Curious Femme

“The shift from gathering to ownership was not progress. It was the beginning of hierarchy.” — Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

Humanity’s relationship with land changed everything. When the first seeds were sown and herds were domesticated, something far deeper than agriculture took root: the idea of possession. The earth became property. Women, once revered as the life-givers of the community, became part of what was owned. This was the moment when partnership gave way to patriarchy.

1 From Foragers to Farmers

For over 95 per cent of human history, people lived in small nomadic bands. Anthropological research shows these early groups were relatively egalitarian. They shared food, moved collectively, and made decisions communally. Men and women contributed different but equally valued skills: hunting, gathering, medicine, and tool-making (CEU 2024).

Around 10,000 BCE, the climate stabilised after the last Ice Age. Fertile valleys in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant supported the world’s first farms. Agriculture brought security and surplus, but it also encouraged the establishment of settlements and ownership. Once crops could be stored, families accumulated goods. Surplus created inequality, and inequality required control.

As land replaced mobility, the question of inheritance emerged. Who owned the grain? Who passed it on? Societies that had once relied on communal reciprocity began to value lineage and legitimacy. Control of reproduction became as essential as control of land.

2 The Ownership of Fertility

Riane Eisler (1987) described this transformation as the “dominator model” replacing the “partnership model”. In this new world, power flowed vertically rather than in balance. The social value of women shifted from producers and priestesses to reproducers and possessions.

The earliest law codes confirm this change. In the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BCE), women were listed among property to be protected, exchanged, or punished. Adultery was a capital offence for women but not for men, reflecting anxiety about paternity and inheritance. The body of the woman became the boundary of property.

Archaeological evidence from the Fertile Crescent indicates that the male plough replaced the female hoe, marking a symbolic shift from nurturing to the domination of the soil (Lerner 1986). The plough required animal power and strength, which men used to justify exclusive control over farming. This technological change reinforced ideological change: man as master of earth and woman.

3 Religion: The Fall of the Goddess

As property systems grew, so did new cosmologies. The ancient goddesses who once represented life and renewal were replaced by warrior and storm gods who mirrored male rulers.

In Sumer, the goddess Inanna’s central role diminished as male deities such as Marduk rose to supremacy. In Canaan, Asherah, the consort of Yahweh, was gradually erased from temple worship (Frymer-Kensky 1992). The Greek pantheon re-imagined the cosmos as a struggle between virile gods and subdued goddesses. Zeus even claimed the act of childbirth by producing Athena from his head, transforming female creativity into male intellect.

These myths legitimised new social realities. When divine power became associated with masculinity, social power followed suit. The earth, once a mother to be honoured, was redefined as a resource to be conquered.

4 Law and the Birth of Patriarchal Family

As settlements expanded into cities, the patriarchal order was institutionalised through law and family structure. The household (oikos) became the model of society: a male head governing wives, children, enslaved people, and property.

The term paterfamilias in early Rome later codified this hierarchy. Under patria potestas, the father had legal authority over life, death, and property within the family (Dixon 1988). Women were placed in the “manu”, literally “in the hand”, of their fathers or husbands. This structure ensured that lineage and wealth were passed down through men alone.

Marriage evolved from a social partnership into a contractual arrangement. Dowries, bride prices, and inheritance laws reduced women’s autonomy and tied them to male status. What had begun as economic security evolved into a moral doctrine.

5 Violence and the Control of Reproduction

The Agricultural Revolution also introduced new forms of violence. The rise of standing armies and walled cities required labour, and women became the means of producing it. Reproduction was a national duty rather than a personal choice.

Female infidelity was criminalised, while male conquest was glorified. In many early texts, women are portrayed as both temptation and threat. The story of Eve, written centuries later, reflects this cultural inheritance: woman as the origin of sin, responsible for the fall from divine favour.

Control of women’s bodies became synonymous with control of the state. From Mesopotamian veiling laws to Athenian seclusion, the message was clear: a woman’s virtue was the measure of her family’s honour and her husband’s authority.

6 The Economics of Dependency

With agriculture came wealth and debt. Those who owned land prospered, while the landless became servants or were enslaved. Women, excluded from property ownership, were trapped in dependency. Their labour, domestic, agricultural, and reproductive, sustained the system without reward.

The creation of money and trade deepened inequality. Women’s traditional skills in weaving, midwifery, and healing were devalued once monetised male labour became the social standard. Economic systems that had once relied on cooperation turned competitive, and women’s unpaid work became invisible.

Gerda Lerner (1986) argues that this was the moment patriarchy became institutional rather than interpersonal. It was now embedded in law, religion, and economy, reproduced not only by force but by ideology.

7 The Myth of Progress

Patriarchy cloaked itself in the language of progress. Farming, writing, cities, and law were celebrated as civilisation’s triumphs, yet each milestone rested on narrowing freedom. As men recorded history, women’s voices were often excluded from it. The priestess became the wife. The goddess became myth. Narratives of conquest and control overwrote the partnership model of society.

Modern archaeology now questions this narrative. Matrilineal and egalitarian communities such as those of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia reveal that early urban life did not require patriarchy at all. Excavations show homes with equal burial goods for men and women, suggesting social parity (Eisler 1987). Patriarchy, therefore, was not a natural evolution but a political choice.

8 Legacy

The legacy of the Agricultural Revolution endures. Property, inheritance, and patriarchy remain interwoven. Modern debates about land, capital, and reproductive rights echo decisions first made in ancient fields. Understanding this transformation allows us to see that gender inequality is not a moral constant but a historical artefact, one built upon soil, surplus, and fear.

The plough may have tamed the earth, but it also buried the memory of equality.

Conclusion

The Agricultural Revolution was not only a shift in how humans fed themselves, but also a shift in how they defined themselves. The partnership between men, women, and the natural world fractured into a hierarchy that shaped civilisation for millennia. When ownership replaced reciprocity, and the feminine became property, the foundations of patriarchy were laid.

To recognise this is not to condemn progress but to re-imagine it. Humanity’s earliest societies demonstrate that cooperation and equality are as ancient as domination and hierarchy. The question is not whether patriarchy can end, but whether we dare to remember that it once did not exist.

References

• Central European University (2024) New Research Reveals Insights into Gender Equality in Hunter-Gatherer Societies. Budapest: CEU.
• Dixon, S. (1988) The Roman Mother. London: Croom Helm.
• Eisler, R. (1987) The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
• Frymer-Kensky, T. (1992) In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: Fawcett Columbine.
• Lerner, G. (1986) The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press