Johann Jakob Bachofen - Das Mutterrecht

Bachofen's 1861 Das Mutterrecht proposed four phases of cultural evolution which absorbed each other:

• 1) Hetaerism. A wild nomadic 'tellurian' phase, characterised by him as communistic and polyamorous. Whose dominant deity he believed to have been an earthy proto Aphrodite.
• 2) Das Mutterecht. A matriarchal 'lunar' phase based on agriculture, characterised by him by the emergence of chthonic mystery cults and law. Whose dominant deity was an early Demeter according to Bachofen.
• 3) The Dionysian. A transitional phase when earlier traditions were masculinised as patriarchy began to emerge. Whose dominant deity was the original Dionysos.
• 4) The Apollonian. The patriarchal 'solar' phase, in which all trace of the Matriarchal and Dionysian past was eradicated and modern civilisation emerged.

While based on an imaginative interpretation of the existing archaeological evidence of his time, this model tells us as much about Bachofen's own time as it does the past.