This Fleeting World

40 This Fleeting World
expectations. An emerging division of labor also created new opportunities
outside the household and the village. Yet, in a world where the economic
and social success of every farming household depended on bearing and
rearing as many children as possible, women usually had fewer opportunities
to take on more specialized roles—some of which brought great wealth
and power. The linguist and archaeologist Elizabeth Barber has argued that
this fact may explain why men were more likely to occupy high-ranking
positions in emerging hierarchies. Warfare may also have changed gender
relations as population growth intensified competition between communities
and as men began to monopolize the organization of violence.
Whatever the cause, the disproportionate presence of men in power
structures outside the village reshaped relations and attitudes within the
village and the household. Men began to claim a natural superiority based
on their role in emerging power structures outside the household, and
women were increasingly defined by their role within the household and
their relationships to men. Even the many women who earned money outside
the household usually did so in jobs associated with the tasks of the
household. Within the household the demands of peasant life ensured that
men and women continued to work in partnership. At this intimate, domestic
scale relationships owed as much to personal qualities as to gender.
However, beyond the household the powerful web of cultural expectations
and power relations now known as “patriarchy” emerged.
Worth Debating
If your school was buried in a volcano today and dug up a thousand
years from now, what clues would help archaeologists figure out who
were the leaders of the school? If the size of the room meant something
to the investigators of the future, perhaps the Phys Ed teacher
(leading activities in the gym) would seem to be the person with the
most authority. If books counted, maybe the school librarian would
appear to hold the power position. If the archeologists of the future
knew what checks or credit cards looked like, they might focus, instead,
on the business office.