Matrilineal-Patriarchal System of the Cham People

Abstract

The matrilineal system had existed popularly in traditions of many ethnic groups in Vietnam and Southeast Asia but among the Cham people it had had a specific feature. Specifically, together with the single line matrilineal institution, the patriarchal features always were expressed clearly inside the matrilineal system of the Cham people. The content of this writing indicated that the family and social relationships of the Cham people always turned around a dualistic model (both contrary and united) between men and women in the view of structuralism. This model had made contribution to criticizing some misconceptions of that in the Cham society, women always had played a more important role than men or all hard works had rested on women’ shoulders