Why Modern Patriarchy?

Early humans were not "men" and "women" in the modern sense. They had evolved into beings who lived by eating both plants and animals. This omnivorous way of life shaped humanity for over 100,000 years, during which all humans lived as hunters and gatherers, deeply connected to their environments.

In their world, there was no single global pattern in which one gender dominated the other. Societies were small and mobile; roles were diverse and often shared. Authority tended to rest more on age, experience, or personal charisma than on gender. The dominance of one gender over the other began only about 6,000 years ago. Crucially, the DNA of humans has not changed in any significant way since at least 100,000 years ago. People living today could still biologically reproduce with any human who ever lived during those long egalitarian millennia.

This continuity underscores a critical point: any theory suggesting that a desire of one gender to dominate the other stems from genetic differences between males and females cannot be convincing. The roots of patriarchy must therefore lie in other shifts – not in human biology.

It also means that patriarchy can be stopped. Humans do not need to change genetically to overcome it – because for the vast majority of human history, they lived without it. Even more, 5 of the 20 currently existing global cultures are still not patriarchies. And among the 15 that are, 3 are already moving away from it. The patriarchy is not in our genes.

But why did the patriarchy start in the first place?

Cities

The earliest known urban centers in human history mark a pivotal moment in the development of human society. They combined three then-modern ideas: creating safe spaces for plants (agriculture), safe spaces for animals (animal husbandry), and safe spaces for people (architecture).

These three elements in one place – agriculture, animal husbandry, and architecture –, created a profound difference between the people living within the first cities and those remaining outside of them. It was not the presence of any single element, nor just two, but the convergence of all three that gave rise to a distinct way of life. People now faced a choice: to remain outside in the wilderness, where life was freer but more uncertain, or to join the city, where roles were clearly defined, and life was safer, more predictable, but required conformity to the city's structure. The city offered security and stability in exchange for personal autonomy.

At that time, only a tiny fraction of the world’s population found the trade-off of giving up their freedom for a more stable life within the cities worth it. For most, the idea of a safer, more predictable life in a structured society did not outweigh the loss of individual autonomy. Interestingly, today, 5 out of 20 cultures worldwide have never given up their freedom, continuing to live outside the confines of large urban structures.

Despite the initial idea that cities could offer a better, more stable way of life, the first urban centers did not survive in the long run. They ultimately failed, and their brief existence stands in stark contrast to the uninterrupted 100,000 years of freedom enjoyed by those who remained outside the cities. In the grand scheme of human history, these early attempts at civilization show that the idea of the city, as it was first conceived, was not the success it hoped to be.

Despite repeated attempts, the earliest civilizations all ultimately failed. In Mesopotamia, first cities like Uruk and Ur emerged. Yet, they eventually faced decline within a few thousand years. The Indus Valley Civilization, known for its advanced urban planning, lasted only about 700 years before it mysteriously collapsed. In Mesoamerica, the Olmec civilization lasted roughly 800 years, leaving behind monumental architecture, but it faded long before the Maya civilization took root.

Civilization

Over time, various iterations of the idea were tried, and some focused on one singular, overarching principle: making everything within the city exclusively useful for reproduction. Their primary drive became to "get," "keep," "own," and "increase" the means of reproduction – land, animals, tools, and people. Anything that did not serve this purpose was suppressed or discarded.

The city’s value became directly measurable by the sum of all the land, animals, tools, and people under its control, with the reproductive potential of each being the determining factor. This focus on expanding the reproductive capacity of resources became the foundation of early urban societies.

Patriarchy

The more these early civilizations treated everything and everyone as mere instruments of reproduction, the more reproductively efficient they became. Today, 99% of all living human beings belong to one of the 15 out of 20 currently existing patriarchal cultures.

Their principle is simple. These cultures make a clear division between public and private space. In the public space, people focus on reproducing things – food, tools, infrastructure. In the private space, people focus on reproducing people. The public role is called male. The private role is called female.

What stood in the way of this system in its early stages was biology itself: high child mortality, short life expectancy, and the frequent death of women in childbirth. Eventually, however, these societies found a way to extract five to ten pregnancies from each woman. They did so by narrowing her existence to that single purpose – functioning as a highly reproductive womb.

As a result, the rule of experience was replaced by the rule of law, institution, and morality. Each woman became the private property of a man – her body a means to reproduce people. The man, in turn, became the public property of the city – his labor a means to reproduce goods and order.

This brutal system was just effective enough to let early civilizations crawl forward, barely surviving into the 16th century – growing, collapsing, merging, and mutating in a ruthless process of cultural evolution.

This is patriarchy: a system where the woman is a womb owned by a man, and the man is a worker, warrior, and ruler owned by the city. He is a public citizen, and she is his private property. That structure maximizes reproduction – of people, goods, and power. It’s brutally simple.

When the Industrial Revolution and capitalism emerged, the patriarchy didn’t even blink. It simply absorbed the change – machines and markets became new tools for the same old purpose: maximizing reproduction through private and public ownership.

Today, many still believe that we need more of that. They are politically right – and they are completely wrong. Others, politically left, recognize that patriarchy is not sustainable on any level.

Our modern challenge is: how can we be civilized without a patriarchy?

 

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