Talk:Matrilineality

message: I didn't notice you put them at the bottom. Jayjg 21:27, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry about the links 

message: I've been looking in the works mentioned, and they seem to be numbered differently that the citations given.  Can anyone shed any light on this? Jayjg 04:00, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Which online site did you use? Jayjg 22:38, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Josephus and Philo references 

message: This section begins "Orthodox Judaism states that, to be a Jew, one must be either a proselyte or the child of a Jewish mother. This ruling is based on the fact that intercourse between Jews and non-Jews is forbidden, and any offspring resulting from such an act is considered to have no paternity."
This is a logical contradiction. It explains why a child of a Jew and a non-Jew would not be regarded as Jewish, but it does nothing at all to explain why a Jewish woman's child is Jewish and a Jewish man's is not. If "intercourse between Jews and non-Jews is forbidden" then any child of such a union is not Jewish. The common sense issue is to doubt the chastity of women (Jewish or not) rather than the lawfulness of miscegenation.
I'm not entering into debate here as to who is legitimately a Jew here, but this is an encylopedia for all to understand, and that opening paragraph fails. -- Cecropia 22:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm rolling back your change because it doesn't resolve the contradiction and only confuses the reader. No one wants to deal with the plain fact that matrilineality is (as stated in the article) not biblical and was added later under doubtful justification to avoid saying the obvious: men don't trust women. There was a book in (IIRC) the 19th century called "What Every Woman Knows." The question begged by the title is: "Who is the real father of her children?" -- Cecropia 01:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jewish Matrilineality 

message: I believe that this topic is unique enough to maintain as a separate article. Linking to the other related articles is sufficient.
--68.221.51.114 19:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote against merger! 

message: I would like to see discussion of matrilineality in animal societies such as orcas and elephants. Kent Wang 15:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you'd like to see that, know something about it, and (preferably) have references about it, then go ahead and add it yourself. Petronivs 14:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animal societies 

message: Can anybody prove this? Parrish Smith (talk) 19:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "knights of Queen Guinevere" 

message: Most of the Jewish material should be split off into a separate article.  If every important appearance of matrilineality were dealt with at this length, the article would be enormous.69.183.174.173 (talk) 22:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Split

message: Place it in Family name? or in Surname? or in Matrilineality?  
This new section is dependent upon a DNA presentation.  DNA is already presented in Matrilineality, but would need to be added in Family name or in Surname.  So I placed the new section in the Matrilineality article.
Also, I think adding Matrilineal surnames within Family name would muddy the latter's clear-flowing waters.  Keeping Family name a purely patrilineal article would be less confusing for readers.  For7thGen (talk) 20:47, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Where to place a new section, Matrilineal surnames

message: In this article's Genetic genealogy section, someone suggested stout Queen Victoria as an example of the above title, and I tried to find a source reference for this paragraph, to help wikify this article.  However, her mother and her mother's mother both appear to be of normal build in their portraits findable via the article Queen Victoria.  Someone, you should have checked this much at least, and then you should have chosen a better example or else an example that could not be so easily checked, or no example.  I would like to have a source reference, and/or to have the outcome of the "attempts" to trace... --just to satisfy my curiosity. For7thGen (talk) 01:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "Trace fatness and slimness along matrilines"

message: Hi Damuna, your tag says to improve (this section of) the article, which I already have done, and also to discuss Western bias, which follows:
First of all, thank you for your work on behalf of everyone at WP.  My words in the article, which you wrote showed a bias in favor of Western cultures, were:
"Our culture's lack of mothers-line surnames to hand down makes our traditional genealogy more difficult in the mothers-line case than in the normal (fathers-line) case."
I thought my words above implied "Our (patrilineal) culture", which is very global (not just Western) as one sees in the Family name article.  I have made the changes you indicated, to:
"The lack of mothers-line surnames to hand down, see the whole Family name article, makes traditional genealogy more difficult in the mothers-line case than in the normal (fathers-line) case."  
I hope you will agree with me that these changes do improve the article, so thanks again.  For7thGen (talk) 23:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Matrilineal surnames

message: Someone should rewrite the introduction, as it is not of very good quality. I clarified a bit about mitochondrial inheritance but it still seems rather unwieldy. Perhaps a skilled and thoughtful rewrite of the intro could be a good start towards improving the overall quality of the article. Tomyhoi (talk) 18:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Tomyhoi, I can agree with your adding more about mitochondrial inheritance, and I thank you for helping the readers. See topic "Genome" below. I'm not sure what you mean by the word "unwieldy", and unsure whether you are applying it to all or to which part(s) of the introduction.  I would be glad if I or we can improve what I have already contributed to the introduction, to help the readers of course. For7thGen (talk) 20:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: Tomyhoi, I hope you'll agree that your clarification above is just as clear without use of the word genomic (to most readers).  And I'm glad we are working together on this article. For7thGen (talk) 20:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genome 

