"So powerful, in fact, is simple string in taming the world to human will and ingenuity that I suspect it to be the unseen weapon that allowed the human race to conquer the earth." 

That's a quote from 'Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years', Elizabeth Wayland Barber's landmark contribution to archeology, recently re-published in the form of a 30th anniversary edition. 

Wayland-Barber argues that the creation of string, and later of weaving, was one of the most crucial innovations in human history. And it was the work of women. 

Up until really very recently in human history, the creation of textiles was an extraordinarily time consuming and important aspect of women's daily lives. If we had not undergone the 'string revolution', we would not have been able to keep ourselves warm in cold weather, to use textiles for hunting, and to develop various complex tools essential for human survival. It's no wonder that spinning and weaving have such a central role in mythology. Today we examine the ancient connection between spinning thread and creating life. 

For ad-free and bonus episodes of the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast go to louiseperry.substack.com. 

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In this bonus episode, Meghan Murphy and I discussed the online community of young men making every effort to improve their appearances.

Discussed in the episode:

• Clavicular in conversation with Michael Knowles
• Olly Murs photos
• Documentary on sperm donor, ‘The Man with 1000 Kids’

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The Medieval period is sometimes described as the ‘Age of Faith.’ This was a world in which the church dominated every area of life and it was almost impossible to think outside of Christianity.

It was succeeded, of course, by the ‘Age of Reason’, a period in which Enlightenment thinkers placed an extremely high premium on rational inquiry.

Which era are we living in now? Robert P. George suggests that we have entered an ‘Age of Feelings’, in which people derive their beliefs from emotion, which is now understood as the central source of truth.

He makes this case in his new book, ‘Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment.’ Robert P. George is a highly esteemed legal scholar and political philosopher, once described in The New York Times as America’s “most influential conservative Christian thinker.” Today we discuss faith, reason, abortion, same sex marriage, repaganisation, and more.

MMM is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Get a 40% discount at cozyearth.com/maiden or use the code COZYMMM, and in the post-purchase survey let them know you came from the podcast!

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In this bonus episode, I spoke with Nina Power about the scandal regarding Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El Fattah and the degraded legitimacy of the British state. 

Mentioned in the episode:

• Telegraph reporting on Abd El Fattah 
• Lucy Connolly interview
• Man jailed over anti-immigrant posts viewed only 33 times
• Steve Laws speaks to Andrew Gold
• Employers to be made liable for staff being offended by third parties, such as customers or members of the public
• Electoral Commission condemns postponement of council elections
• Labour councillor acquitted of encouraging violent unrest

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Charles Murray is a political scientist best known for his work on intelligence, socioeconomics, and the American welfare state. In books including 'Losing Ground' (1984), 'The Bell Curve' (1994), and 'Coming Apart' (2012), Murray has offered an interpretation of the world that foregrounds the role of genetic luck in social outcomes. A lot of people dislike this interpretation, to put it mildly. But I'm convinced by the evidence that genetic luck is important, and that we can't ignore this factor when trying to make sense of the world. 

One profound problem that we face in the twenty-first century derives from the fact that unusually intelligent people – i.e. people who have lucked out in terms of both their genetics and their environments – are often very bad at understanding how others experience the world. Murray describes a process we've undergone since the end of the Second World War whereby a new cognitive elite has become increasingly isolated – socially and geographically – from the rest of society. This distance encourages feelings of contempt towards people further down the class system, who in turn feel anger at the ways in which they are misgoverned by an elite that feels no sense of noblesse oblige. The result has been bitter political polarisation – one of the many subjects that we discuss in today's episode. 

Find ad-free and bonus episodes of the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast at louiseperry.substack.com. 

Discussed in this episode: 

• 'Taking Religion Seriously' by Charles Murray
• Helen Andrews on the 'Great Feminisation'
• 'The Son Also Rises' by Gregory Clark

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In this bonus episode, I spoke with Rob Henderson about Jacob Savage's viral article in Compact on discrimination against white men in creative industries. 

Discussed in the episode:

• 'The lost generation' - Compact Magazine
• 'The vanishing white male writer' - Compact Magazine
• 'The vanishing' - Tablet Magazine
• 'The Daily' episode on media trust

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

We have seen an extraordinary change in attitudes towards gay and lesbian people over the last half century in the West. Within living memory, homosexuality was criminalised. Now, same-sex couples can get married and share custody of children. This is nothing short of a moral revolution. 

