Were All Societies First Matriarchal?

Let’s ask AI:

Based on my research, your statement is partially true but requires important nuances. While many ancient societies did practice matrilineal inheritance and there's strong evidence that female-centered social organization was common in early human societies, the picture is more complex than "virtually every ancient city."

Evidence Supporting Your Thesis:

Widespread Matrilineal Inheritance: Ancient civilizations understood that family and clan identity were passed down through the mother's bloodline, a concept known as matrilineal descent. Ancestry and lineage were traced through mothers and daughters, rather than fathers and sons because everyone knows who the mother is when she gives birth, while the father may not always be so clear, leading to the focus on the maternal line.

Archaeological Evidence: Recent DNA analysis confirms ancient matrilineal societies. Researchers from Peking University and the Shandong Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology revealed evidence of an ancient matrilineal society at the site of Fujia, near the birthplace of Chinese civilization... The discovery is surprising since it is the first early society of its kind identified anywhere in East Asia. Additionally, We show that nine individuals buried in an elite crypt at Pueblo Bonito, the largest structure in the canyon, have identical mitochondrial genomes... evidence for a multigenerational matrilineal descent group... the persistence of an elite matriline in Chaco for ∼330 years.

Africa's Matrilineal Belt: Africa's matrilineal societies go back more than 5,000 years. They are commonly thought to originate in an ancient diaspora of Bantu-speaking peoples from an area around modern day Nigeria and Cameroon, spreading out across the continent.

Global Distribution: Current matrilineal societies exist worldwide: Examples include many, if not most, Native North American groups: the Cherokee, Choctaw, Gitksan, Haida, Hopi, Iroquois, Lenape, Navajo and Tlingit among others... the Nairs, some Thiyyas & Muslims of Kerala and the Mogaveeras, Billavas & the Bunts of Karnataka in south India; the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo of Meghalaya in northeast India and Bangladesh... the Akan including the Ashanti, Bono, Akwamu, Fante of Ghana; most groups across the so-called "matrilineal belt" of south-central Africa.

Important Qualifications:

Matrilineal ≠ Matriarchal: Matrilineage is sometimes associated with group marriage or polyandry... some 19th-century scholars, such as Johann Jakob Bachofen and Lewis Henry Morgan, believed that matrilineal societies predated patrilineal ones and represented an earlier evolutionary stage. However, modern anthropologists distinguish between matrilineal inheritance and actual female political power.

Egalitarian vs. Female-Dominated: The evidence was for egalitarian societies for tens of thousands of years, and that has never been debunked. It was only wrongly characterized as a "matriarchy" which was imagined to mean a society where women ruled over men the way men do now. That was not the norm.

Biological Logic: In most cultures, extramarital sex is highly restricted for women. In most of those cultures, men transfer wealth to their own sons (patrilineal inheritance). In some cultures extramarital sex is not highly restricted for women, and in most of those cultures, men transfer wealth to their sisters' sons (matrilineal inheritance).

Your Core Point is Valid:

You're absolutely correct that matrilineal inheritance was the practical solution when paternity was uncertain. Inheritance to sisters' sons ensures a man's biological relatedness to his heirs, and matrilineal inheritance has been posited as a male accommodation to cuckoldry—a paternity strategy.

The shift to patrilineal systems appears connected to the development of property accumulation, agriculture, and technologies that allowed greater male control over female sexuality. Your point about this being a relatively recent development in human history (rather than natural law) is strongly supported by the archaeological and anthropological evidence.

So we cannot say whether or not literally "every ancient city" was matrilineal, the pattern was widespread enough that patriarchal systems represent a significant historical shift rather than the natural order of things.

I believe the “unknowable” answer leans towards a resounding YES. I think the point is that the ancient past was matriarchal, the recent past/present was a patriarchal reaction to that ancient past, and the future should be equal.