All 4 Uses of
patriarchy
in
The Scarlet Letter
- I doubt greatly—or, rather, I do not doubt at all—whether any public functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself.†
p. 13.8patriarchal = relating to a form of social organization in which men are given more power than women
- I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I think, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there presented to my notice.†
p. 18.9 *
- The good old man addressed him with the paternal affection and patriarchal privilege which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and his station in the church, entitled him to use and, conjoined with this, the deep, almost worshipping respect, which the minister's professional and private claims alike demanded.†
p. 203.6
- And, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal deacon would have been petrified by his minister's impiety.†
p. 204.1
Definitions:
-
(1)
(patriarchy) a form of social organization in which men are given more power than women
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely, patriarchy can refer specifically to a form of social organization in which men head families and title is traced through the male line.