You can’t say I don’t take seriously my position as eldest child in a family of seven, and the eldest grandchild on my mother’s side. And I admit to being a male turned husband and father. And my given names both mean ‘ruler of the home’. But I’m no patriarch — I have not sought or experienced any advantage from these positions. Responsibility, yes, and the work loads that come with it, but no rule or privilege, and certainly no financial gain.

My own parents were an even match, ever struggling to provide for their brood of seven. But in the HR department my mother was king. I knew my maternal grandparents best of all, also from the record that they kept of their van der Laan Venture. They were full partners in a hard but fruitful life. nurturing four farms and five children. My dad’s mother certainly talked more than her husband, but in the stories I heard and during the many visits they made from Holland, I never sensed a power imbalance.

My wife’s parents were as different as mine, but, aside from certain conservative roles like praying and scripture reading, they seemed to steer through life in tandem. Her paternal grandparents I never knew, nor did I ever meet the other Opa who came to Canada at the age of sixty. But his wife’s reputation as a sharp-tongued matriarch endures. In fact, on the conservative side of my Dutch-Canadian milieu, I seem to hear more about domineering matriarchs than patriarchs.

In my family tree (which I’ve worked back to the sixteenth century), my ancestors are mostly from the northern Netherlands. With some notable exceptions early on, they are ordinary (little) people — farmers, house wives, sailors, farm helpers, and maids, with a few teachers, bakers, etc. to spice the pot. At this lower end of the social ladder (and I include myself here — carpenter that I am), necessity trumps convention, and I expect families ploughed their way through as a cooperative rather than a hierarchy.

The old conventions of lineage do support the idea of patriarchy, with both name and the interest typically following a single line through the fathers to the nth generation. Indeed, the longest line in my whole tree, that of my uncle Jan Boot, goes way back to Gerard Boot’s birth in 1120, with scant attention paid to the wives’ lineages along the way. Gerard was a steward of the Count of Holland, his son was a judge, his was a knight, and . . . you get the picture. (Though probable descendant John Wilkes Booth was not so noble.)

But that singular focus blurs considerably with the Reformation. Record keeping in the Netherlands became more thorough and the people in God’s covenant were not put off to the side simply for being women. The Fan View of my descendants is remarkably full of both mothers and fathers up till the seventh generation back.

To anyone with full access to this inexorable amalgam of paternal and maternal lines, it is patently clear that we are all formed as much by our mothers as by our fathers — indeed that we have been visited by the deeds of mothers to the third and fourth generations. I have already documented the influence of Grietje, Klaaske, Grietje, Janke, Ytje, Antje and Neeke in one particularly prominent family line before it coalesced with my paternal, rural and sea faring de Jong name.

One day I will tell the story of Cornelia, wife of Paschasius Justus Ecloviensis Turk (physician to Prince William of Orange), and the women descended from her — Lijsbeth, Fijtgen and Jenneken Turk, Maria, Lijsabeth, Cornelisje and Trijntje Tessemaker, Geertruid and Martje Visscher, followed finally by my great grandmother Geertruida Blokzijl Visscher. Oh the stories they could tell, these women of such influence.

From where I stand, maternal prominence in family dynamics seems natural, even likely. My mother’s family (the van der Laans) and her mother’s family (the Beekhuis’) prevailed with warmth and enduring connection. Similarly, my mother-in-law’s family (the Brouwers) and my wife’s paternal grandmother’s family (the Slingerlands) took first place in influence and social cohesion. A matriarchal milieu is not foreign to me.

Going further back, to pre-modern cultures, I’ve gathered that patriarchy is not a given. Many of North America’s indigenous peoples seemed not to suffer so, and the further back in (pre)history we go the more we see evidence (and the necessity) of cooperation between sexes. It seems that the transition from subsistence living to wealth is what spurs autocracies on multiple fronts. Wealth begets power and power corrupts. It seems unjust to simply attribute that toxin to masculinity.

With only one overbearing patriarch in sight, I count myself blessed. Many have not escaped repression or exclusion or abuse by self-serving, paternalistic, patriarchal, domineering head-paters. I am thankful for the long-suffering suffragettes and liberators who shifted culture to make this less acceptable, less likely and ultimately illegal, even while I recognize that the job is not done.

But! When I look back over a long history, observing customs and traditions and hierarchies that are no longer acceptable, I find myself in no place to judge. Culture has always been a work in progress (or regress), and much of it has been a collaboration to deal fruitfully (or selfishly) with circumstances and even older traditions. What stands out for me as I watch and read history and historical dramas is not so much the evils of hierarchy itself but the personal malice that can infect it.

The devilish bishop in “Pillars of the Earth” is a prime example of this. But I don’t see his villainy as baked into the role. For every Bishop Bigod there’s a Prior Philip. And for every domineering father there are more benevolent dads. Same for bosses, and board members, preachers and proctors, you name it — the exceptions belie the rule.

Someone is bound to stand up and remind me that my anecdotally merciful view of history is a trivial distraction from the theoretically critical, unassailable proof that toxic patriarchy is systemic and that no one can escape its pernicious posture — not the victims, nor the victimizers. But, as with every other critical theory, this leaves God’s grace and large swaths of common practice out of the picture.

Every human heart is riven by sin — in and along with every class, gender, region and culture. Where patriarchy has been a problem, it’s not because of some grand conspiracy or some singularly malign force, but because of a lack of God will and the Grace to fix it for the sake of a common sense good. This good will is not being bolstered by today’s hostile, intersectional struggles. I recommend we do not put asunder what God has joined together. What we need now is a Revival, not a Deconstruction.