The BG worhsippers are still there to send shivers up the male spine though :-o
On the issue of real world matrilineal cultures (matriachal cultures are more elusive)I searched Brittanica.com for inspiration. I am not suggesting that these are in any way related to Esrolian practice, more a review of avaiable sources of inspiration:
"Matrilineal descent systems ... [are] found in many widely differing societies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, as well as in Amerindian societies. Examples include the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia, the Crow and Iroquois Indians of North America, the Bemba of Central Africa, and the Nayars of India. Nayar society, however, is unusual in that the social role of the father is virtually nonexistent."
The Nayar's sambandham custom is interesting (lots of aspects inappropriate for Esrolia, I am more interested in the understanding of father's role in the kin group):
"In contrast, the sambandham relationship involved no religious ceremony, but it did involve a sexual union. Each woman took a series of partners through her life. She could, in fact, be involved in more than one such relationship at a time. ... Apart from gifts to his partners, a man had no obligations within the sambandham relationship. His only strong ties were to the family in which he grew up, which included his mother and other relatives related through his mother, such as his sisters and brothers. The father was not socially important, and a man had no obligations toward his children. Nevertheless, he did have obligations, through his female relatives, to a kin group including his mother, mother's mother, mother's siblings, and sisters' children. His responsibilities were to his sisters' children, not his own, and his sisters' sambandham partners' responsibilities were to their sisters' children."
Might interest somebody.
Ian
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