Comparative Patriarchy and American Institutions

As Claude Levi-Strauss wrote in his book, La pensee sauvage (Paris,1960): 'biographical and anecdotal history ... is low-powered history, which is not intelligible in itself, and only becomes so when it is transferred en bloc to a form of history of a higher power than itself ... The historian's relative choice ... is always confined to the choice between history which teaches more and explains less and history which explains more and teaches less.' This book oscillates between analysis, which tries to explain what man is, and anecdote, which tries to teach what he is capable of becoming. What better approach to understanding patriarchy, beyond learning the formal dictionary definitions of this term, than by examining the richly diverse descriptions of gender relationships found in the following chapters? It is the hope of these authors that the recognition of national differences and gender differences will provide new vantage points from which we may gain wider perspectives on our own prejudices and thereby find fulfillment of our aspirations to become more fully human.