301 Midterm

The process of patriarchy took several hundred thousand years to complete. The patriarchal family is based on things such as values, social roles, customs, and laws. (Lerner 253) These things could sometime be gender specific. The concept of the patriarchal family differs in many cultures. For example, in Europe the women practice monogamy, the Oriental people practice polygamy, and that the male is dominant in the United States. (Lerner 253). Overall the male is the dominant one in every culture no matter what women tend to do. These practices are also taught to the children.

Women’s status does tend to change from time to time. Women do gain some power even if it means by forming groups that are almost like stepping stones to their freedom. These were building blocks for a later foundation. Much legality came about that wanted to make the woman null and void. Patriarchy exists because women let it exist. Women continue to conform to the stereotypes that a woman cannot be educated, respectable, have any type of power, and that they are worthless. (Lerner 254)

Women have been living this way for years. Males are superior and females are inferior. A male has to answer to his father until he gets his own house, but a woman is expected to always answer to a man. If a woman was sharing the same class as a man she could only exploit men and women of that class. (Lerner 255) But it is a shame, that you have to “be under protection of a man” to do so. All fo this was developed so that the women would not have any place that she could belong. Women would think that they are a part of a group, but they were not.

Women were committed to their families by previous obligations and whomever she choose to marry. This is where her lifeline was created, but it all begins when you are born into the world. (Lerner, 255) Women seem to be enslaved by the male race. The slaves in our history would do their best to protect their children from the slave masters. They...