Book review: Angela Saini (2025). The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule. Thessaloniki: Salto Publications, Callistos Series.

Abstract

The present book review on Angela Saini’s book explores how patriarchy is not constituted as a single,
universal system of male domination, but rather as a plural and historically situated articulation of power,
shaped through kinship relations, local regimes of domination, colonial ruptures, and capitalist
transformations. Drawing on anthropological, archaeological, and ethnographic examples, the review
highlights the differences between patrilineal and matrilineal social formations, shedding light on the ways
patrilineality and patrilocality are linked to practices of captivity, alienation, and control over female and
feminised bodies. In this way, patriarchy is approached as a Machiavellian matrix of coloniality that operates
through the family, care, and romantic love. At the same time, the review offers a critique of Western-centric
feminist generalisations that equate patriarchy with a uniform form of male dominance, emphasising the need
for decolonial and intersectional reflection that takes ethnographic evidence, local practices of resistance, and
historical discontinuities seriously.