Reply #42: at one point there existed matriarchal societies

[Wonder]

I do believe there is much to be said for your husbands theory. More simply put and in tribal cultures there was much reaction some good some bad to both a women's ability to give birth (seen as a magic power) and her menses. In Native American cultures a women is not allowed to sweat with the group during menses as she is seen as stronger than the spirits, and her stronger presence would discourage the greater spirits from being invoked. The lakota Souix Nation honored the power and wisdom of the female elders in the tribe, also the Iroquios nation from where the colonialist got the US constitution. Some attribute the democracy inherent to many of the Native American tribes to the inclusion of female elders as equals.

On the other hand, I forget which tribe, but I read years ago some of the practices of an African tribe. In response to the females power of reproduction this one tribe had a right of passage ritual for the boys. At a certain age the tribes male elders would take those boys away from the tribes village. One of the rituals was having the boys perform falatio on the tribal male elders. The reason being was that the ingestion of the male seed strengthened the manhood of the boys as they passed from boys to men.

With that in mind, it could be argued that some violence against women is an unconscious reaction to what is perceived as the females feminine powers. Jung takes another bend in the road on that, with the male struggling to break free of the maternal and his angst with the mother maternal and the woman whore. Even this placing women on pedestal's is in essence a male reaction to what he preceives as her power, that being primarily reproduction and then as your husband extrapolates it being her sexuality as well. The pedastal is specific to the madonna which the male must know down of the pedastal in his struggle to break from the mother.

I don't want to be on pedastals of that nature and have never conducted myself in any way wherein I demanded to be idolized. Much of what you raise in your post I believe is unconscious reaction which almost stems from an inferiority complex wherein the male suffering from this must denigrate the woman in an effort to feel superior to her by way of control. Of course we understand once it is broken down that way this kind of a dynamic is not gender specific.