It's more that a definition does not give us the full meaning. You can define oxygen and still not understand its importance in your life. You can define patriarchy and still not get it. Before I offer something like a definition, then, I want to tell a story. Several years ago I was working on a qualitative study of intimacy.
Qualitative research is risky.
You deal with words and nuances and a large amount of written material rather than neat numbers that can be summarized by even neater numbers. The trick is finding some way to summarize the information you've collected while remaining faithful to the interview material. One day I was looking at the way the people I had interviewed talked about conflict with intimate others. Both were talking about how they handled conflicts with their parents. Both were explaining that they generally avoided open expressions of anger and disagreement.