The real roots of early city states may rip up the textbooks

Re:The real roots of early city states may rip up the textbooks by unscaled on Sunday October 15, 2017 @02:33AM (#15476155)

"Around 12,000 BC, the world’s population stood at between two and four million; by 2000 BC, it was around 25 million. But the vast majority of people had no contact with states as late as the end of the 15th century – Europe’s middle ages."

This seems extremely off to me. In the 15th century CE most people on Earth were most definitely sedentary farmers or nomadic pastoralists living under one sort of state or another. That wasn't necessarily a large kingdom (though tens of millions lived in China, where kingdoms were quite large even when it was divided), and it's not like farmers knew or cared much about the politics of their kings, but there was definitely a state, and even when there wasn't one towns and villages had their own institutions and hierarchies that were quite different from the egalitarian lifestyle of hunter gatherers.

To put that in another words, in agricultural societies, even in the most remote and independent villages, women and men were not equal, fathers and grown-up sons were not equal, brothers were not equal and different families were not equal.

These societies are generally fiercely patriarchal - in the sense that females were viewed as property of the male head of the household, not in the sense the women were not allowed to hunt. This concept would entirely alien in hunter-gatherer societies and in most of them so is the very concept of property itself.

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Re:The real roots of early city states may rip up the textbooks by belorn on Monday October 16, 2017 @02:39AM (#15481309)

There is no historical evidence that agricultural societies were patriarchal, nor that females were viewed as property of the male head of the household. If we look at survived native cultures, the key observation is culture and traditional gave women and men separated roles and responsibilities with the elders of each as guides and authority. The elder women decided, taught and guide the other women and girls in the group, while the elder men did the same for the men and boys. Men were not allowed to interfere with the domain of the elder women, and women were not allowed to interfere within the domain of the elder men.

In order for it to be a fiercely patriarchal where females were viewed as property of the male head of the household, it would mean that men had the power to decide what women should and should not do. This fly in contrast to when culture and tradition fully dictate how people should live their life.

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