message: See my own Talk page User talk:For7thGen#Should I delete, in Matrilineality article?, for discussion of this Revert, today.  (I'd put the somewhat-long text here too, except that I've got too many entries just above this one...) For7thGen (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting User:118.81.67.154 's contibution of 16Sep09 

message: As part of my work to provide source references to bring this article up to standard, I am deleting a sentence from the introduction, 
"Even ancient physicians had an inkling about such matrilineal heredity: Galen taught that a child's physical frame would (mostly) be provided by maternal heredity."  Its original version was "Already ancient physicians had a whiff about such matrilineal heredity: Galen taught that a child's physical frame will (mostly) be provided by maternal heredity."
I'm also deleting 2 paragraphs from the section "Genetic genealogy", whose original versions were:  
"Attempts have been made to trace fatness and slimness along matrilines in genealogies of persons whose physical details are well-archived, such as the royally stout queen Victoria I of the United Kingdom."
"There has been a hypothesis that better and worse suitability to give birth would be a (maternally) hereditary physical characteristic. If so, unsuitable matrilines are highly prone to extinction, whereas suitable matrilines would prosper."
All of these were done by a user, Agye, who gave no sources, and who has no User page or talk page and whose contributions ranged from 18Jun06 to only 17Mar07, the date of these quoted contributions.
Anyway, I've worked hard (for many hours each) to find any sources for these three quotes, and I'm a competent researcher by trade.  I'm sure that the WP article "Galen" and its many sources would lead one to the desired statement IF Galen did make it -- which I myself do not think is a good bet.  I think Galen would have observed the same thing that most people observe nowadays, that a child's frame is dependent on both parents, but much more complicated than being a simple average of the two.
 
In the 2nd quote, I like Agye's wording "the royally stout queen", which has been improved upon and thus lost -- and I've complained in a recent entry (above) about this paragraph's lack of any source and its poor choice of a well-archived example, since Victoria's daughter and grand-daughter were not stout, at least in photos available on the web.
The 3rd quote needs a source for "a hypothesis".  And simply dropping any mention of a hypothesis leaves a paragraph that does not fit in this section nor article nor anyplace else in WP, in my opinion. I actually like the paragraph, as already rewritten by me.  However, without a source for "a hypothesis" I have to drop the paragraph.
And without these 2 paragraphs, their preceding paragraph about mtDNA being inherited from the mother became a useless duplication where it was, thus hurting rather than helping the reader -- so I dropped it as well.     For7thGen (talk) 23:51, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contributions by Agye on 17Mar07 

message: To anonymous User 70.129.184.254, you have helped the readers of this article, by tagging it on 13Dec09 with the tag which is the title of this section.  Your Edit summary is necessarily brief and general, and stated that "Paragraphs repeat themselves; some go off on tangents only to return to the original topic in the next paragraph.  Also, many areas aren't laid out well at all."
Accordingly, I have removed the following paragraph (in square brackets) from the article's introduction:
[Mitochondria are cellular organelles involved in metabolism and energy production, and contain DNA (mtDNA) that is normally inherited exclusively from the mother. Thus, human offspring contain both chromosomal DNA, contained within the nucleus and inherited from both parents, and mitochondrial DNA, which is found outside the nucleus and inherited only from the mother. As mitochondria are considered "cellular power plants," one's metabolism and energy conversion are much influenced by these matrilineal genetic materials, and thereby by one's matrilineal descent.]
I carefully inspected the whole article for the faults that you mention in your Edit summary above, and found only this one paragraph that could even remotely be the cause of your Edit summary.  In any case, this one paragraph simply does not fit in this article -- the information it gives is simply not needed in this article or is easily available via WP's internal links or is repeated in this article when needed.  So I hope you feel, as I do, that cleaning up the introduction by removing this paragraph does help the readers.  My apologies to User Tomyhoi, see a Sep09 section above.
User 70.etc., if you wanted to help the readers further, you'd need to add more-specific information on the Talk page to clarify and identify what you are talking about.  For example, what do you mean by your point about "many areas aren't laid out well at all"?  You would need to explicitly identify at least one such area in the article, such as the middle third of section Such-and-such, so that I or any other User can try to understand what you are getting at.  Even then, we other Users might not be able to get your meaning, so it would be far better to also show your improved layout, or your own rewriting of each such point –– then other Users definitely would understand each point.  I know this could seem like a lot of work, but the benefit to each reader IS multiplied by many readers, which does pay for much work by all of us Users. 
I'm very glad that Users like yourself (and myself) exist who want to help the readers.  For7thGen (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean up, to WP quality standards 

