Abstract
Patriarchy as an ideological concept was imported into Africa with the arrival of outsiders. The main focus of this chapter is the history of Bantu-speaking peoples from 300 CE to 1500 CE and earlier, who lived in a large region that cuts through the centre of the African continent and named the Bantu Matrilineal Zone (BMZ). Some people who reside within this zone organize their families and communities patrilineally and may have different concepts of authority, but none could be defined as patriarchal. Bantu-speaking peoples became a separate linguistic group, often referred to as proto-Bantu, about 5500 years ago. Bantu societies appear diverse, yet as they settled two/thirds of Africa south of the Sahara Desert, they have maintained some basic common concepts and institutions. Their shared epistemologies included an honouring of motherhood and matrilineal social organising; using the cosmic family as a basic social, political, economic, and spiritual centre; striving for heterarchical-based communities; and observing non-binary social categories.
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