Matriarchy in fantasy

Pretty much you're limited either to religious cause of such society reinforced by tradition (women priest sorceress class stereotype governing by divine right) or for women-only society which only from time to time mingless with men to produce offspring. Anything else will be largely improbable given male-female dynamics stemming also from evolution or you'd risk magical realm, with exception of that state of society being temporary - disproportionate birthrates due to curse or whatever or nation where almost all men and boys died due to, say, invasion/warfare - but even that is close to being suspiciously magical realm-y.

Well I do remember in one story I read that there was a city state that only allowed female rulers due to its early history basically where bad things happened when men were in power, but when women ended up in power things were fine. So the people of the city became superstitious about the gender of their ruler and ruling class, and though they admit they probably don't have to have a queen, they aren't willing to risk it.

You're aware that consuls lead armies, right? Military success went hand-in-hand with politics. Also, women don't really make good soldiers. I mean, I don't recall any historical armies that were largely composed of women, at least - You'd think if they were really good, we would have at least one notable success in the cultural zeitgeist. (Did the Amazons exist?)

Like the Gerudo from Zelda?
While the Gerudo is deep within my personal magical realm it is mainstream enough for no one to notice.

>wrestling
There was a lot of stabbing and showing your martial prowess in battle though

Maybe not, but they could physically browbeat women into submission, after which they could just ignore the weaker sex completely. It snowballed from there.

>Like the Gerudo from Zelda?
Wasn't their whole thing that the moment a male child is born to the Gerudo, they immediately make him king and give him the Triforce of Power in hopes that his glorious BBC would bless them with children?

Doesn't sound to matriarchal to me.

I did this in a setting of mine.
Lizardfolk all had matriarchal societies for simple reasons.

First, like in all common reptiles i know of, female are bigger and stronger than males.
Female lizardfolk also tend to be smarter, but much less aggressive than male ones, making them a poor choice for soldiers unless you're fighting defensively.

My lizzies also had a deep religious respect for the miracle of laying eggs, so females were seen as inherently magical and respected for their "life-giving" magic.

Also castes. Females in lieu of their inherent magic, usually occupy the magic and religious castes, working as priestesses, oracles and druids. Males were of the warrior and worker castes. They did the manual labour around the village and defended it against beasts and other tribes. They also work as hunters and scouts because they have a natural wanderlust females usually don't have

So my point is: play it on magic.
In ancient cultures the woman was usually respected because she was seen as a magical creature, walking the hedge between the human world and the mystical one. In the viking culture, for example, magic users and sorcerers were usually females. Same thing in ancient greece, were oracles and seers were usually women

It would have to be temporary. Depopulation of males via war or plague, leaving only women to step into power.

It would last until the next generation or so when gender ratios stabilize.

They were basically irrelevant the moment the Dragon Reborn shows up, i.e. all the way from Book 1. By Book 3 they're literally having catfights.

It isn't that hard, OP.

In a fantasy setting, your goal is to encourage adventure for the PCs (who tend to be male). Since PC adventurers are essentially homeless vagabonds, they do not need to be part of "polite society". So here's how it works:

By long-standing tradition, land can only be legally owned by women. (This is similar to how in some places even today, land can only be owned by men.) Only landowners get to vote, and the constitutional monarchy is passed down the female line. Generally, people take the family name of their mother, not their father.

The reasoning behind this tradition is that women, being the ones who need to settle down (they get pregnant, men don't), are the ones who are most suitable to be just caretakers of the land. There is also a divine proclamation in the holy writings of the Gods that mothers are the rulers in the household, and in the queendom. Men, being the active but less "civilised" sex, are limited in their legal standing and encouraged to be nomadic and to take up the more dangerous professions.

"Mgical Realm" has a specific meaning in this context. Please lurk more.

Make them not human in where the women have an overwhelming physical or mental power over men, otherwise you'd need an external force because as it's, human men are stronger than human women and those physically stronger ruled over the weak for a long time in history.

The way I remember it working historically is that around 2000 B.C. women were viewed as incredibly powerful for their ability to give birth and nurse children, this is incredibly important since human communities were small at the time and every hand was needed to sustain a society. Elves might be your best bet in this case, since they don't reproduce often and therefore would consider their women to be blessed with the ability to give birth. Women would hold political power due to this form of worship.
Source: Took a semester of ancient history in college and therefore am an undisputed master of the subject

As of breath of the wild it's that male Gerudo are just really rare. They don't even know that Ganon was actually a Gerudo. Though in Ocarina of Time he did become king purely because he was a male Gerudo, it seems that at some point after that everything that happened with him likely soured them to having male leaders.

>men simply have an overwhelming physical advantage in every way.
Unfortunate facts: they also have an overwhelming mental advantage and overwhelming aggression advantage.

