Surely you have heard about the tribe Amazons, in which reigned matriarchy? African elephants similar in their habits to them.

Elephants take care of their children on their own for 10-15 years, with their older daughters helping them with this. Even if they have cubs, they will not stop obeying their mothers.

African elephants live a long time, so for them it is usually that herd controlled by a grandmother elephant.

They have a rule - to kick out fifteen-year-old sons. They are slightly offended, and then they are hit with their tusks painfully enough for the baby elephant to leave.

When male When he grows up and matures, he can come and stay with his native herd. You can’t argue much with a large African male, so he protects his relatives and lives there as long as necessary. But! This elephant will never be in charge.

Among the elephants there are albinos However, this is very rare. Today in Thailand, the king owns 11 pink elephants, and just like in ancient times, they never work. The pets of the current ruler of Thailand live next to his palace in Bangkok, and citizens of the state can only see them at special events.

We invite you to look at representatives of the elephant family in our video.

We call matriarchy the dominant role of a woman in a family or other social entity. At the same time, male representatives are limited in their rights and must obey the woman in everything. As a result, it turns out that matriarchy is a kind of female dictatorship. In human society, matriarchy occurs quite often, especially in families with completely weak-willed men who have fallen under the heel of their wives. Sometimes this behavior is completely incomprehensible and causes a lot of criticism from the stronger sex.

The phenomenon of matriarchy in animals should be viewed completely differently. Here this is a natural and completely justified phenomenon. Matriarchy takes place in bee family, in some insects, in the same hyenas, and even in elephants.

How, for example, do hyenas live?

The main ones here are the females, who keep order in the family, raise children, organize hunting, distribute the order of food intake, and punish disobedient ones. Punishment among hyenas is not such a rare thing. Sometimes, those who violate the rules of the hostel may even be expelled from the pack.

The language of communication among hyenas is very unique. It consists of both sounds (growling, barking and howling) and smells. Moreover, it is unique for each individual and can change depending on the current situation. IN mating season he is one, but in danger he is completely different. The main female has her own scent, which is familiar to every member of the flock. He inspires humility and respect in them. Males, for example, may show their aroused genitals to the female as a sign of humility and submission. The method, of course, is not original, but it has its place. The female can react to this action in different ways, including with an angry grin. The male, in this case, immediately retreats, because in the hierarchy of hyenas he occupies the lowest level. He even starts eating last, only after the females are satisfied.

Very often the offending male is expelled from the pack. The decision on punishment is made by the main female. However, exile is resorted to extremely rarely. More often than not, the case ends with a more lenient punishment.

Which female gets the throne?

The fight is waged between the daughters of the main female, and from birth. Sometimes it all ends in a serious bloody fight. The winner emerges with his tail held high and proud.

So it turns out that matriarchy among hyenas is their way of existence. In addition, the female is much larger and stronger than the male, and rarely needs his courtship. The thing is that females have an analogue male organ, with the help of which they are quite capable of contacting each other. This is an enlarged clitoris, which sometimes reaches 15 centimeters in length.

Among elephants, the oldest female also rules the show. It is she who is responsible for order in the family and chooses a defense strategy in case of danger. The family consists of an old female and young individuals with calves. Males live a separate life and do not take any part in the life of the family. The composition of the family almost never changes. Unlike hyenas, the dominant elephant does not need any special privileges here. She does not walk ahead of the pack during long marches, but simply punishes the disobedient with blows from her trunk. All family members carefully monitor her reaction to this or that action, and if it is negative, they immediately correct it.

Birds also have matriarchy. An example is the phalarope, a resident of the tundra. The dominant role in these birds is occupied by females. Having chosen a gentleman, they lay eggs and disappear without a trace, entrusting the responsibility of hatching and raising the chicks to the male.

A man is a destroyer and a creator at the same time, a hunter and a prey, a ruler and a slave of his essence. What does he deserve - love or hate? Who is he and why did he come to this world? Could nature do without men? Why are men needed?

In this book, the veil of many secrets of the male “I” is lifted. It turns out that we need the male gender. He is the engine of evolution and scientific and technological progress, history and culture. It is possible that without men we would have remained just monkeys who learned to walk upright. This book will become for you a source of not only interesting, but also useful information and will help you look at men a little differently.

