Myth, Religion, and Mother Right [Paperback]

Johann Jakob Bachofen (Author), Ralph Manheim (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 1992 | Series: Bollingen Series (Book 84)

The Swiss thinker J. J. Bachofen is most often connected with his theory of matriarchy, or "mother right," but that concept is only a small part of his contribution to our understanding of cultural history. This book includes an autobiographical essay and selections from An Essay on Ancient Mortuary Symbolism, Mother Right, and The Myth of Tanaquil.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (June 25, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691017972
• ISBN-13: 978-0691017976
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #527,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars very scholarly and a key to enjoying Nietzsche, July 4, 2011

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Myth, Religion, and Mother Right (Paperback)

Since I bought this book, I have become much more interested in the nature of history at the level that Bachofen attempts to understand the religious basis for the nature of the laws adopted by ancient societies. The kind of considerations that society had before power structures imposed patriarchy on the Greek and Roman included transformations from hetaerism to the Demetrian regulation of motherhood before the exclusivity of the marriage bond was established. It is possible to search for a basis for history in the transition from the hetaerism of Aphrodite to the conjugal principle of Hera.

I quote:

But it is precisely the connection of the sexual relationship
and the lower or higher interpretation
with the totality of life
and the destiny of nations
that relates our study directly
to the cardinal questions of history.
The first great encounter
between the Asiatic and the Greek worlds
is represented as a struggle between
the hetaerism of Aphrodite
and the conjugal principle of Hera;
we shall find the cause of the Trojan War
in a violation of the marriage bed;
and by an extension of the same idea,
we shall date the ultimate defeat of
Aphrodite, mother of the Aeneads,
by the matronly Juno at the time
of the Second Punic War,
when the Roman nation was at the height
of its inner greatness.

According to Bachofen:

It cannot be doubted that the institution of marriage was the outgrowth of a very slow process.

I grew old in a time when attitudes were changing so much that Lois Roden, the widowed leader of Branch Davidians after the death of her husband Ben Roden, seems like a transition figure after her affair with Vernon Wayne Howells was a background for a gunfight on November 3, 1987, in which her son George was shot in the hands and chest and the trial of David Koresh for attempted murder ended in a mistrial. George Roden was committed in 1989 after he was charged with attempting an ax murder. The shift in religion near Waco, Texas, has something in common with Bachofen describing Dionysian religion coming to the Amazons:

Joyfully she welcomed this god whose combination of sensuous beauty and transcendent radiance made him doubly seductive. The enthusiasm of women for his cult was irresistible. In a short time the Amazonian matriarchy's determined resistance to the new god shifted to an equally resolute devotion; the warlike women, formerly locked in struggle with Dionysus, became his crusading army of heroes. One extreme followed the other, showing how hard it is, at all times, for women to observe moderation. The historical foundation is evident from the traditions which record the bloody events attending the first propagation of the Bacchic religion and the profound upheavals provoked by it. These upheavals recur independently among the most divergent peoples, but their character is always the same.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The originator of the matriarchy myth, December 12, 2011

By 

othoniaboys - See all my reviews

This review is from: Myth, Religion, and Mother Right (Paperback)

Bachofen was a Swiss writer of the 19th century who is remembered for his theory that patriarchy and monogamy were preceded by matriarchy and promiscuity. He sets this matriarchy in pre-literate times in order to account for the fact that there are no written records to prove his theory. But the lack of recorded proof could just as easily be accounted for by assuming that the theory is false. The present condition of society in American inner cities resembles the matriarchy that he described. However, there is no goddess-worship in the inner city. There were goddesses in ancient times, but this doesn't prove his theory.