What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.
I grew up in the projects with four older brothers. And there were tough, macho gangsters, drug dealers, killers, and thugs all in my neighborhood. And they were afraid of my mother. So, yeah, I know some strong women.
A mother can legitimately be said to 'have a baby' - but in a civilization such as ours, she can never claim to own a teenager.
The kind of power mothers have is enormous. Take the skyline of Istanbul - enormous breasts, pathetic little willies, a final revenge on Islam. I was so scared I had to crouch in the bottom of the boat when I saw it.
However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradlerules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.
...but with his mother there's no question of liking him they're not even in a way separate people he began in her stomach and if she gave him life she can take it away and if he feels that withdrawal it will be the grave itself.
Nobody controls me but my mama and God.
In my world, a woman was the most powerful thing that I knew. Still is. A woman made the money in my house; a woman made my food. A woman beat my ass when I wasn't a good kid. Women were behind a lot of what spurred South Africa toward democracy.
I think it a much wiser thing to secure for the thousands of mothers in this State the legal control of the children they now have, than to bring others into the world who would not belong to me after they were born.
The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman's rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father, a task usually assumed by the mother.
We can learn a great deal from whales. It is the same lesson we can learn from our close genetic relatives, the bonobo apes of the Congo. Here mothers have a great deal of authority, there is very little violence (with no signs of sexual violence against females), and their society is held together by sharing and caring rather than by fear and force.
I brought you in this world, and I can take you out!
You don't want to disappoint your mama, for that main fact that she's going to get on your behind.
The mother is the child's supreme parent.
No influence is so powerful as that of the mother.
The kind of power mothers have is enormous.
Thus it was that in obedience to the law laid down by his mother, and in obedience to the law of that unknown and nameless thing, fear, he kept away from the mouth of the cave.
She is more Mother than Queen.
Daughter am I in my mother's house, but mistress in my own.
I'm one of 10 children, and all my brothers call me Jim. And all my sisters... well, they call me something even more affectionate. My mother calls me James, and I do what my mother tells me.
In all the universe, your mother is the only thing that truly scares me, especially where you’re concerned. I don’t ever want to be on her dark side. (Adron) Ha ha. And need I remind you my mother wasn’t the one screaming at the pool when you got shoved in. (Devyn) Yeah, all right, so we both have screwed-up, irrational mothers. (Adron)
The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a mother must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment's anxiety, and was never a child.