message: The topic is my substitution earlier today of matriname for matrilineal surname (and of patriname for patrilineal surname).  I think the WP readers will like the increased clarity and brevity and will not need source references for this change, but I believe that many WP editors do need my sources, and rightfully so.  So here they are.
*In his 2001 book The Seven Daughters of Eve (currently the first Ref in this Matrilineality article) Bryan Sykes suggested adding matriname to the existing "surname" as he called it, or patriname in this article. 
This word matriname is also used in place of matrilineal surname in the scientific literature such as in the journal article:
*Silverman, Eric Klein (1997), "Politics, Gender, and Time in Melanesia and Aboriginal Australia". Ethnology, Vol 36 no. 2, Spring 1997, pp.101-121.  Possibly accessible and searchable at the stable URL www.jstor.org/stable/3774078 .
Similarly, patriname is sometimes used in place of patrilineal surname in scientific literature such as the book:
*Isbell, Billie Jean (1978, 1985). To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village.  Waveland Press.  ISBN 0-8133-173-2, Ch. 3, p. 79.  Its Ch. 3 is "The Social Classes of Chuschi", and the whole book is available online at the URL  http://hdl.handle.net/1813/2135 . Note well, as of 9Oct2011, this URL has been changed, see my Isbell entry below, in this section.
and in the journal article:
*Jean-Klein, Iris (2001), "Nationalism and Resistance: The Two Faces of Everyday Activism in Palestine during the Intifada". Cultural Anthropology, Vol 16 no. 1, Feb 2001,pp. 83-126. Possibly accessible and searchable at the stable URL www.jstor.org/stable/656603 .              For7thGen (talk) 06:04, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As an obviously needed backup, this Ch. 3 is also now archived (today) via WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/62JsHxE0V ; if you do need to use it, you'll need to click on "plain HTML", but you'll then find patriname highlighted so it is easy to find, on the same book page 79.   Is this source worth the work it has cost me?  For7thGen (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Matriname 

message: It is difficult to believe the terms "enate" and "enatic" are completely avoided in this article. There also are no redirects or links for these terms. Is there a good reason for this? (I notice the article on Patrilineality is not afraid to use "agnate" or "agnatic", and in fact, devotes much specific text to them.) Some copyeditor should work these words into the lead and the body of the text so this subject doesn't sound dumbed-down, and add Redirects. (I am not an expert on this subject nor a native speaker or I would do it myself.) Regards, Charvex (talk) 09:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If you feel strongly about it, you probably should do it yourself.  Just do the best job you can, and if someone thinks it can be better worded, they'll clean it up.  In the meantime, the information is here for people who are reading. Petronivs (talk) 19:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enate, enatic 

message: This entry is mostly to save myself work in the future.  Namely, I checked history and found that Hijjins had added more than half of the section on 29Feb08, and had to do it again on 29Mar08.  He contributed from 22Feb08 to 4Jun08, mostly about India.
He or she apparently was a Nair, per their contributions to the Nair talk page, those that I looked at – and her contributions seemed good in the India section.  But the section is better without the two sentences, with the section's last sentence rewritten to replace the removed sentences, without needing any verification.  Hijjins had the tag (about removal of text if not verified by citations) right in front of him, and certainly should have verified these two sentences, so verifying them was/is probably impossible.  I have now finished verifying the India section.  For7thGen (talk) 01:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed two sentences from "India" section. 

message: The context for this entry:  I wrote this (22Feb2010, see below) entry just hours after writing the following Edit summary: "Add this new subsection (Consequences). See the Talk page, about satisfying the WP policy Verifiability."  For7thGen (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Satisfying the WP policy ''Verifiability'' 

message: I communicated with User:Saforrest about his/her use of the term "uterine ancestry" in the introduction of Matrilineality, as recorded on my own talkpage under the title "A problem with the term 'uterine ancestry'".  My final entry was dated 2Feb2010, and the final result, quoted here for possible reference in the future, was:
"Hi Saforrest: It was (and is) a pleasure to receive and read your reply. From your reply I've learned more about uterine and agnatic pedigrees, and from your two sources. I've changed Matrilineality to reflect what I learned. Please feel free to redo it, you certainly have my blessing. I do feel that it is now better than it was, for the WP reader. You can see that I gave "uterine ancestry" its own short paragraph, relocated toward the bottom of the Intro." For7thGen (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Uterine ancestry" 

