Pondering the implications of the Y Bottle-Neck; the demonization of single mothers; the destruction of the Mother Goddess; and the Male God Archetype.
Boris Johnson, an ex British prime minister, who was forced to resign before his term was over, due to a sexual misconduct cover up, said children of single mothers were “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate.”[1]
I think we all know how easy it is for men in power to fire cheap shots at women, demonizing us for political gain. In this case it didn’t work, the eye-rolling and push back was instant.
As women of our time we are used to being demonized, which doesn’t make it acceptable, but what about the father? And specifically the absent father? Surely his absence, and possibly his lack of accountability, impacts a developing child, so why isn’t he demonized in the same way as the mother who stayed? The wounding created by absence is often thrown back at a child, especially girls, as accusations of “daddy issues.”
Which brings me to another question, despite the spiritual punishment, hinted at in 1 Timothy 5:8, for absent fathers in the Bible, did the archetype of the Absent Father, free from the judgement of others, yet sitting in judgement in the sky, shape the Christian image of God? He was undeniably remote, far away in the sky, righteous, wrathful, emotionally unavailable, accessible only via layers of hierarchical structuring, in the form of priests, popes, convoluted texts, existential word-looping, and systematic belittling: “original sin,” Catholic guilt, “lost sheep” and so forth.
So what does the Bible say about single mothers?
“A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.” – Psalm 68:5 KJV (1611).
There’s plenty of spiritual damnation in that sentence. It appears “judge of widows” has been “now-washed” to “defender of widows,” although I’m not sure how you get from “judge” to “defender.” To be clear judgement doesn’t help single mothers put bread on the table. In the Bible, as far as I can see, there is no mention of single mothers who are not widows, despite statistics showing there were 7.3 million single mothers in the U.S in 2003, of which only 1.7%, were widows [2], meaning this book is woefully exclusive.
There is plenty of evidence to show how single mothers were blamed, shamed, kept out of sight and ostracized in God fearing societies. In Ireland many were sent away to Mother and Baby homes, to atone for their sins, and I’m guessing, to enrich the church through monetized adoptions. One such home, Tuam in County Galway (Ireland), run by the Bon Secours Sisters, is due to be excavated. Here, remains of babies and toddlers have been found hidden underground. Research shows one child died in the home, every two weeks between 1925 and 1961. We can only imagine what went on in there. This is just one reason why (amongst others including, war, neglect, suicide etc) it is claimed survival rates for children, especially girls, is lower in patriarchal societies than in matriarchal ones.
In patriarchal religions the Mother Goddess was erased when a lone God took credit for creation, despite the obvious: both female and male are part of the creative process. As time marched forward, as the battle for male spiritual supremacy loomed, the Father God needed to eradicate Mother Goddess, her altars, and what Deutronomy 7:5 refers to as her “ idols.”
Girls, XX, receive X-chromosomes from each parent. Boys, XY, receive a Y-chromosome from the father and an X chromosome from the mother. Boy’s X-linked characteristics, including intelligence, arise from the mother. Perhaps this is why most mothers love their sons, no matter what. The X chromosome has 900 genes, the Y just 55, including a male-determining gene [3]. A word of warning: over time the Y chromosome is disintegrating. Men are slowly losing their Y chromosome.
The near disappearance of men from history is nothing new. Around 7,000 years ago, in Africa, Europe and Asia, it appears the Y chromosome collapsed, referred to as the Y Chromosome Bottle-Neck, resulting in just one man for every 17 women. Computer modeling indicates that warring patrilineal clans could be the reason [4]. This seems plausible. The transition to a pastoral existence may mean there was battling for land. It appears human nature, resorting to violence to settle disputes, may have caused the near extinction of men.
It seems hard to conceive of a time when such across the board madness, which I’m calling Mass Hysteria, gripped the human race, yet there is plenty of evidence of this occurring. Wind backwards to 1648 to the crazy New England witch-hunts; or to the Rwandan genocide 1994; or Pol Pot’s Killing Fields 1976-8. Even today we witness a plethora of men at the top firing missiles at their neighbors.
