The Invention of Patriarchy

Patriarchy is often spoken of as if it were natural, inevitable, eternal. But it is none of these things. It was invented. Crafted. Shaped over centuries until it felt like the air we breathe—so constant that we forgot it had ever been different.

Once, the world was filled with goddesses. Fertility, creation, and wisdom wore female faces. The earth was honored as mother, not as resource. Women held power in rituals, in healing, in the transmission of stories.

But slowly, this balance shifted.

When Women Became Property

The first shift was subtle: control over women’s bodies. Reproduction, once revered as a sacred mystery, was redefined as an asset belonging to men. Women’s ability to bring life into the world became political territory, something to manage, regulate, and claim.

The second shift was more visible: the exchange of women. Marriages became contracts, daughters were traded like dowries, alliances were forged through female bodies rather than their voices. Women ceased to be seen as autonomous beings—they became the vessels through which men built legacy and wealth.

Over time, laws and customs hardened these roles. Fathers, husbands, and sons were named protectors, but also owners. Women’s freedom narrowed until it fit inside the walls of households they did not fully control.

Myths That Silenced the Feminine

The loss was not only legal but spiritual. Stories were rewritten. Female deities were diminished, their powers stripped or vilified. Creation, once understood as a mother’s gift, was attributed to male gods alone.

And so the divine feminine receded, replaced by narratives that placed men at the center of creation, of law, of destiny. Women were written out of the story—not because they lacked power, but because their power was threatening.

The Echoes in Our World

Though thousands of years have passed, the scaffolding of patriarchy still shapes our daily lives.

• The persistent belief that men’s work is worth more than women’s.

• The policing of women’s bodies in courts, in legislations, in cultural debates.

• The assumption that leadership, authority, and intellect wear a masculine face.

These are not natural truths. They are echoes of choices made long ago, choices designed to consolidate power.

Remembering What Was Forgotten

The most radical act we can take is to remember. To recall that patriarchy is not the natural order but a constructed one. To dig up the buried myths of goddesses, healers, and philosophers who shaped civilization in its earliest days. To remind ourselves that history is not a straight line of male dominance—it is a story that was written and rewritten, often at women’s expense.

The Work of Rewriting

If patriarchy was created, then it can also be uncreated. We do not have to live inside the walls that were built for us millennia ago.

We can tell new stories. We can restore balance where hierarchy has reigned. We can build rituals that honor creation in all its forms, not just the forms that history privileged.

Patriarchy was never destiny.
It was a decision.
And decisions can be changed.