My return to my rural family business tested the bonds of a father-daughter relationship, and underscored the strength of the mother-line - ABC News

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OPINION: I thought my grazing family's male line was unbreakable. Then I returned to the family business

I grew up in a generational grazing family where the custom of handing a rural business on to the eldest son was an unwritten rule.

As his children grew — two sons and two daughters — all of us exhibited creative leanings, an unexpected development in his boys. The eldest son, now a finance whiz, was talented both in the kitchen and with carpentry, while the younger eventually swapped farming for acting and screenwriting. In a western society where the male line has usually dominated succession, the religious take once confirmed man's superiority over woman.

Mythic storytelling and ancient societies recognised the importance of the mother-line. In Greek mythology, while the royal function was a male privilege, the transference of power often came through women, with a future king inheriting power by marrying the queen heiress. The importance of kinship in a female line is perhaps best known to western society via the study of genealogy. And yet in past and current societies it can correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline. Just like the father-line, this can involve the inheritance of property and/or names.

All of these mitochondria — the energy producing factories of a cell, particularly important for the brain and muscles — come from our mothers.

 

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Why isn't this in the ABC 'Life' section? This dribble isn't NEWS.

Sad response to NicoleAlexanders story. Successful agribusiness, appears to be sliding as ecocide result of ClimateChange, engulfs out of step, production backwaters. Nobody seems reliant on primary income. Die back,stemmed with expansion of holdings now worth $100s mil. 😔

What were her family grazing on ?

ABC is obsessed with women's issues at the expense of a larger picture and we'll be paying the price of social unrest

GOLDDIGGER!

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