they are limited to small tribal areas, and I don't think there ever was a matriarchal civilization.

I genuinely don't want to sound patronizing, but can you name one such example?
 
So your points are as follows:

1. Amazons, from Greek mythology
2. The absence of documentation, which doesn't prove anything either way (but which arguably is also irrelevant since we have observed modern hunter-gatherer societies in Africa, New Guinea, South America, etc.)
3. Clytemnestra, from Greek mythology

* Clytemnestra was not a fictional character since her city was there and its tombs found...Mycenae is not mythology and a lot of its history is known.
* The Amazons are not Greek Mythology since they appear also in Asian minor reports and also in Herodotus;stories of three different nations,may contain Mythology as well as truth;my point is that they appear where they shouldn't if they were if they were ficticious,Parthenon was a temple,
a religious place,not a story-telling structure,and nowhere in Hesiodus do we have Amazons in the "Cosmogony',and Amazonium as a name would not have been appropriate for an area of goverment buildings because that is exactly where it was..
 
Taking OTL as a starting point, let's have HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands have a bunch of daughters instead of sons. That would make the person succeeding her the fourth Queen Regnant in a row. With the Netherlands having not having a king since 1880, they may as well change the constitution and say "Queens only" if they were sexist enough.

Now...the challenge would be to apply this situation to another country pre-1900.:D I'd say England was close to being one.
 
Patriarchy in fact appears to be the default for great apes,
Except for bonobos. While their society is very loosely hierarchical, there is a hierarchy, and females occupy higher ranks than males.
Female higher rank seems to depend on the strong bond between the mother and the offspring, and the role of females as mediators in conflicts. While not a strict matriarchy, they are certainly closer to it than to the patriarchy (and probably closer to egalitarian than to matriarchy).

Regarding humans, i could envision how the role of males as soldiers could make them expendable and hence occupying the lower social rank, by default. This could easily create a matriarchy... the problem i see is that this is highly unstable: how long till the soldier-males, the ones with strength and weapons, decide to stage a coup-d'etat and assume power, placing women under protection and subservience?
 
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