message: First, here is the current version (in quotes) of the last paragraph of the introduction, for easy comparison after I finish:
"In some cultures, membership in their groups is inherited matrilineally; examples of this cultural practice include many ancient cultures and continues in the contemporary cultures of those ancient origins such as Huron, Cherokee, Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), Hopi, Navajo, and Gitksan of North America. In the Old World cultures it is found in Ancient Egypt, the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, (Indonesia); some Ezhavas, Nairs including Royal clans, and Kurichiyas of Kerala, India; Bunts, Billavas and Mogaveeras of Karnataka, Pillai caste in Nagercoil District of Tamil Nadu; the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo of Meghalaya, India; the Nakhi of China, the Basque people, the Akan, and the Tuaregs."
(I have already done a lot of work checking and improving upon source references concerning these cultures, and maybe I'm half done.)   For7thGen (talk) 03:52, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving last paragraph of the Intro 

message: I unfortunately cannot spend the time needed to become knowledgeable enough to even understand this Judaism section.  I did finally discover that it is mostly excerpts from its "main article" Matrilineality in Judaism, and I have helped the reader by adding notes to that effect at the beginning and end of this section.  Otherwise I have not touched this section including its source references.
The source references for this excerpted section are really in that "main article" – and without understanding this topic I can't judge the adequacy of that article's source references.  I did notice that the "main article" has only one tag for "citation needed," and that tag is for content about England rather than about Judaism.  Therefore I hope that the article and especially this section (without the content about England) have adequate source references.   For7thGen (talk) 19:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source references for the section, Judaism. 

message: (I am not well-informed about the Akan peoples, but am a competent researcher if I could afford to spend the time required.)  In my work providing source references for the Akan section of Matrilineality, I was hoping for some help from the article Akan people.  Instead, I was surprised that there was an apparently-total disconnect between the two, with the Akan article containing very little information about Akan matrilineality.  After much work, I finally stumbled across the online source of more than half of the Akan matrilineality information in the aforementioned Akan section (I've added quotation marks as appropriate), and I'm dropping the unsourced remainder of this section.  I'm also adding content from an Encyclopaedia Britannica article of an appropriate vintage (1970) – written not too long after the main books were written on this subject.  And I'm replacing the above-mentioned matrilineality part of the Akan article, as well, with my newly rewritten Akan section.  I hope that both the section and the article are significantly improved; the source references definitely are improved, since there were none for the section and none for this part of the article, before I added mine.  (This paragraph is being added to the Talk page of both articles linked to above.)   For7thGen (talk) 01:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Providing Akan source references 

message: Is the Akan culture as described in the above two reference sources still alive for people in the cities (or the rural villages, either) of south Ghana, etc.?  Since neither source actually states anything on this important point, I cannot provide a source reference for this point, and thus cannot bring it up in WP articles, according to WP guidelines.  (This paragraph is being added to the Talk page of both WP articles Matrilineality and Akan people.)   For7thGen (talk) 01:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Akan culture still alive?

message: I'm removing the "Refimprove" tag of May 2007 so it will no longer disturb readers such as me. I've now finished the mammoth task of providing source references for all the material in this article or removing the material for which I failed to find adequate source references. (Except possibly the section on Judaism, thoroughly discussed in the above Talk-page entry "Source references for the section, Judaism".) This includes improving the source references of (portions of) WP articles which are linked to by this whole (Matrilineality) article. A lot of work. Several of the Talk-page entries above are related to this work.
And I'm still working on the second link in the China section (an external link to a JSTOR journal article) which currently yields the message from JSTOR people, "Document Not Found. We have recently redesigned the site and some of our information has moved." I can't get help from the user who put the link up because he or they were anonymous with no talk page!  If I can't get the link up (by getting myself to a university with a subscription to JSTOR) within two (2) months, say, then I'll probably decide to just delete that whole paragraph – WP readers would have to live without that paragraph.   For7thGen (talk) 00:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe a refimprove tag is still necessary. Most of the references are not correctly formatted. The following link provides a how-to guide for creating citations on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Citing_sources#How_to_format_inline_citations.SweetNightmares (talk) 12:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your help – I think you and I both are willing to work to help WP readers, and I have now redone the source reference citations.  Thanks again, from WP readers as well. ----------------Perhaps you can help further with the section Judaism – see above, including my 20May2010 entry.  I would not be able to rewrite this section and its source refs even if I spent full-time for the next 20 years learning about it, so I think the problem should be given to the WikiProject Judaism. (But I don't know how to do that.) Can you suggest anything? For7thGen (talk) 23:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing the "Refimprove" tag. 