IQ distributions are dominated at the high end (and also low end) by men, 10:1. Men are the greatest, most prolific inventors, and would dominate magic as much as they dominate science IRL.

In general, those that do control - as a class group. So if the warriors are men, they are going to demand that men are in charge - following only men. And society will have little choice in the matter.

So my suggestion would be to change that. You can mess with the physical descriptions of men/women so that women are naturally the warriors in a culture - but that might be a bit jarring and even in a world with magic not seem believable.

The most likely method I think would be to have some form of magic, that is important to the survival of the nation, only run through women. Perhaps they are the only mages, or sorcerers, or clerics (of a God that is needed to survive, that the nation actively depends on). Something like that.

To have more fun with it make it the cleric/God thing. Only women can perform ritual X that must be performed yearly and requires a majority of the women of the nation. The twist is that the ritual is faked, it does nothing and is not needed (or at least not needed, but perhaps pleasing to the God all the same). All of the women in the lower ranks believe though. Only the very top percentage of elite rulers know it is bullshit.

Magic: Women have powerful magical abilities, while men do not, so a magicracy develops with the women in governing positions. It's smart to take orders from someone who can divine the future.

Belief system: Women are divinely ordained to be leaders and administrators, as the Mother-Goddess nurtures the world, so shall her daughters nurture the people of the world.

Tradition: Noble lineages are passed through the female members of a family. A noble lineage cannot exist without the womb, after all, so women should inherit it.

Biology: The females of the society are less numerous but live much longer lives. As such, they are valued for their wisdom and their ability to keep up populations.

Is OP's picture what I think it is?

It's dead simple: don't include in the setting that females are inherently weaker than males. Anyone that complains loudly is either a hardcore realismfag or a FATAL player, in which case you can freely discard them and find another player.

The fun thing is, you don't even need women to be magically superior. You just need them to have been magically superior. Let's say in the distant past, a powerful sorceress conquered the realm with magic. She then set up her daughters as rulers - we can say it's for a reason, or just for the hell of it. Now let's say the daughters followed in their mother's footsteps, and now tradition will do its thing. The leaders are women, because obviously women make the best leaders. After all, we've had women ruling us all our lives, and if a society would be better off led by men it would have happened by now.

Well, we have to pretend women are good at something, for the purposes of the argument. Otherwise, any society under a matriachy would be inherently crippled and an obviously worse option.

If this is true, then it's far less immediately noticeable and therefore utterly irrelevant to this discussion.

Nobody gives a shit.

Wouldn't this fall apart when a powerful male Wizard or Sorcerer shows up?

Depends. Do you mean matriarchy as a society where women are generally considered better than men in mamy aspects, or an average society ruled by a female leader?

If the latter is your problem, just make the woman in charge a strong and capable leader. History is full to the brim with women that in moments of need showed balls of steel bigger than the head of a minitaur. Just do a quick research and take your pick

Probably, but as long as that doesn't happen the realm is matriarchal, so use that span of time for your realm

Yeah, but that's once in forever and a half.

>Arcane magic can be learnt by anyone
This is true in all settings.

nah, he's just an exception

>How do I create a functioning matriarchal society and government for a fantasy campaign that doesn't make it a magical realm?

Well, the simplest thing to do is just reverse all gender roles except those for which reversing would make limited or no sense. Midwives, for example, should remain female.

You could also check out the details behind the mythological Amazons, which were *not* in the actual myths held to be an all-women people.

Why don't you start by taking example of real world matriarchal societies:
mentalfloss.com/article/31274/6-modern-societies-where-women-literally-rule

Can't be done.
Best bet is a race of female humanoids that are compatible with male humans/elves but somehow can only birth more women and have to rely on travelers for reproduction.

You say that like 90% of wizards and sorcerers aren't completely into being dominated by powerful women.

There's probably some unspoken agreement between all of the 10th level or higher casters to never do anything that would endanger their femdom paradise.

>You could also check out the details behind the mythological Amazons
Didn't the Amazons constantly get raped by an all-male tribe hanging out nearby?

I would just make men and women equal in physical and mental potential. Strongest woman is as strong as the strongest man and the weakest man is as weak as the weakest woman. That gets rid of basically ALL of the problems.

first generations created by the gods were 90% female for procreation purposes so they ruled at the beginning and it just stuck.

Sparta is about as close to a real life version of what you're after as you're likely to find. Women run most things because the men are all off training and/or screwing one another.

Only if you consider the Greeks to be an all-male tribe.

Wouldn't that be the opposite? If I was a Wizard (i.e. a fucking nerd) I would want to dominate as many women as possible. Sorcerers, meanwhile, are high Charisma. That means they're used to taking what they want from women, too.

Only if they're strong enough to conquer the nation. Otherwise he's running into the weight of tradition, where he might be a powerful wizard but he's both and usurper and a man.

