If the children in your culture take their mother's last name, and not their father's, this is a matrilineal tradition. Definitions of matrilineal. adjective. based on or tracing descent through the female line.
A person's lineage is his or her line of ancestors. So matrilineal means basically "through the mother's line", just as patrilineal means "through the father's line".
Examples of Matrilineal Descent
Thus, Judaism uses a matrilineal descent system to trace cultural belonging. In the Ashanti society of Ghana, social status and property inheritance are passed down to women through a female line. This is an example of a matrilineal descent system.
In matrilineal kinship systems, lineage and inheritance are traced through a group's female members and children are part of their mother's kinship group. In contrast, in patrilineal systems, group membership is determined through men and children are part of their father's kinship group.
The study focuses on a large minority of human societies – 17 percent – that are called matrilineal. In humans, this means that women inherit family property, children belong to their mothers' lineages, or newly-married couples live in close proximity to the wife's kin.
In a matrilineal society, the descent or the family name is through the mother's side, and is known as 'matrilineal descent'. This affiliates an individual with kin of both sexes, related to him or her through women only. Kapadia (1966) has mentioned that all children of a woman take the family name of their mother.
The Minangkabau are the largest matrilineal society in the world, with property, family name and land passing down from mother to daughter, while religious and political affairs are the responsibility of men, although some women also play important roles in these areas.
descent through mother (family name through mother), matrilocal residence system (husband lives in wife's residence), and inheritance of parental property by daughter. Any society where these characteristics exist is considered to be matrilineal.
The term 'matriarchy' is often mixed up with the similar-sounding term 'matrilineal. ' However, the two have notable differences. As we discussed earlier, 'matriarchal' refers to a society that is governed or controlled by women, while the anthropological term 'matrilineal' only denotes lineage.
Rabbinic beliefs and practices
Orthodox Judaism maintains that the law of matrilineal descent in Judaism dates at least to the time of the covenant at Sinai (c. 1310 BCE). This law was first codified in writing in the Mishna (c. 2nd century CE).
Meaning of matrilineal in English
Theirs is a matrilineal society where inheritance of the family property is passed to the youngest daughter. Many Native American tribes were matrilineal. The Indian state of Kerala has a matrilineal family system that encourages education and empowerment of women.
Matrilineal means the same thing on the maternal side, but there isn't any key anchor concept, such as surname to go along with it. Therefore, when I'm discussing mitochondrial DNA testing, I say, “matrilineal, meaning your mother's mother's mother's line, on up the tree until you run out of mothers.”
Answer: Explanation: matrilineal advantage: the likelihood that children will have a closer relationship to their maternal grandparents — and especially to their maternal grandmother — than to their paternal grandparents.
Japan had been a matriarchal antiquity until the sixth century when the introduction of Buddhism changed not only the existing religious system but the shape of gender roles as well (Joyce, 1976, 4).
China's one-child policy led to millions of female infanticides—except in a lush valley known as the “Land Where Women Rule.” Located in the foothills of the Himalayas, Lugu Lake is home to China's Mosuo matriarchy.
It is generally accepted that the move from matriarchy to patriarchy occurred approximately 3000 to 3500 years ago.
The Minangkabau of Sumatra, Indonesia, are the world's largest matrilineal society, in which properties such as land and houses are inherited through female lineage. In Minangkabau society, the man traditionally marries into his wife's household, and the woman inherits the ancestral home.
The disadvantages of matriarchy are that most women are overwhelmed and handle leadership positions a man can. It is natural for women to be head of families and integrate leadership and authority. The other con is that women are perceived to be weak and inferior, which may make people ignore them.
Matriliny is a comparatively less common form of descent among contemporary societies; whereas patrilineal societies make up 41% of the societies included in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) [6], matrilineal societies constitute only 17%.
Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal. According to J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page, no true matriarchy is known to have actually existed.
Matrilineality is a societal system in which a person's descent is traced through their mother or maternal ancestors. In a matrilineal society property, such as land, is handed down from mother to daughter. Owing to this system they sometimes have a unique tradition that cannot be found in a patrilineal society.
In anthropology, the matrilineal belt is an area in Africa south of the equator centered in south-central Africa where matrilineality is predominant. The matrilineal belt runs diagonally from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean, crossing Angola, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
Unsurprisingly, the word maternal comes from the Latin mater, meaning “mother,” while paternal comes from the Latin pater, meaning “father.” These roots are also the source of the related words matriarch and patriarch and maternity and paternity.
A matrilineal surname or matriname is a family name inherited from one's mother, and maternal grandmother, and so on whose line of descent is called a mother-line, mitochondrial line, or matriline.