message: I failed to find source references for the topic, matrilineal succession to the throne in Ancient Egypt, and so had to remove all mention of ancient Egypt from the Matrilineality article. (I'm now placing this identical section on the Talk pages of these two articles plus a third, the Pharaoh article below.)
Then I learned the above topic was in the article Pharaoh, a whole paragraph in the latter's section Pharaoh#Titles. When the link in the last sentence of this Titles paragraph is followed, which verifies said sentence, then in my opinion the whole paragraph becomes self-documented by its own integrity and factual details.  But WP needs actual sources for important content, instead, which are unfortunately not there. 
I'll be able to add this content (matrilineal succession to the throne in ancient Egypt) in both articles, Ancient Egypt and Matrilineality, if someone can find and insert such source references into the article Pharaoh (and notify me on my talk page).
Someone, please find and insert them. 
We're all working together to help WP readers,    For7thGen (talk) 00:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source references about ancient Egypt. 

message: First off, Wikipedia is not a place to provide one-line amateur reviews of self-published works, or to advertise such works. This citation violates WP:SPS.
Secondly, reference number five is not accessible through the directions provided. If a work is not accessible to the general public through use of the internet or a library, it violates WP:PAYWALL.
Therefore I have removed the information that was linked to this source: Matriname: Two Trunks in the Family Tree by Elisabeth McCumber. The information it contributed was not very valuable, anyhow. SweetNightmares (talk) 12:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm very glad that WP policy and guidelines now have been improved to Not allow the use of self-published works, which rendered Elizabeth McCumber's essay impossible to use any longer.  I would have been glad to remove my use thereof – so thank you for doing it. I'm sure you and I both want what is best for WP readers, which is the beauty of WP.  For7thGen (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information removed per [[WP:SPS]] and [[WP:PAYWALL]] 

message: Until my "rewrite" of 30Mar11 the Matrilineal surname section was worded for two different surnames in the same family, i.e., the matriname for daughters and the patriname for sons, which is gender-symmetric to satisfy gender equality.  But now my further use of Family name has revealed that within all of its cultures (all that I checked), the children in a nuclear family all share the same family name.  Therefore single surnames are not a viable option as I had thought – birth surnames must be double surnames.  (Double surnames which combine the mother's matriname and the father's patriname, and shared by all of the children, do satisfy CEDAW or gender equality.)  Rewritten accordingly. For7thGen (talk) 02:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double surname shared by all of the children 

message: /* Consequences */ Remove this whole subsection, the only part of the Matrilineal Surname section which might conceivably be called advocacy.  I do appreciate the anonymous user who just removed the whole section and another section for advocacy of matrinames, for his or her at least raising the topic of advocacy.  I don't see how the readers can be helped by a Consequences subsection, without a few such people criticizing it as advocacy – so I'm just removing the subsection.  For7thGen (talk) 09:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete Consequences subsection. 

message: An anonymous user just added a paragraph about the Minangkabau culture in the Matrilineal surname section, but Minangkabau people have clan names rather than surnames so I moved the paragraph into the "Various cultural patterns" section. I also added 2 new source references, which I will add to the main Minangkabau article along with appropriate text ASAP – within weeks or months.  And then I'll modify or add to the above-mentioned paragraph too.  But the paragraph at least is now clear that the Minangkabau people are organized into clans – rather than into Western-style families with surnames or family names as the above user apparently assumed. So the user thus added a subsection on the largest matrilineal society  – it is really important to our global encyclopedia to cover it! Thankfully, For7thGen (talk) 02:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minangkabau 

message: I have tried hard to keep at least some of 41.222.232.245's two recent additions to the Akan section on 12Aug2011, but cannot in good conscience keep any. I will however change the section's wording to reflect the fact (for which I've now found a source reference, Marlene de Witte's 2001 book) that the Akan matrilineal clans are still alive and well – hopefully within the next month or two.
* The above-mentioned anonymous user's larger addition concerned Ghana's 1985 Intestate Succession Law PNDC Law 111.  I think this law (and its 1991 Amendment) should have its own WP article, or at least its own section of the Ghana article.  This reform law (and its aftermath) could be a very complicated subject.  In the 2001 book above, which I searched via Google Books, this 1985 law is discussed on pp. 173-178 plus 3 related source references given on pp. 206-08.  And simply googling turns up lots more information on this law.  I expect I'll never find time to write such a section or article, but if someone else does find time, I'll hope to then write a paragraph in Matrilineality's Akan section appropriately making use of their section or article.
*The user's smaller addition concerned marriage being forbidden between members of the same 'ntoro' group, which is wrong, I'm sorry to say.  See the reputable webpage http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/EthnoAtlas/Hmar/Cult_dir/Culture.7880, which is an Akan Culture summary by Robert O. Lagace.  Respectfully, For7thGen (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intestate Succession Law, Ghana 1985 

