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Definition of patriarchy - 6 dictionary results

pa⋅tri⋅arch⋅y

  [pey-tree-ahr-kee]
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–noun, plural -ies.
1. a form of social organization in which the father is the supreme authority in the family, clan, or tribe and descent is reckoned in the male line, with the children belonging to the father's clan or tribe.
2. a society, community, or country based on this social organization.
Origin:
1555–65; < Gk patriarchía. See patriarch, -y 3
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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pa·tri·ar·chy   (pā'trē-är'kē)   
n.   pl. pa·tri·ar·chies In both senses also called patriarchate.
  1. A social system in which the father is the head of the family and men have authority over women and children.
  2. A family, community, or society based on this system or governed by men.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Patriarchy

Pa"tri*arch`y\, n. [Gr. ?.]

1. The jurisdiction of a patriarch; patriarchship. --Brerewood.

2. Government by a patriarch; patriarchism.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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patriarchy [(pay-tree-ahr-kee)]

A family or society in which authority is vested in males, through whom descent and inheritance are traced. (See also matriarchy and primogeniture.)

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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patriarchy 
1561, in ecclesiastical sense, from Gk. patriarchia, from patriarches (see patriarch). Meaning "system of society or government by fathers or elder males of the community" first recorded 1632.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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patriarchy

hypothetical social system in which the father or a male elder has absolute authority over the family group; by extension, one or more men (as in a council) exert absolute authority over the community as a whole. Building on the theories of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin, many 19th-century scholars sought to form a theory of unilinear cultural evolution. This hypothesis, now discredited, suggested that human social organization "evolved" through a series of stages: animalistic sexual promiscuity was followed by matriarchy, which was in turn followed by patriarchy.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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