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They say that on the Black Sea coast, in the valley of the Fermodon and Yeshil-Irmak rivers, lived a warlike tribe of Amazons, which terrified neighboring peoples. This tribe of fearless warriors consisted only of women, and, of course, they were also ruled by a woman. They did not keep men with them at all, they engaged in lesbian love, and in order to conceive children, they slept with men from other tribes once a year. Born boys were either returned to their fathers or killed; girls were raised as future warriors. The name of this tribe does not come from the Amazon River, but from the Greek word amazones, which translated means “breastless.” Legend says that the Amazons, even in infancy, burned the right breast of their daughters so that it would not interfere with archery. True, another legend claims that they cauterized their left breast, but it may very well be that both legends are just fictions, in any case, in all the ancient images of warrior maidens that have come down to us, they appear with both breasts, as it should be. But that's not what we're talking about.

The Amazon State is the only one known to history a state with a matriarchal type of government. So unique that many scientists generally question the very fact of its existence, leaning toward the mythical origin of stories about the exploits of the Amazons. And the main argument in these disputes is this: well, women can’t run the country! Even if the country is small.

Only shadows remain of the Amazon women's state

In most animal species, the dominant position in packs and herds is occupied by males. Matriarchy, of course, occurs, but quite rarely. The most ardent followers of matriarchy - spotted hyenas. In these animals, females are much larger and more aggressive than males. In their packs, men are not tolerated at all; they do not even try to sort things out with the weaker sex: this is fraught with consequences. Ladies allow them to approach them only during the mating season.

Among elephants, the herd is led by the most experienced, usually the oldest, female. Males that have reached adulthood leave the herd and live either alone or in small bachelor groups.

Female matriarch leads family of elephants to watering hole

In killer whales, the pod is a close-knit family, also led by the eldest female. Males remain with the family for life. In ordinary rats, the largest female rules. After her death, the next largest female takes the place. But in most animals that adhere to family image life, the place of leader is occupied by the male. And again I want to ask: why?

If we are guided by evolutionary considerations, what produces the best fruits dominates the earth. It turns out that patriarchy gives us something that provides us best conditions for successful prosperity, development and reproduction. The difference between matriarchal and patriarchal societies comes down to the difference between behavioral characteristics two genders.

Men have better developed rational thinking, prudence, and the ability for objective analysis. Due to the low content of the caring hormones oxytocin and prolactin in the body, parental instincts are less developed in men. For women, emotions, feelings, communication, and the desire to establish as many friendly connections as possible come first. IN female body there is incomparably more oxytocin and prolactin, which is why the maternal instinct in them often prevails over common sense and logic. A lot of facts have been recorded when mothers did truly crazy things to save their children. And they saved us! There is a known case when a woman was able to stop a speeding full speed ahead truck to save his child who had run out onto the road. A man would hardly commit such an act, because he would immediately understand: it is impossible and there is no point in even trying. The woman didn't think about anything. She saw the danger and rushed to the rescue.

What does this ultimately give us? Male rule provides opportunity evolutionary development through natural selection. One day I was watching documentary about animal life in the Serengeti. One of the episodes was dedicated to a small drama that took place under the hot African sun. The zebra gave birth to a foal. The newborn was sick: due to an intrauterine infection, the joints of his legs were inflamed, and he could hardly move. The father, who is also the leader of the herd, at first drove away the predators, who immediately ran to the scene in the hope of getting some easy prey, but after a while he realized that the efforts to preserve the life of the foal were incomparably great compared to the role that he was able to play, if she reaches puberty. There was no point in protecting him. It is better to focus your efforts on the birth and raising of other, healthy foals. And the male stepped aside. His mother, driven by instinct, continued to protect him.

Her efforts to save her son seemed to be crowned with success. She managed not only to keep him alive on the first day, but also for the next two months. To her own detriment, because she had to continuously ward off predators from the sick foal and could not eat well. To the detriment of the herd, because everyone else was forced to stay in place for a long time and wait while the lame woman and her mother hobbled to their destination. But the disease progressed, and, in the end, a fatal outcome came. While the mother tried unsuccessfully to raise the child, the herd waited patiently. But soon the zebras ate all the grass in this area and they needed to move on, otherwise the safety of several dozen animals was called into question. And the herd set off. The mother zebra rushed between the herd and her dying baby, but could not decide to leave him until the smell of decomposition convinced her of the futility of her efforts. Only after this did she decide to leave the dead foal and catch up with the herd.

