patriarchy

noun pa·tri·ar·chy \ ˈpā-trē-ˌär-kē \

|Updated on: 20 Jul 2018

Examples: patriarchy in a Sentence

Definition of patriarchy

plural patriarchies

1 : social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power

2 : a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy

For 20 years the country was ruled as a patriarchy.

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Examples of patriarchy in a Sentence

For 20 years, the country was ruled as a patriarchy.
a region in which patriarchy is practiced

Recent Examples of patriarchy from the Web

And White gave a loving shout-out to Holland for breaking through the traditional kitchen patriarchy.

— catherine bigelow, SFChronicle.com, "CCA raises $1.2 million at gala," 18 June 2018
All participants tended to see a more male God, however, so the patriarchy is alive!

— jaya saxena, GQ, "Study Finds That Americans Think God Looks Like This Guy," 12 June 2018
Peterson is a Canadian, a professor at the University of Toronto, who lectures his large audiences about topics ranging from the fact that chaos is feminine to the social hierarchy of lobsters to why patriarchy just makes sense.

— lizzy acker, OregonLive.com, "Jordan Peterson, who says men are 'under assault,' is coming to Portland next month," 22 May 2018
The series sees no contradiction between fighting the patriarchy and having a ton of Instagram followers.

— james poniewozik, New York Times, "The Fashion Closet, Seen From Inside and Out," 1 July 2018
Jacobs, the independently wealthy granddaughter of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, has an all-female campaign team and has often spoken about taking on the patriarchy.

— maeve reston, CNN, "How a surge of progressive energy could backfire on Democrats in California," 31 May 2018
The patriarchy survives so long as women are pitted against one another.

— jessica knoll, Time, "Jessica Knoll's New Book, The Favorite Sister, Explores Ambition and Motherhood," 31 May 2018
But this account, published on MEL Magazine, proves not only that the patriarchy hurts people of all genders, but that men can learn and grow from their mistakes.

— jaya saxena, GQ, "Consent and Treating People Decently 101: A Pop Culture Syllabus," 31 May 2018
All anyone wanted to talk about was smashing the patriarchy—a conversation that flowed freely, owing to the circumstances, the cocktails, and the fact that nearly all the guests were women.

— ruth franklin, The Atlantic, "The Female Persuasion Should Be a Literary Breakout. Will It?," 19 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'patriarchy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

With its root -arch, meaning "ruler, leader", a patriarch is a man who dominates something, even if it's just a family. In Christianity, the term is used for a few leading figures who appear early in the Old Testament, including Methuselah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in the Eastern Orthodox church, a patriarch is usually the equivalent of a bishop. Outside of the field of anthropology, patriarchy didn't start to be used much until the 1970s, when the women's movement gained a huge following. Many feminists have claimed that all Western societies are patriarchal—that is, that they systematically enable men to dominate women. But there's plenty of disagreement about how this is done, and the word isn't discussed as often as it used to be.

First Known Use of patriarchy

1632

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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Other Anthropology Terms

ectomorph, ethnography, prehistory, yurt

PATRIARCHY Defined for English Language Learners

patriarchy

noun

Definition of patriarchy for English Language Learners

: a family, group, or government controlled by a man or a group of men
: a social system in which family members are related to each other through their fathers