When God Was A Woman -- We Owe Much Of Our Civilization To Female- Led Societies

Editor, The Times:

Helen Belvin (letters, Dec. 2) disapproved of alternative family structures, saying, ``robbed of sexual standards, society will unravel like a ball of yarn.'' Since she mentioned a time span of 2,000 years, I assume she refers to the male-led Judeo-Christian family unit.

Archaeological excavations have uncovered sculptures indicating widespread Goddess worship as long ago as 25,000 B.C. In what we call the cradle of civilization, the Goddess was worshipped as creator of the universe and all life.

In major cultures such as Sumer, Babylon and Canaan, women had sex with men of their own choosing. Since sex was associated with the worship of the Goddess, there was no split between pleasure, spirituality, motherhood and respect for women.

The earliest records show that women were held in high esteem. Property passed from mother to daughter, so it didn't matter who fathered the children.

Diodorus Siculus wrote in 49 B.C. that in Libya, the men stayed home and took care of the children while the women handled all public business. He also recorded an Egyptian law that said ``the wife shall enjoy authority over the husband, husbands agreeing in the marriage contract that they will be obedient in all things to their wives.''

Far from ``unraveling like a ball of yarn,'' these cultures were the basis for our own civilization. They developed agriculture, architecture, engineering, astronomy, writing, ceramics, painting, domestication of animals, commerce, etc.

Most impressive, the earlier Goddess-worshipping cultures sustained themselves for long periods without war. At a site in Turkey, archaeologists went down 1,500 years without finding weapons or any evidence of conflict.

Civilization really began to ``unravel'' when the Indo-Europeans began their southward invasions around 2400 B.C. They brought with them their male tribal gods, their system of patrilineal descent and, most important, their philosophy of dominance.

They slaughtered, looted and raped their way through much of the Mediterranean region (you can read about some of this in the Book of Joshua), and we live with the results of these invasions today. The beatings, rapes and murders of thousands of women in the U.S. every year are attributable to the philosophy of patriarchal dominance and the Judeo-Christian idea of the ``true'' family.

Anyone who is interested in this subject should read ``When God Was A Woman'' by Merlin Stone, and ``The Chalice and the Blade'' and ``The Partnership Way'' by Riane Eisler.

- Kate McLaughlin, Renton