The female sex tends to take care of everyone

A tiny tragedy, of which hundreds happen every day in the wild, clearly shows that the desire of the female sex to preserve her offspring at any cost threatens the survival of the species. All her children, both healthy and crippled, are equally dear to a mother. This is what nature dictates to them, which has endowed them with a high content of appropriate hormones. Moreover, with such behavior, if it prevails, the number of unhealthy representatives of the species will increase, because everyone will survive and, in general, the quality of the genetic material will decrease, which will certainly affect the fitness and survival of the species. Males, due to their characteristics hormonal levels are less caring and treat their offspring without sacred awe. But in this disregard lies the salvation of the species.

How then did species that prefer a matriarchal way of life manage to survive? Let's return again to the African valleys. Drought. A herd of elephants went to drink at the same source for several months. The water in it became less and less, and the day came when, having come to a watering hole, the elephants found nothing there except dried mud. The female matriarch led the herd to another source, but even here failure awaited the elephants. And then the eldest elephant led the family twenty kilometers, to where, according to all calculations, the water should have been. It was a very long and tiring journey. The little elephants would sometimes fall over from fatigue, and the mother elephants would stop and wait until they could move on. Finally, they covered this considerable distance.

However, when they approached the source, the elephants saw that there was little water in it and there might not be enough for everyone. The elephants began to push the little elephants away from the water in order to get a drink themselves. It would seem strange cruelty for such highly organized animals as elephants. But she is also justified common goal: If the elephants allowed the cubs to drink all the water, they would save the babies, but they themselves would die of thirst. If there were no mothers, there would be no elephants, who would have no one to protect and feed, the group would have died completely. But the female elephants applied the male line of behavior: they pushed aside those who had the least chance of survival in order to ensure the life of the reproductive part of the herd. These baby elephants will die, but the female elephants will be able to give birth to others. Thus, only those matriarchal animals that at least to some extent adopt the features of patriarchy manage to survive. To reassure the reader, I will say that in that particular source there was still enough water for everyone and the baby elephants remained alive.

The tendency of matriarchy towards a patriarchal type of behavior allows populations with this type of hierarchy to survive safely. This idea is indirectly confirmed by the following fact: in female hyenas the amount of testosterone in the body is extremely high, which leads to high aggressiveness of females. Moreover, this even affects the structure of the reproductive organs of females: their vulva in structure resembles a scrotum with testicles, and there is even a pseudopenis capable of erection - a greatly enlarged clitoris!

Female hyenas are unusually aggressive. Reason: very high testosterone content

Men tend to care about the whole - about the family, about the team, about the state. For women – about each member of society individually. However, it should be recognized: increased personalized care has never brought benefit to the people or the country as a whole. This is probably why history knows such a small number of female rulers. The United States has not had a single female president. In Rus', out of several dozen rulers, only six women are known. As they say, they were outwardly masculine, from which it can be assumed that their blood had a high level of testosterone, which allowed them to seize power and rule the country.

All dictators were men. At the same time, they were bad husbands and fathers. You don’t have to look far for an example: our Joseph Stalin. This man, famous for his bad temper and disgusting attitude towards his wife, subjugated a huge state and kept all his closest subordinates in fear, without exception. Stalin raised the country from ruins, and did it twice - after civil war and after the Great Patriotic War. But he was a bad family man.

He insulted and humiliated his wife, and, according to some sources, did not hesitate to use his fist. In the end, driven to despair, Nadezhda Alliluyeva shot herself.

Joseph Stalin - a bad family man and an excellent dictator

If there have been effeminate rulers (with low testosterone levels) in the history of mankind, then, with rare exceptions, they all came to a bad end. Louis XVI and Nicholas II, Charles I and Mikhail Gorbachev - they were all wonderful husbands, but bad rulers. Typically, their rule brought the countries under their control to the brink of political and economic abyss.

Louis XVI of Bourbon. A wonderful family man and a useless monarch. Ended his life on the chopping block

It has been noticed that during periods of political or economic calm, even in patriarchal communities, matriarchy is tightened and a tendency towards its predominance is indicated. Men seem to retreat into a closed, purely male sphere of activity. That's right - there is no war, living conditions are quite bearable, you can take personal care of each member of society, which will ensure the development of individuals, talents, and extraordinary personalities. But if wars happen, natural disasters or some other global misfortune, matriarchy immediately gives way to patriarchy - this is not the time to worry about everyone individually, when danger threatens the entire nation, country, planet.