The timeline of Paleolithic female (Venus) figurines spans from 2.9 million, although most date from 40,000 to 10,000, years ago [5]. During the Neolithic age Goddess figurines continued to be produced, as they were into the Bronze Age and beyond [6]. Marija Gimbutas realized there was no evidence of a Father God in any of the symbolism from Paleolithic and Neolithic periods in pre-historic Europe. It appears the spiritual focus fell upon a self-generating Mother Goddess and her cycles of life.
Far from remote, the Mother Goddess was immediate. Although her head was in the cosmos, her body was fashioned from her own body, the body of Mother Earth, in clay, rock, wood and metals. People walked upon her, sat upon her, worshiped her trees, planted crops within her soil and watched them grow. They could feel her presence between their toes, with every step, whether walked or danced.
So did the Father God exist, during those times, in people’s minds, in those patrilineal tribes, as formless and remote, way up in the sky, as he does today? Male fertility images do exist in cave art but this does not mean they were Father Gods. Perhaps they were simply part of the cycle of life, possibly firmly under the control of the Creatrix. The Y Chromosome Bottle-Neck warrants more questions, so perhaps we should be asking if the Father God existed before the Y Bottle-Neck? And if so was the physical lack of men, there-after, reflected in the Absent Father, Absent God Archetype?
I do not believe that the one male to seventeen women would be of the inclination to raid villages to kidnap women, as some theories suggest, especially when we find out Neolithic women were far from weak. In her studies anthropology professor Alison Murray noted that prehistoric women were “buff’ [7]. In Patriarchal Language V Our Mother’s Tongue I discuss how matrilineal societies stop the formation of fraternal interest groups, so can we assume, when the battling was done, if the data and analysis are correct, that the ensuing years, being devoid of male dominance and fraternal interest groups, could have been a time of peace and stability, with women holding the power?
We need to reassess patriarchal assumptions about the past. It may be that women hunted, gathered, farmed and developed the planting wisdom, not because of gender roles, but because there were simply not enough men.
Whether men were put on a pedestal, because there simply weren’t many of them, becomes an interesting question. Did the lack of men lead to the emergence of a pantheon of male gods, perhaps initially as fertility gods, required to perpetuate the human race, and did this lead to the creation of the Father God archetype?
References and citations
[1] Shaman, Jon. Boris Johnson said children of single mothers were ‘ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate’ in a newly unearthed column. 28 November 2019, The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-boris-johnson-articles-women-women-journalist-spectator-labour-a9221036.html
[2] Salas-Betsch, Isabela. The Economic Status of Single Mothers. AUG 7, 2024. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-economic-status-of-single-mothers/
[3] Graves, Jenny. Men are slowly losing their Y chromosome, 06, 12, 22. La Trobe University. https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2022/opinion/men-are-slowly-losing-their-y-chromosome
[4] Starr, Michelle. Something Weird Happened to Men 7,000 Years Ago, And We Finally Know Why. 31 May 2018. Science Alert. https://www.sciencealert.com/neolithic-y-chromosome-bottleneck-warring-patrilineal-clans
[5] Hitchcock, Don. Venus figures from the Stone Age arranged in Chronological Order https://www.donsmaps.com/venustimeline.html
[6] Fertility cults. 6.3 Neolithic ‘fertility figurines.’ University of Oxford online course. https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/samples/ritual-and-religion-in-prehistory-online/index.html
[7] Chaker, Anne Marie. Becoming a Bodybuilder at 50 Showed Me That Women Were Never Meant to be Thin. JUN 18, 2025. Time. https://time.com/7293999/bodybuilding-women-skinny-essay/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLJ-V9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETBLcUhrOENPUW1YeER2TExPAR4bf_63A3VNwFllBii0Z5i4hZGdDQfFNH572A0VWYKpj5OCbyIAn2hvWkAMhQ_aem_ZyJrwBAzZnfaTMqVOuVs6Q
Patriarchy, Fertility and Excess Female Child Mortality in India, Singh, A., Kumar, K., McDougal, L. et al. Patriarchy, Fertility and Excess Female Child Mortality in India. Spat Demogr 13, 1 (2025). Published 09 January 2025 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40980-024-00133-z