Now, it's possible he could try to overthrow the social order. But he might not be able to replicate the Empress' feats. She might have been the first Empress, meaning she united a bunch of warring kingdoms under one banner. Now you'd have to take on an entire powerful nation rather than a bunch of rival factions. Or their military has caught up to the point where a single powerful sorcerer can't just conquer them anymore. Maybe they've got enough battle mages and summoners, or just enough troops. Or maybe she had some secret source of power that means nobody can match up to her without replicating it. Maybe she made a pact with a demon, or had dragon blood.

Or maybe he is conquering the Empire, and it's up to the PCs to stop it. After all, nobody likes their home to get conquered.

I don't know about you, but I'd side him with.

You're thinking too much like a man. If you're going to imagine a society run by women then you'll need to set brute force aside and think of how women use power.

A matriarical society will be focused on diplomacy and trade. It will encourage arts and building. It will use a mostly male army as a way to allow men to blow off their masculine aggression. Sexuality likely will be used to control men but there mostly be other means such as is used with any powerful animal.

Its one of many options but i imagine a "queen bee" situation where a woman plays the more physically powerful men off of eachother, at first forcing conflict and slowly manipulating the men so that they no longer feel as much need to compete for her attention.

Alternatively, the culture simply values a woman more than man (see the Lakota tribe). Such reverance is not uncommon amoung very early societies.

>Wouldn't that be the opposite?
user, you've wandered into his magical realm where "90% of wizards and sorcerers are completely into being dominated by powerful women". It's folly to argue at this point.

The Amazons were probably inspired by the Scythians, who do not appear to have had any cultural baggage surrounding the idea of female warriors. While the Scythians themselves left little records, multiple sources confirm that men and women were both warriors.

The Scythians were horse-nomad archers, though, which might have played a role in that - the physical demands of someone riding on horseback and firing an arrow are substantially less than the physical demands of someone standing in a phalanx formation.

Likewise, when you're a nomadic people and you have to defend yourself against an attack, you don't tend to have a large enough population to get uppity about someone with boobs picking up a bow and arrow. It isn't much of a leap after that to decide that, having defended yourself and now needing to go on a raid, the females should also get to come along, to shore up your numbers.

Bees, ants, eusocial insects in general.

So what happens when they're invaded?

Look into various American indigenous nations, many in the modern mid-west had matriarchal arrangements.

Why would you side with someone trying to violently conquer your peaceful kingdom?

Because I'm male, and I stand to gain more under the new regime.

You have to make them of a species where females are larger and stronger like insects, lizards and fish. Or bullshit them full of magic.
Nobody follows a rule they can break, and as cute and endearing as women can be, they are very easy to break.

The men fight the invaders?

>Be fertility goddess
>Be lazy and want to increase the numbers of followers
>Make an absurd female:male ratio to speed up their growth rates
>Women become dominant in every layer of society and men are just a tool for breeding and sexual gratification
>Meh, not my problem, they'll sort it out with enough time at a more normal birth ratio
>It never does
>Be too embarrassed about it to try and correct the all-female clerical order when they start praising me as the one who teaches the truth that men are meant to submit to women.

for profit and power, people can be surprisingly assholish for those

>get executed by new regime, since you were so willing to betray the old guard, you are a liability in the future who may betray the new order

these seems like a very believable one

You've never seen an adventuring party topple a kingdom before?

Historically speaking, this never actually pans out within the lifetime of the rebels. The previous underclass benefiting from the new regime, that is.

Tsarist Russia had a higher standard of living for the average Russian than Communist Russia did until about the late 1940s, for example.

This also leaves aside that all we know about this powerful Sorcerer/Wizard is that he wants to conquer the Empire, not that he'd actually be any good at running it. Hell, we don't even know that the current Empire is unpleasant for men.

And lose.
Look at france for an example of what happens when masculinity is systematically villified. You're not gonna birth a Herakles in a matriarchy, and all it takes is a roving band of omegas kicked out from their tribe for being violently disruptive and your political and diplomatic matriarchy is gone.

Consuls didn't comprise the vast majority of the Senate nor really did any military leaders comprise any political body of Rome during any of it's three eras. Partially why powerful generals went on to seize the crown during the Imperial era.

Just flip the sexual dimorphism and be done with it.

> Partially why powerful generals went on to seize the crown during the Imperial era.

Isn't that proving my point?

So following the reply chain, your argument is that as a male citizen of a matriarchy, you would help in overthrowing the government by a foreign patriarchy because "muh males", then when the new government tries to kill you, you would overthrow that government all by yourself because "muh XP".

user, you might be a murderhobo.

user, plenty of manly men societies have been over run, wiped out or assimilated. Saying they could get wiped out by a more powerful force doesn't change the viability of the scenario.

