Passage: Anthropology has long distinguished between matriarchy—a social system where women hold primary power—and matrilineality, where ancestral descent and inheritance are traced through the female line. Many societies are matrilineal without being matriarchal; for example, in some West African cultures, land and titles pass from a man to his sister's son. In such systems, authority often remains with male kin, even though the right to that authority is derived from a female relative. This distinction is crucial for debunking the myth that matrilineal societies are inherently female-dominated in a political sense. Critics of early 19th-century theories argue that those theorists often conflated the two concepts, mistakenly identifying matrilineal descent as evidence of a lost 'golden age' of female rule. Contemporary anthropologists emphasize that matrilineality is a complex kinship strategy that balances the interests of different kin groups, rather than a simple inversion of patriarchal power. Understanding these nuances allows for a more accurate assessment of gender roles and power dynamics across diverse cultures.