Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am under the impression that for most of human history, the ability and willingness to inflict violence was what determined the social hierarchy. As most things people today believe, this is not really true, at least not in such universal way as usually implied. > Would that not be the reason that almost all tribes were patriarchal? There is no data to assert that.
>As most things people today believe, this is not really true, at least not in such universal way as usually implied. Might makes right is a rule of nature, is it not? Native Americans didn't choose to be moved onto reservations, enslaved people didn't choose to be enslaved, and colonized cultures did not choose to be colonized. And the ones making those choices always had the upper hand. >There is no data to assert…
Of nature, maybe. Of human social arrangements, not really - otherwise elites would never feel the need of justifying themselves, yet they always do.
> Native Americans didn't choose to be moved onto reservations, enslaved people didn't choose to be enslaved, and colonized cultures did not choose to be colonized. And the ones making those choices always had the upper hand.
You went from social hierarchy to interaction between societies and cultures. Slaves were almost always sourced from outside the group, and by nature of slavery they were not part of social.
> But you put the facts together that it was nearly ubiquitous around the world
This is exactly the data we don't have. We simply don't know social arrangements of most tribes or cultures in human history.
Moreover, there is a huge gap between assertion that most societies in history had male leaders and rulers, and assertion that lack of merit always led to being left behind.
> what other conclusion can be had?
Using your spectacular reasoning one can similarly argue that it has to be necessary that males in all cultures live in polygamous relationships, because nature made sperm cheap, and optimal breeding strategy is to breed with as many females as possible.
And yet, for some reason, monogamy exists in patriarchal societies.
Who could have thought?!