Plenty of progressives think, not only that this change was inevitable, but also that further liberalisation is inevitable. My guests today are not so sure. 

They note that, for the first time in a long time, younger people on average are less accepting of homosexuality than are slightly older people. Perhaps this is a result of immigration patterns. Perhaps it's a result of strategic errors made by activists. I'm joined by three people who all agree that something has gone wrong, although they disagree – subtly – on exactly how and why. 

Ronan McCrea is professor of constitutional and European law at University College London and the author of 'The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom.' 

Matthew Vines the the Founder and Executive Director of The Reformation Project and the author of 'God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.'

And Julie Bindel is a journalist, broadcaster, author, and the co-founder and co-director of The Lesbian Project.

All of these guests share a concern that the wins of the gay rights movement are very fragile. There is a very real possibility that we will look back on the early twenty-first century as an historical blip – a brief moment of victory that was squandered. We ask how that fate might be avoided. 

Discussed in the show: 

• 'The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom'
• 'God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships' 
• 'Lesbians: Where are we now?' 
• The Lesbian Project podcast 
• Stephen Ireland news story
• My interview with Darel E. Paul 
• Operation Spanner

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What Conservative America gets right about Britain 

Description: In this bonus episode, I spoke with Ed West about why the American Right is so preoccupied with British decline.

Discussed in this episode:

• The declining lethality of violent assault
• Christopher Caldwell on Trump's warnings on Europe
• Curtis Yarvin on hobbits and elves
• British Muslim crime rate
• Leamington Spa case

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to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you

get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

I know that there are many people listening to this podcast right now who truly and sincerely want to get married, but can't find the right person. They've done the usual things – they've tried the apps, they've tried going to church, they've asked their friends to set them up. These strategies aren't futile – we all know plenty of people who met their spouses in this way – but they're not a guarantee, either. 

If we've learnt anything from the social experiment of the sexual revolution, it's that matchmaking is a difficult coordination problem. Earlier this year, I interviewed Christiana Maxion, a professional matchmaker who takes a very intuitive approach to her work. Today, I'm joined by someone who comes at the problem in a very different way. 

Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico, and the author of books including 'The Mating Mind' (2001) and 'Mating Intelligence' (2008). He's also the Chief Science Advisor to a dating platform that claims to be able to match people based on A.I. analysis of reams of data. Things like IQ tests, personality tests, and demographic factors like age and socioeconomic status. Geoffrey believes that this non-intuitive approach to matchmaking is the way to bring happy couples together. 

Today we speak about the science, and also the issue of expectations. What is it reasonable to want in a spouse? How can single people set themselves up to win in the marriage market? And what role should we give to other people – parents or siblings, for instance – in the process of matchmaking? 

Discussed in the show:

• My interview with Christiana Maxion.
• Keeper matchmaking

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In this bonus episode, I disagreed strongly with Meghan Murphy on the necessity of housework.

Discussed in the episode:

• ‘Women aren’t nags – we’re just fed up’
• ‘Thoughts on being raised by a single dad and the advice to “just do less”
• ‘The women quietly quitting their husbands’

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No one is under any illusions about how tired mothers are. And fathers, too. Particularly during the early years of sleep deprivation. We're also often overwhelmed by responsibility and financial stress. None of this is in doubt. 

But does that mean that mothers are unhappy? It's a complicated question to answer. A lot of people assume – particularly, I suspect, people who don't have children themselves – that tiredness and busyness necessarily suggest that a woman's wellbeing is damaged by having children. And there are, of course, feminist ideas that fall out of this assumption. Primarily, the idea that marriage and motherhood are oppressive to women, and that these are burdens that women long to be relieved of. 

Today I'm joined by two academics who offer their expertise on the question of maternal happiness. Wendy Wang is the Director of Research at the Institute for Family Studies, and Jenet Erickson is a fellow at the same institute. She's also an associate professor at Brigham Young University. I met Wendy and Jenet at a conference organised by the Institute for Family Studies earlier this year at which they both presented their research on marriage, children, and – here's the really interesting bit – the strong correlation between a woman's experience of physical touch and her mental wellbeing. They both argue that mothers – specifically married mothers – are happier on average than other women. Together we examine the evidence. 

Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

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