Private Property and the Goddess

Book excerpt: Private Property and the Goddess explores how patriarchal private property arose in ancient times when men seized the land from woman-centered cultures that grew up around the universal circle of women who nurtured humanity's children, giving rise to language and culture. Seizing the land required men to destroy the mother right basic to all Goddess cultures in which the land descended through the female line. The only way to end the mother right was through patriarchal monogamy that ended freedom for women and inaugurated the current era of misogyny, oppression and slavery. The story unfolds through the author's response to American Indian Movement leader Russell Means' assertion that Europeans, including Marxists, had proved themselves unable to respect nature and the earth. Richards chronicles his own journey growing up as a red diaper baby in Oakland, California and a radical student in the 1960s. From there he traveled through a decades long struggle which led to his discovery of the Goddess. With his growing awareness of the creative female source of life, he explores the hidden story of her suppression inside the ancient origin myths of patriarchy — inside Greek mythology and the one-God Bible. Along the way he examines “Where Marx and Engels Went Wrong.” Was there a time when our white ancestors lived in harmony with nature? How far back would we have to go to find such a time, if it ever existed at all? How did we lose respect for the natural world and for women? The answers to these questions opens the door to finding a way to change the course of history.