message: I'm splitting off Matrilineality's section, Matrilineal surname, by cutting and pasting it into a new article Matriname.  The latter name is simpler and more common (i.e., less scientific) than the orginal section's name, as appropriate for an article name.  
As recommended by WP guidelines, I'm substituting a synopsis of the information needed, under the old section heading, in the article Matrilineality, and linking to the new article as the old section's Main article.  I'm also tending to the categories of both articles, as well as tending to the WikiProjects listed at the top of the Talk page of each article. I tried to do just the Splitting off/Creating an article, clearly labelled in the two Edit summaries – ie, nothing extra during that one step, as recommended.
My reason for splitting it off: Since I wrote the 21Aug09 Talk page entry about which of 3 named articles to place a new section Matrilineal surname in (I placed the latter in Matrilineality), both this new section and the rest of the article have benefited from each other, I think. But the section has grown much bigger than many other sections within the article, even though the latter have grown too. Thus, the section has developed to where it should be an article itself. So I'm being bold and splitting it off.
I'll continue to work in both articles. For example, I still need to do some work on matrilineal clans, in the Matrilineality article.  I'm placing this identical entry in both Talk pages,  For7thGen (talk) 02:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split off new article, ''Matriname'' 

message: An anonymous WP editor added Jews to the list of matrilineal societies in the Intro, and of course this is wrong, they are not a matrilineal society.  Merely using a matrilineal criterion as part of identifying who is Jewish, and who is not, does not transform their whole society into a matrilineal society.  So I've now improved the organization of this Matrilineality article by renaming the last section, now titled "Matrilineal identification within Judaism" –– it had been titled "Matrilineality in specific religious groups" with a subtitle "Judaism".
In fact, the "main article" Matrilineality in Judaism might better be titled "Matrilineal identification within Judaism" as well.  But this is a matter for the WikiProject Judaism people to determine, I am much too ignorant about Judaism to say anything at all about it.  Years ago I did write a request on the WikiProject Judaism page (or a similar page, I don't recall the exact name) to rewrite this last section of the Matrilineality article, which is very badly written, still.  And it will be more years before I myself can afford the time to rewrite it if they don't....
So the inaccurate and misleading organization of the Matrilineality article has now been corrected, thanks to the helpful attempt by the anonymous editor.  Trying to help the WP readers, For7thGen (talk) 15:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Matrilineal identification within Judaism 

message: Why aren't the Seminoles included here?  They are a matrilineal society.  Shadowmane (talk) 04:36, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Greetings, Shadowmane.  The reason the Seminoles are not yet included in this article is because no-one has done the work of adding them.  I just checked the Seminole Tribe of Florida article and it does not mention matrilineality.  So you would need to find some reliable sources (i.e., source references) and then write the addition to both articles, ideally.  The many readers of Wikipedia, including me, would very much welcome this work being done!  (Merely adding the name in the introductory section of this Matrilineality article would not suffice, without the writing and the sources in one or the other of the two articles, and/or ideally both.)  I'm intentionally ignoring the other two Seminole societies or tribes in the US, for lack of time to check on them.  Thanks, on behalf of all our readers.     For7thGen (talk) 06:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I've not actually done any of the research myself, but I know as a 1/8th Seminole myself that they recognize people through matrileneal bloodlines.  Officially, I would not be recognized by the tribe, as my Great-Grandfather was a full blooded Seminole.  However, I do have an Aunt who has been "re-adopted" by the tribe, and was at one time a tribal shaman.  Shadowmane (talk) 16:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a start, because with your experience you might find locating an anthropological study (for instance) easier. Your statement itself would not qualify, but a published secondary source probably would. I gather something like it is true for many tribes and I'd be happy to see them added when sourced. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

text: I think it is wonderful or great, Shadowmane, that you are 1/8th Seminole yourself and your Aunt is hopefully 1/4th, both from your Great-Grandfather. (By using View history for this article, you can see our improvement which I made just now and which you thereby have a share of. The result is at Matrilineality#Genetic genealogy.) Can you and your Aunt work together at finding any published (including online) sources, within the next years? Wikipedia is here to stay so there is no hurry.  If necessary, get something published yourselves, at third-party locations which would be valid sources for WP (Wikipedia). Who knows, you just might help all Seminoles thereby, in your "infinite spare time".  And I liked your good contribution too, Nick.  We are all trying to help all of us WP readers,   For7thGen (talk) 20:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: One caveat in addition to the usual bevy: If an author or close relative of an author of an external source is to cite it in Wikipedia, it's necessary to declare a conflict of interest. A good way would be to post on the article's talk page what you intend to cite and for what content and your relationship to the author, and give people a reasonable time, maybe a week, to comment before posting the new source into the article. But having a conflict of interest does not bar editing. It only requires more caution. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seminoles 

