Blood Lines: Biopolitics, Patriarchy, Myth

Yelle, Robert A. (2024): Blood Lines: Biopolitics, Patriarchy, Myth. Open Theology, 10 (1). ISSN 2300-6579

Abstract

Sacrifice is mainly a patriarchal institution. Nancy Jay argued that sacrifice serves as a ritual supplement and replacement for natural birth, and attempts to establish the dominance and priority of descent through the father over descent through the mother. I demonstrate the cogency of Jay’s analysis across a number of traditions. My focus is not on sacrificial rituals, but instead on a series of myths – Hebrew biblical, ancient Greek, and Vedic Indian – that disclose the manner in which sacrifice inhabits a continuum with a broader array of struggles for dominance within the family including, but not limited to, the contestation between patriarchy and matriarchy. In many myths, the kinship group becomes a primary metaphor, both for the competition over scarce goods, including power and authority within the family unit, and for modeling the body politic in a microcosm.

• Doc-Type: Article (LMU)
• Organisational unit (Faculties): 10 Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Religious Science
• DFG subject classification of scientific disciplines: Humanities and social sciences
• DFG: Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - 491502892