In my conversion to Catholicism in the Episcopal Church, I was confirmed into a similar structure, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, under whom are the presiding bishops of the various member churches of the Anglican Communion, under which are the regional bishops, followed by the priests, etc. It also gave license to those in power to behave in a manner like God's own behavior as seen in scripture. Therefore since Yaweh can be, as scripture shows, bloodthirsty, wrathful, and punitive, his viceroys on Earth were obligated to emulate these traits. This has not always been so. Pre-patriarchal society was evolved into a very different sort of structure.
Archeological data seems to indicate that it was for the most part egalitarian.
Again, society was mirrored in the conception of divinity. Here the supreme power governing the universe is a divine Mother who gives her people life, provides them with material and spiritual nurturance, and who even in death can be counted on to take her children back into her cosmic womb. In the pre-patriarchal world, all things were recognized as being connected, parts of a greater whole, which was symbolized in their cosmology as the great and nurturing Goddess. We no longer live in Neolithic times, nor do we remember them well. We do, however know the conquering patriarchy only too well.