Tarun Tapas Mukherjee
Bhatter College, Dantan, West Bengal, India. Email: ttm1974@gmail.com
Volume 5, Number 1, 2021 I Full-Text PDF
Abstract
The origin of patriarchy is shrouded in mystery. Perhaps it is even impossible to trace because of our limited knowledge about the formation of the social systems and relations in the prehistoric periods of history. There is another big limitation: this kind of research deals with big time scales and vast spaces and different techno-complexes in different parts of the world. Some of the arguments may sound like oversimplifications and overgeneralizations. But despite this, some standard behaviour and response and symbolic structures are detected in the evolution of human culture right from the upper paleolithic period and they demand interpretation. I propose to consider whether the rise of the representation of the Phallus in the Early Farming stage in the human culture was an attempt at suppressing the primacy of the Vulva and the Mother Goddess in the earth in favour of establishing the Father in the Sky and whether some principles were derived to adopt and apply in the prehistoric periods[i]. This leads us to consider another vital question: whether the rise of the Phallus was a symbolic representation of the birth of Patriarchy in the Early Farming stage, in the Chalcolithic period, and whether the new forms of religion supported the establishment of patriarchy in that stage.
[Keywords: Gender, patriarchy, prehistoric culture, Mother Goddess, Phallus]