Patriarchy all around us?

Currently I am in two courses at UNCG that are talking about some of the same topics, ironically. The two courses are Women and Gender Studies and English. In WGS of course we are talking about women and their issues in society over the years. However, in English I am reading Western Literature such as The Illiad, The Odyssey, Gilgamesh and Eumenides. Some people may wonder why I bring up the word "patriarchy". For those of you that aren't familiar with the word:

patriarchy- social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power

sounds lovely, huh? Well, we are definitely living in a society where women are supposed to be dependent on their husbands for protection and shelter. Sounds a little dominant to me. I grew up in a house where dad's word was the final word, as most other children were. There is a great example of this way of living back in the 50s and 60s with the dominance of "housewives".

Recently in English we read the above stories that I mentioned. These stories are all set in present-day Middle East in the B.C. times. Each story also involves gods and goddesses. These figures are their guidance and power as a society. There are hints of patriarchal and matriarchal tendencies in each cultural setting. Eumendies touches on an interesting topic. In the story the underground gods were predominately female. These were, at first, the only power consisting of goddesses such as Athena. She was known as the almighty in the story which created a matriarchal society. Women were seen as precious and to be followed. When the sky gods came into play everything changed. These gods were predominately male. We discussed why this happened in class. My personal opinion is that this very idea that was introduced has contributed to the over male dominance in society that we have now.

Is it ironic that the female goddesses were underground and the male gods were in the sky???