system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Did matriarchies ever exist? If so, did they extend beyond the immediate tribe? What is the consensus in the anthropological community?
gpt
the consensus in the anthropological community is that there have never been any matriarchies that we know of. A lot of laypeople are under the misperception that there have been, because of confusion between matriarchy and matrilineal. Matrilineal societies trace inheritance through women. In other words, children are part of their mother's clan, or group, or family or moiety or whatever way that society structures familial groups. Such societies *may* not even recognize that sex results in babies so have no recognition of biological fatherhood. Many do understand, but children belong to their mother's group. Sometimes in such cases, we see a special bond between a child and their mother's brother. In those societies, the mother's brother may designate that child to inherit things from him, which makes sense in that the child is a member of the uncle's family group. The uncle won't leave things to their own biological children because those children aren't part of their group. 

But that's a bit of a digression. There has never been a society that has been a matriarchy in the fashion that patriarchies are, but for women. That is, in patriarchal societies, men rule *over* women (and over many men and children). In many, women are recognized as dependent or even inferior to men, with a whole worldview explaining why (that women are sinful, or not as smart, or weak, or meant to be ruled over according to a sacred holy text, or unclean, etc.). But while there have been societies where women have had power to lead or to make decisions within that society, to have a voice on a leading council, for example, they've never  had power *over* men to the exclusion of men. Men will generally have power too in such societies, so it's more egalitarian. While in patriarchal societies, typically men exclusively are the rulers.