message: I've searched the following list of articles about North American Indian tribes or societies for any documentation of any matrilineal aspects such as clan membership, and found none.  For the documenting that is needed in any Wikipedia article, see the previous section.  The listing follows:
*Seminole Tribe of Florida, see the previous section.
*Cree.
*Ojibwe people.
*Lakota people, see below.
*Dakota people.
*Cheyenne people, see below.
*Blackfoot Confederacy.
Lakota, see link above.  The article plausibly mentions that matriarchal family units have been the traditional form of Lakota governance, but gives no source references for this.  I note that the article perhaps should use the word matrilineal instead of matriarchal.
Cheyenne, see link above.  From the article: "Studies into whether the Cheyenne developed a matrilineal clan system are inconclusive."  No source references are given on this topic.
This listing is for my own future reference, as well as for other readers and editors.  For7thGen (talk) 20:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listing of tribes not yet documented as matrilineal 

message: The article is very informative and I'd like to thank whoever put in the work. However, I noticed that for the section on "Early human kinship", references 13, 14, and 16 are from "left-wing"/"Marxist"/"Communist"/"Feminist" sources almost entirely. I'm not implying the information ought to be removed, but it should be noted within the article that aside from references 15 and 17 (I couldn't find any information on those two, to be honest), it's Marxist activists such as Chris Knight (anthropologist) and Feminists such as Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (according to  she did work on a "feminist reinterpretation of evolutionary theory") that are promoting these studies. I couldn't find anything linking the Destro-Bisol et al study or the Opie and Power article to any noticeable ideology in particular. The links that are there for the Chris Knight articles are also from leftist sources (Communist Party of Great Britain website and the Radical Anthropology Group, which is also fairly biased ). Again, I'm not arguing these sources should be removed, but that perhaps a bit more balance is needed by informing the reader that certain left-wing activists are making good use of studies which do happen to fall in line with their ideology. Perhaps there are other studies out there that these same activists would neglect to talk about. Just reading the work of Knight leads me to think about how biased the information is, how he could have cherry-picked everything. If you read his work, he refers to those whose theories he disagrees with as "dogmatic" and then instantly praises the author of the study he agrees with as being a "major specialist".  173.34.18.17 (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The solution to bias in the sources being reflected in the article is to add content from other sources. In general, authors of secondary sources, including scholars and journalists, are allowed and largely expected to select what they consider important and to present their results accordingly. We achieve balance, insofar as it exists in the panoply of sources available and not just cited in Wikipedia, by adding sources that have more to add to the article. For instance, if two sources disagree with each other on a weighty point, we ordinarily report both. But because Wikipedia is perennially a work in progress, we usually don't hold up editing because more content can be found; we can add what we know on Tuesday and if more is found on Thursday we can add that on Thursday. Within Wikipedia's policies, the article is biased (has an overall POV) only if the article is biased by its presentation or omission of content from sources or without sources, not if the sources themselves or their authors are biased. It might be that male and female counterpart articles do not correspond like mirrors if the sources cited or existing even if not cited do not correspond, and that is often the case, because the researchers are different people and sometimes have different questions (replicators, for instance, may add questions to what they investigate); and there are major debates about the nature of objectivity as applicable to social sciences. Authors' qualifications can be stated (usually very briefly) but, if not from the source already cited with the author's name, should be sourced and not just to a Wikipedia article; if the information is from a Wikipedia article, that can be linked to. But mainly the focus is to add sourceable content. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:47, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Early human kinship" section --- NPOV issue perhaps? 

message: The following came mainly from a recent revision of the matriarchy article, but I don't feel qualified to edit this article based on this sourcing, so I'd rather offer it for anyone else to consider researching and editing. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  indigenous peoples 

message: I removed the section on Comoros from this Matrilineality article. I have thoroughly searched online for any evidence that Comoros has any connection to Matrlineality, and found none, zero, nada. Thus Comoros does not belong in this article. I did find that housing there is often matrilocal, in the Encyclopedia Brittanica's article on Comoros, in its Housing section, and readers can see that statement in context at the external link .  
I can not afford the time to correct the Wikipedia article Comoros about this matrilineality topic, but someone else should.
For7thGen (talk) 02:08, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have tagged the paragraph (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AMatrilineality&type=revision&diff=766945377&oldid=653966128) for Citation Needed and then someone could have deleted later if still unsupported, but I'll leave this alone. Adding the Britannica material looks okay, if someone would like to. I haven't read Britannica's passage myself but I take your word for it. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comoros 

