Abstract: This is the first part of “The Genealogy of Western Matriarchal Thought”. After Bachofen published his book on matriarchy in 1861 (refer to the second part of this article for the discussion of Bachofen), matriarchy soon became a hot topic among anthropologists in the late 19th century and also made a great impact on Chinese academia in the 20th century. But by the beginning of the 20th century, most anthropologists in the West had already discarded the idea of matriarchy. This paper is not intended to introduce or repeat the debate over matriarchy in the Western academia; instead, it is to clarify the real thoughts of these thinkers in the 19th century and trace the intellectual origin of matriarchy. The first part of the paper outlines the matriarchal and matrilineal thoughts among several major anthropologists in the 19th century. Beginning with the discussion of patriarchy by Sir Maine and Coulange, the author describes how McLennan, Morgan and Engels raised the issue of matriarchy as a response and an extension to the idea of patriarchy in classical studies. All of them believed that there had existed a matriarchal period because they thought that it was more difficult to identify one’s father than one’s mother, and therefore there should have been a period in which people knew only their mothers but not their fathers. Patriarchy evolved in only at a later time. To reason, they all contended that there had been an entirely promiscuous period, a state that was most natural. Human beings first entered the matriarchal period and then the patriarchal period, a development from being natural to being civilized. Hence these thinkers all saw matriarchy as a more primitive stage closer to nature and patriarchy as a more civilized stage marked by inequality.

Key words: matriarchy, patriarchy, primitive marriage