Gentlemen and Amazons : the Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 1861-1900.

Cover; Gentlemen and Amazons; Title; Copyright; For Teresa M. Shaw, my favorite historian; CONTENTS; ILLUSTRATIONS; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; 1 The Travels and Travails of Matriarchal Myth; THE "MYTH" IN MATRIARCHAL MYTH; 2 Amazons Everywhere: Matriarchal Myth before Bachofen; THE ENDURING APPEAL OF THE AMAZON; EARLY ETHNOGRAPHY; DEVELOPING AN EVOLUTIONARY TIME LINE; MATRIARCHY AND THE SOCIALIST IMAGINATION; INFLUENCES ON BACHOFEN; 3 On the Launching Pad: J.J. Bachofen and 'Das Mutterrecht'; JOHANN JAKOB BACHOFEN, 1815-1878; THE CHRONOLOGY OF HUMAN HISTORY IN BACHOFEN'S DAS MUTTERRECHT.

BACHOFEN AND THE INTERPRETATION OF MYTHPROGRESS AND NOSTALGIA: BACHOFEN ON WOMEN, RELIGION, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT; BACHOFEN'S LEGACY; 4 The Matriarchal Explosion: Anthropology Finds Mother Right (and Itself); HENRY SUMNER MAINE'S PATRIARCHAL THEORY; JOHN FERGUSON McLENNAN: THEORIST OF MARRIAGE AND CONNOISSEUR OF THE BIZARRE; MOVING BEYOND McLENNAN: SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S MATRIARCHAL MYTH; SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST: HERBERT SPENCER CHAMPIONS PATRIARCHY; REPORTING FROM THE FIELD:LEWIS HENRY MORGAN; WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE ARABIAN CASE; E.B. TYLOR AND THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SEAL OF APPROVAL.

5 Making Matriarchal Myth Work:Communists and Feminists Discover the Mother AgeFRIEDRICH ENGELS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND THE STATE; THE FIRST CHAPTER OF AUGUST BEBEL'S WOMAN AND SOCIALISM; FEMINISTS ON THE FIRST WAVE; 6 Mother Right on the Continent; ETHNOLOGY IN GERMANY; THE GERMAN SYNTHESIS: JULIUS LIPPERT'S VERSION OF MATRIARCHAL MYTH; SEX, MARRIAGE, AND DARWIN; PROPERTY AND LAW, WOMEN AND MEN; MOTHER R IGHT AND THE ETERNAL FEMININE; THE ARYAN MOTHER; LATE ENTRANTS TO THE MATRIARCHAL DEBATE; 7 Struggling to Stay Alive: Anthropology and Matriarchal Myth.

THE SOCIALIST DEFECTION FROM MATRIARCHAL MYTHTHE MARGINALIZATION OF MATRIARCHAL MYTH IN ANTHROPOLOGY; FIELDWORK AS THE NEW ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE; THE IMPACT OF NEW ETHNOGRAPHY ON MATRIARCHAL MYTH; 8 Matriarchal Myth in the Late Nineteenth Century: Why Then? Why Not Before?; PRECONDITIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATRIARCHAL MYTH; THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY IN TROUBLE; NOTES; Bibliography; Index.

Gentlemen and Amazons traces the nineteenth-century genesis and development of an important contemporary myth about human origins: that of an original prehistoric matriarchy. Cynthia Eller explores the intellectual history of the myth, which arose from male scholars who mostly wanted to vindicate the patriarchal family model as a higher stage of human development. Eller tells the stories these men told, analyzes the gendered assumptions they made, and provides the necessary context for understanding how feminists of the 1970s and 1980s embraced as historical "fact" a discredited nineteenth-century idea.

Print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

English.

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