patriarchal standards

Is deference to patriarchal standards universal?

My feeling is that it has, indeed, become the contemporary psychological norm to view men -- and fathers in particular -- as the sources of all social authority. That is why it is so difficult to criticise them, for one would not criticise one's own standard or one's own totem. Similarly, one does not criticise the standard of measurement for all social values. If one's society is patriarchal, it is the patriarch who, in himself, supplies the standard of measurement for what it good and what isn't. So, it appears (from this point of view) that one criticises the patriarch only from a position of not having a standard, or not desiring to have one, or desiring (which is worse) to destroy an existing standard. One is not granted permission to criticise from any existing position -- that is, from any standard that is not already defined by patriarchal values and beliefs.

To the degree that it is impossible to criticise standards of patriarchy from outside of a system of patriarchal standards, we can say that patriarchal standards give the appearance, at least, of being absolute. One who represents "fatherhood" (whether of a nation or of a family) will be beyond reproach. So long as he rests his laurels firmly upon this rock of patriarchy, he can be assured that others will not wish to demolish the standard upon which their own identity has its foundation.

Patriarchal standards are the particular standards of belief by which each patriarch establishes his castle or his home. They are not objective standards in the universal sense, so much as by becoming standards at all they seem to exert a force on those who do not have the power to develop and enforce their own standards. In fact, the standards might be quite subjective, particular, and badly thought out, but they will still have the social resonance of universal standards, simply by being enforced by the respect engendered in society for the social efficacy of the system of patriarchy.

In short, these days there doesn't seem to be any moral position that one can take outside of patriarchy. In Rhodesia there was. The women in that society formed a countervailing matriarchy, which was designed to enforce the standards of civilisation over and against the standards of the males. The males were considered to be wild, simple and useful, but not privy to some of the more complex mechanisms required to to keep civilization going. So male aberrations of behaviour were often noticed and attended to, with a strict form of moral policing.