Editing Hera (section)

===Matriarchy===
There has been considerable scholarship, reaching back to [[Johann Jakob Bachofen]] in the mid-nineteenth century,<ref>Bachofen, ''Mutterrecht'' 1861, as '' Mother Right: An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the Ancient World.'' Bachofen was seminal in the writings of [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] and other students of Greek myth.</ref> about the possibility that Hera, whose early importance in Greek religion is firmly established, was originally the goddess of a matriarchal people, presumably inhabiting Greece before the [[Hellenes]]. In this view, her activity as [[goddess]] of marriage established the patriarchal bond of her own subordination: her resistance to the conquests of Zeus is rendered as Hera's "jealousy", the main theme of literary anecdotes that undercut her ancient [[Cult (religion)|cult]].<ref>Slater 1968.</ref>

However, it remains a controversial claim that an ancient matriarchy or a cultural focus on a monotheistic Great Goddess existed among the ancient Greeks or elsewhere. The claim is generally rejected by modern scholars as insufficiently evidenced.<ref name="ELLER-BRITANNICA">See, for example, the following:
* Cynthia Eller, ''[[The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory]]: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future'', (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001);
* ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' describes this view as "consensus", listing matriarchy as a hypothetical social system. 'Matriarchy' ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2007.
</ref> [[Walter Burkert]] notices that the ancient [[Kourotrophos]] figure is almost absent in [[Crete]], and the nomination [[Mother Goddess]] was not the underlying principle in the Minoan religion.<ref>Burkert(1985), "Greek religion":[https://books.google.com/books?id=sxurBtx6shoC p.41]</ref>