Is Matriarchy the way forward for the 21st century?

The birthrate is crashing - and we need a radical new solution

Is Matriarchy the way forward for the 21st century?

This is a serious question.

Forget climate change, supply chain shortages, and inflation, let’s focus on this bit of panic for a minute. According the World Economic Forum, birthrates are declining globally.

In other words, the big problems we’re all fixated on right now won’t matter much unless we solve this problem: we need a dramatic increase in output from birthing people. As in like, right now.

I don’t care how you feel about men, or men who consider themselves women (that’s a debate for later, and don’t worry, we’ll have have at it) but the bottom line is only biological women can create new people.

And women have been reluctant to participate in birthing activity lately, and in some places, Japan for instance, women have been out of the birthing game for decades.

Are the declining birthrates due to economic uncertainty? The breakdown of the family unit? Or maybe women enjoy their careers? Or women just view having children as making their lives unnecessarily harder? Or is having a family just an impossibility now?

I’m sure governments could create programs to subsidize the birthrate, and do the usual “hey, let’s throw money at the problem!” but will that solve the underlying problem? Maybe “lack of subsidies” or subsidized child care isn’t the real problem after all.

Japan has been trying the subsidized approach for decades with no luck. So has Russia and even China. So it’s not a “capitalist vs. socialist” problem either.

The problem of declining birthrates is everywhere, in both socialist and capitalist societies. But one thing capitalists and socialists do have in common is patriarchy. (This seems to be the one thing commies, capitalists, and socialists agree on 100%.)

Maybe it’s time for a radical new idea: Matriarchy.

Just as new technologies and social progress have touched every facet of society, marriage and the patriarchy still remain in the dark ages, literally.

To have a matriarchal society, the changes wouldn’t have to be that large. But they would require accepting some new realities.

Here are a couple of ideas on how to create a matriarchal society:

1.) Get the economy back to the point where a family can survive on one income. One spouse - and it doesn’t have to be the birthing person - would now have the option (key word) of staying at home and raising children.

2.) Rather than birthing people taking their spouse’s name by default, the spouse taking the birthing person’s name by default should be the new normal. No hyphens either. Symbols matter, and this would be a very important symbol.

3.) The birthing person as the head of the household. The birthing person takes the title of “husband” and the spouse takes the title of “devoted.” After all, birthing people are the creators of the family, and the spouse is dedicated - devoted - to supporting that family. The term “wife” - as in “my identity is defined by my relationship with someone else” - would be depreciated.

As you can see, the key to implementing matriarchy as the new society norm would have to start at the family level - not the corporate level or government level.

Matriarchy would simply start as an agreement between two people with the non-birthing spouse agreeing that this would be a matriarchal marriage. This is the exact same way patriarchal relationships are formed now, except the patriarchal part is assumed. Time to change that. Existing marriages could even change to matriarchal marriages.

A matriarchal marriage is a reasonable request - no more unreasonable than a patriarchal marriage - and agreeing to this request might determine whether or not men get to be part of a family at all.

In an age of technology, the birthing person has a lot more power than she thinks.

Is this a radical change? Yes. But ever since the pandemic, things have changed. New realities and enlightenments have emerged.

Back in the day - actually, the pre-pandemic days of 18 months ago - the corporate world seemed as it was societies anchor.

The pandemic finished off the idea of the corporation as the end all and be all of society.

The idea of being a “30 year company man” was long dead before the pandemic, with the average tenure at a company being 4.2 years in 2018.

Now, with more staffs working remotely and the idea of employees returning to the office laughable (Oh, you want me to come back in to the office boss? Let’s see what indeed says about that…) the “corporate job” is now just another internet connection.

The corporate model of society for the last 100 years has been an aberration. Society is on the cusp of shifting back to the family, where society always has been. Except this time the shift back will different - and on her terms.

The coming shift for the 21st century is towards families. People will soon rediscover that families matter - after all, great countries and communities are built on a foundation of rock-solid families. Not only is a family a great way to stave off loneliness, especially in your later years as Jordan Peterson noted, but a family is something you can create that truly matters and you can enjoy.

A family can outlast your corporate career and memories. When you get down to it, what you do in your business life doesn’t seem to matter as much. (Okay, unless you’re Elon Musk. But even he has a family.)

Society is figuring out that there’s more to a societies success than how well the males climbed the corporate ladder (that was the 20th century definition of “success”) now that we’re in the 21st century, there’s a new definition of success: how well did you create your family?

How well we create our families in the 21st century will be the ultimate definition of our success, and the people of the 22nd century will thank us for making the switch to matriarchy now, if they’re around to see it.

Yup, matriarchy. That’s the future. I see no other way for our species to continue to exist as technology increases exponentially and the birthrates continues to collapse equally as fast. Do you see it yet?