There is not a single state on Earth in which matriarchy or patriarchy would dominate. pure form. In both cases, such civilizations face inevitable destruction, in the first case - due to the lack of social consciousness and collectivism, in the second - due to weak individual development each of its members.

The beauty of the history of societies lies in the continuous struggle between patriarchy and matriarchy, which has been going on for several millennia with varying success. They, competing with each other, simultaneously pull each other up to the required level, thanks to which humanity successfully develops.

The rivalry between matriarchy and patriarchy - necessary condition For proper development society

Thus, we see that the presence of two sexes, the balance between their influence, ensures harmonious development society, survival and development of species.

Why is hermaphroditism characteristic only of primitive animals? Because they do not have such developed instincts of parenthood, feelings, emotions. They don’t care whether their fry died or survived. They do not protect each individual descendant - if he managed to hide, that means he had time. If you didn't have time, that's your problem. Hermaphrodites take over this world with the number of their descendants and survive due to this.

When it comes to animals, people still have a lot to learn from them. We forget that some animals are also capable of creating the same forms of behavior that we have, we simply do not notice them because they manifest themselves differently in animals.

We often forget that animals are capable of experiencing the same emotions as us, creating friendships and family bonds similar to ours. The result of this willful “forgetfulness” is reflected in the way we treat animals. We separate them from family and friends, keep them in captivity for our own amusement, or even keep them in unbearable conditions in poultry farms until the day they become one of our dishes.

An important step towards ending this vicious cycle is to treat them with compassion. Animals are actually not so different from us as in their tails, fur or weight. So let's take a moment to look at the animals that form family bonds similar to ours.

Here are six amazing views animals with unusually strong family ties:

1. Elephants

Elephant family on the march

While male elephants live relatively solitary lives, female elephants live in herds with highly developed family ties. Matriarchy reigns in the elephant herd, where there can be several family generations, from 6 to 12 members, ranging from grandchildren to sisters and their offspring. It has long been known that elephants rush to the aid of their babies who find themselves in the strong waters of a river, or stuck in the mud, or strayed from the herd because they are mourning the death of a member of the herd.

Back in 2012, two herds of South African elephants made their way to the home of Lawrence Anthony, a conservationist wildlife who saved their lives. They stayed near his home for two days, apparently mourning his death, Beliefnet.com reported. They spent a total of 12 hours getting to his house.

2. Wolves

Wolf pack on vacation

They may even have stronger alpha male/alpha female bonds than we do. Wildlife advocates say some may even sacrifice their own lives to protect the rest of the pack. It was once believed that wolf packs consist of unrelated pack members who often vie with each other for dominance, until David Meck explored wild wolves and did not debunk this idea. He discovered that the pack consists of an alpha pair and their wolf cubs, in addition, the pack contains some adult offspring from previous litters.

3. Orcas

A baby and an adult killer whale frolic

Sara Heimlich provided the first evidence in the 1980s that killer whale societies are matrilineal (maternal lineage). According to the National Marine Fisheries Service's Southern Resident Killer Whale (orca) Conservation Plan report, members of these groups have extremely strong bonds and are rarely physically separated from each other for more than a few hours. Even the offspring live with their parents throughout their lives.

4. Dolphins

Dolphins on a walk

Dolphins have strong social bonds and they are those animals that show caring behavior not only towards their own species but also towards other species, and they also save people from shark attacks from drowning, and also help seals and whales. The first time dolphins were recorded trying to save another dying dolphin was in 2013, when five dolphins formed a kind of carpet with their bodies to keep the injured dolphin afloat and not drown, later ten other dolphins swam up and took turns changing. this was reported on the BBC.

5. Lions

Caring female and curious lion cub

Lions are the most social animals of all species. wild cats, they live in prides. Males lead a tougher life until they get older, and media reports have also reported that even old females with missing teeth wait for the entire pride to share food with them. Experts say nose touching is common among lions, with female lionesses licking each other and males rubbing each other's heads to strengthen social bonds. During attacks (hunting), they try to get their prey by acting together.

6. Chimpanzee

Interested look of the chimpanzee family