Our Drow Aren't Terrible: Anthropology Discussion

...I think you're thinking of this wrong. Never in drow history has their culture been patriarchal. They have always been matriarchal, as much as the reverse is true for nearly all human cultures. That means that certain unquestioned assumptions in daily social interaction will be completely reversed from what you or I would expect, because they developed that way to begin with - not because they developed the human way first and then changed. And not all of those assumptions will be different, only some of them. Think of it as something like a For Want Of A Nail exercise applied specifically to cultural development, and wondering why the nail was or wasn't there.

That's why the anthropology is important to me. Sociology is too, but polisci is definitely not, because matriarchy was never a political decision.

In human societies, males are more aggressive and quick to establish who's in charge. Tribes became villages, villages became cities as tribal chieftains became kings. It's short and misses a few steps but most societies have the dudes in charge because some dude founded the society by being the baddest mofo around.

Now a matriarchal society could be due to demographics: males quickly die off in wars, are quick to fight so females lead, since they raise the children and work with medicines they keep society going.

Their could be skewed gender ratios, more female births than males (as seen in the Outsider webcomic).

The tumblr blog Ask A Drider has the bog standard "Loth's power isn't for boys" (a direct quote). Yeah it's a bit of cheating, and kinda Unfortunate Implications given how Loth and her daughters are portrayed in D&D and Pathfinder.

So a combo of disease and perhaps environment.

No, never in copyrighted Drow history yaddayaddayadda. Plus, that's a logic hole: if they have a recorded-ish history going back so far that they know there was never a patriarchy, then an anthropological explanation truly doesn't make any sense - they would know why their Year Zero as a sapient species started with a matriarchy.

That certainty about how they never had a patriarchy, again, is a huge difference between Drow and humans, who simply have too many gaps in their history as a species to know otherwise. I don't know if your setting even has humans or not, but

...Here, how about this. Which side of the escalator do you think the Japanese stand on, as opposed to walk up (or down)? Pretty much everywhere in the country, it's the left side, as Japan also drives on the left side of the road - opposite from the USA, where it's the right. With me so far? Two countries, two cultures, opposite sides of the escalator.

And then you have Osaka, where that rule breaks down a bit, and you'll find that the locals tend to stand on the right and hustle up the left. Why do you suppose that is? Your explanation is that it would have to be anthropological - something happened in the distant past that would account for present behavior.

It's actually something that came about largely due to Expo '70. Figuring (correctly) that there'd be a crapton of Westerners mucking about the city for 6 months, the Osakans decided it'd be easier to just adopt their stand-on-the-right style and put up with it - and it ended up sticking. Kids saw their parents stand on the right, and kept on doing it, generation after generation, until the present day, when you see articles like this.^note  Mind the date, and the fact that the "samurai/merchant" is a tired old stereotype.

History is full of stuff like this, where an apparently long-held tradition ends up having a much more recent explanation that still-living people remember, and those who started it in the first place made sure to pass down an explanation (that zealots dutifully ignore). Unquestioned or not, there typically is a good reason for why a society does something a certain way, and it starts being in the realm of anthropology only where there's no immediate/unrecorded/living-memory explanation - which your Drow apparently have a lot of.

This, plus the fact that you're trying to avoid Unfortunate Implications, is why I keep pushing sociology (and pol-sci) over anthropology. I assumed that you were looking to make a society that decided to get to where they are now through (someone's) conscious decisions, instead of some physical attributes or BS involving who is more responsible for physically begetting a newborn.

Historically, societies that have developed in open environments tend towards a more patriarchal structure. Don't know why, this is just a tendency. Also, historically, matriarchal societies were exceedingly violent. Basically, they tended to form because the men were too busy warring, traveling, fighting and hunting to control society. Typically, gathering and agriculture are far more productive than four of the previously mentioned activities, so when the gents return home, they would have to listen to the women of the group, because they are the ones who have maintained the group in working condition. Gender equality in pre-industrial areas happen in three conditions: matrilineal societies which need to control their ST Ds and encourage fathers to have more parental investment for obvious reasons (similar to the Iroquois), live in a harsh desolate environment where everyone needs to put in an equal amount of efforts to ensure survival. Another option is if a small culture is subject to harsh persecutions and thus are forced to have a family structure adaptable enough to insure the survival of the clan.

Bit of an extreme bump, isn't it? I admit that I now want to know if this post is citeable...

Here's an idea - there were kings and male chieftains and other leaders.

But then they failed and failed hard. Succession Crisis (and several male rulers being in the Heir Club for Men), wars, famine etc.

There could even be a story about King So-and-so or Chieftain Thatguy who had an affair with the wrong woman/women sparking feuds and a Succession Crisis. If there are humans in the universe, he man have had an affair with a human noble and brought in her clan/kingdom. They tried to make a claim for the throne.

So then Drow society removed the men from the leadership position, installed female leaders and....it worked out.

Maybe it was the "mandate of the Gods" - a queen or female chieftain came to power and the wars blood feuds ended, the famine ended and things improved.

Not wanting to be Tempting Fate the rulers are now women. The men can be consorts, regents, princes etc. The real power is reserved for women because the last time there was a major cock-up when a king was in charge.

Edited by TairaMai on Feb 20th 2022 at 11:04:28 AM