Lizards normally have larger males. It's snakes with the larger females.

>...that doesn't make it a magical realm?

The only reason men listen to women in civilized countries is because a government of smarter men will send a police force of stronger men to fuck you up if you don't.

Men are much less valuable than women in western society, and yet they control the show.

If RPGs have taught me anything, it's that the fastest way to enlightenment is genocide.

Never trust a traitor. Not even one you create.

>Q distributions are dominated at the high end (and also low end) by men, 10:1
This part could very easily be a product of a male biased society.

Is such a thing even possible?

Pff

At a tribal level

Matrilineal society with emphasis on women as a core of continuity in the community because of the trace of descent through maternal lines.

Loosely organized council of tribal mothers dictating domestic affairs - division of tribal resources, official approval on marriages and thus composition of family units, internal matters such as arbitration.

External matters of the tribe such as war and trade handled by the older and experienced men - men of the community are more mobile and loosely associated with the core community of women and children, as they are primarily concerned with hunting, territorial security and trade/politics with neighbours.

A war chief and a hearth mother are two different and powerful stations in society, but more of the core mechanics of your daily life are going to be determined by hearth mothers than war chiefs - if that makes sense.

Don't komodo dragons, common lizards and crocodiles all have bigger females than males?

Be as it may, my point still stands

Actually, you do have to trust SOME traitors, because in a revolution, the people who side with you against the government are traitors to the established order.

I mean, you'd have to kill everyone otherwise.

>just because a brick house can collapse, doesn't mean my tissue paper house will!
If your society is weak to random murderhobos from within or afar, it's no society at all.
You need to device a way to make sure men as as strong or stronger as any enemy force and yet completelly happy to serve women. Emasculating men either by threating them like children or like animals is a surefire collapse and your proposed matriarchy might be better off not having men at all.

No, just checked. Males tend to actually be substantially bigger. For example, male komodos tend to be 8 or 9 feet long, while females are usually more around 6.

Then again, female komodo dragons are capable of parthenogenesis - self-impregnation. Males aren't technically necessary for the species.

Both of them have larger males. The largest Croc in the world is male even.

No, that's just genetics. Men have a greater incentive to be genetically varied than women do.

Women are administrators and magistrates.

Men are philosopher warriors.

Slaves are the labour force.

Sparta 2.0

Yes but not because of the reasons you may be thinking about.
Men have higher and lower IQs because some men have to try exceedingly hard to mate, and some women open their legs for anyone.
On the other hand most females mate and don't have to try particularily high.

If women were the courting sex, they'd be the ones with IQ extremes.

Oh well i might be retarded then.

>insert The more you know pic here

Hyenas have larger females.

Hyena females also have dicks and more testosterone than the males. Hyenas are just a race of futas

Hyenas are not a problem since i'm talking lizards here.

Anyway, even if i fucked up the size thing, it still works and none of my players called me out on my bullshit yet

There is one bunch of lizards with 3 types of males, one of them being traps.

>Men are much less valuable than women in western society, and yet they control the show.
That's true in most societies.

Men have less value, but more power.

Because it is a male-biased society. See

Read about Bretonnia or Kislev from Warhammer Fantasy.

Give women the ability to naturally abort a pregnancy without emotional consequence. That makes any sort of mating by force impossible. Further, aggressive men would likely be rewarded with death by a group of people rather than the ability to start a family.

Sounds more like a female-biased society, not a male-biased one.

>you'd have to kill everyone otherwise
Yes, that tends to happen after the revolution is over. The new regime doesn't like rabble-rousers any more than the previous one.

Historically women were more valuable as livestock. It's not that they couldn't hold spears or loose arrows, but in order to have 10 pregnant women, you need 10 women, and only 1 man. Nordic women took part in war, and while it's not the case in most cultures, you have examples like the Chinese pirate queen, or Sigarda's (this is probably the wrong name sorry) that wandered into an enemy encampment pretending to be friendly and killed all the men when they didn't expect it. It's not the women don't make good soldiers as much as they generally aren't allowed to be soldiers. It would be like people 100 years ago saying women aren't good at voting.

Main problem with women as soldiers (as compared to men at least) is a lower strength and muscle mass, as well as a slower reaction time on average and lesser spatial recognition. Higher pain tolerance though.

I'm sure I'm going to be called /pol/ or some shit, but part of the reason women are less represented in the sciences is how we taught sciences. When a teacher desires a student isn't good at something (male or female), that student tends to get worse and worse as the teacher's bias shines through. So when teachers assume girls suck at math and science for a few decades, it's no surprise that less women become scientists and mathematicians. You've had subjects you hated because the teacher, right.

Can't speak for the IQ distribution you mentioned though. Haven't had a class or looked into it.