PATRIARCHY AND MATRIARCHY. Patriarchy may be defined as the "rule of the father" that extends beyond the confines of the family to include the governance of men and the dominance of male values in society as a whole. Patriarchal dominance, whether that of male heads of extended families or the andrarchy of senior men within a given political dispensation, gives men control over the familial and political economy; limits women's freedom of sexual expression and alliance; marginalizes or excludes them from political and religious leadership; and limits their education and sometimes their freedom of movement. Specific phenomena associated with the patriarchal privileging of the masculine include female economic disadvantage, the coerced genital mutilation experienced by an estimated two million girls a year, the sex selection practices and female infanticide in parts of India and China, and the preferential care of boys in developing or...