message: Until now the last paragraph in the Indonesia section has been :
: Besides Minangkabau, several other ethnics in Indonesia are also matrilineal and have similar culture as the Minangkabau. They are Suku Melayu Bebilang, Suku Kubu and Kerinci people. Suku Melayu Bebilang live in Kota Teluk Kuantan, Kabupaten Kuantan Singingi (also known as Kuansing), Riau. They have similar culture as the Minang. Suku Kubu people live in Jambi and South Sumatera. They are around 200 000 people. Suku Kerinci people mostly live in Kabupaten Kerinci, Jambi. They are around 300 000 people
These peoples are being unjustly forced to stop their traditional lifestyle, and certainly have my sympathy.  For an example see the WP article Kubu people, which describes the forest-dwelling lifestyle of the Kubu people. Their lifestyle won't be possible when there are no more wild forests in their SE part of Sumatra, the provinces of Jambi and South Sumatra (or Sumatera). In the WP article they are stated to be "highly egalitarian", which may be much better than matrilineal but is not matrilineal.  (And of course their culture is not similar to the Minang, how could it be?)  In the absence of evidence that any of the 3 listed peoples are matrilineal, I am just "being bold" and removing the whole paragraph while preserving the paragraph here.
Trying to help our readers,  For7thGen (talk) 02:34, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting a paragraph in Indonesia section 

message: A discussion is underway with respect to this article and material by Ruwanpura. Feel free to participate. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:43, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  discussion on Sri Lanka, Ruwanpura, and relationships 

message: How does note 51 support this portion of the article's Sri Lanka section's subsection on matriaral-patriarchal mixture?
According to Kanchana N. Ruwanpura, "Sri Lanka .... is highly regarded even among feminist economists for the relatively favourable position of its women, reflected [in part] in the ... matrilineal and bilateral inheritance patterns and property rights",[61][51][a]
Unless Humphries, the author cited in what is now note 51, has the same quotation, which then would seem to be a redundant citation, I assume she supports a more general point. Since note 51 also appears earlier in the article, what may be needed is that the note not appear twice but that two notes citing Humphries be presented, the one elsewhere staying as it is and this one being rewritten as more general or as making whatever point is appropriate. I don't have the Humphries source, so I'm not the one who can do that.
Nick Levinson (talk) 19:51, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  wondering about Humphries citation for Ruwanpura quotation 

message: An anonymous or IP editor added 3 different peoples or societies on 25Apr2017, without providing the required source references. One of the 3 was the Jeju people of So. Korea, who are matriarchal but not matrilineal, as follows. In the article Jeju Province, the wording used is, quote, "Another distinct aspect of Jeju is the matriarchal family structure, found especially in Udo and Mara, but also present in the rest of the province. The best-known example of this is found among the haenyeo ("sea women"), who were often the heads of families, because they controlled the income." However, matrilineality involves inheritance, something such as a surname or property or a public office, handed down the matriline or mother-line, from mother to daughter.
I have also searched well but unsuccessfully for any evidence of such inheritance among the Jeju.  So I am removing the Jeju people from this Matrilineality article.  For7thGen (talk) 04:10, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jeju people not matrilineal 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The subsection Guanches was added in an edit at exactly 10:21, 9 November 2014,
but that editor provided no source reference for it, violating the cardinal rule of Wikipedia.
I have Googled this topic, Guanches, thoroughly, plus checking Library of Congress Country Studies's avenues, The World Factbook's avenues, and much more. I am unable to find any real or actual sources for matrilineality among the Guanches, who effectively were wiped out by the Spanish conquest of the Canary Islands in 1496, more than 500 years ago. The editor who added the Guanches subsection presumably was similarly unsuccessful, but was willing to violate Wikipedia's requirements for reliability of its encyclopedic information. I myself need and support the reliability of WP's information, and am glad that most editors do. I am removing the subsection.   For7thGen (talk) 17:48, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing Guanches subsection from In Africa section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "While men held positions of religious and political power, Spartan constitution mandated that inheritance and proprietorship pass from mother to daughter.[24]" - The source that is given actually says that inheritance was passed equally to sons and daughters.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.118.0.203 (talk) 05:48, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sparta 

message: "on the other hand, there seems to be some reliable evidence for the presence of matrilineality in Islamic Arabia, the descendants of prophet Muhammad 12 imams are said to be from the lineage of his daughter Fatima termed as "sons of Fatima".
This is stated as a matter of fact without any source or citation. I left it in instead of removing it to see if there would be any response for a citation. Otherwise I think it should be removed until a citation can be included. It appears to support a patriarchal line because of tying back to Muhammed rather than the daughter. Brycesteiner (talk) 00:43, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islamic Arabia