English

Alternative forms

• Matriotism

Noun

matriotism ‎(uncountable)

1. School, hometown, or parish pride or loyalty, as opposed to nationalism or patriotism. [from 19th c.]
   • 1856, James Russell Lowell, “To Miss Norton”, in Charles Eliot Norton, editor, The Letters of James Russell Lowell, New York, N.Y.: Harper's Magazine, published September 1893, OCLC 20748262, page 270:

     I am delighted with your matriotism. "Rome, Venice, Cambridge!" I take it for an ascending scale, Rome being the first step and Cambridge the glowing apex.

   • 1885, H[enry] C[harles] Beeching, “Rhymes à la Mode. By A. Lang [book review]”, in The Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, volume 27, London, OCLC 780321100, pages 108–109:

     [The poem] "Almae Matres" celebrates "a land of waters green and clear," and "a little city worn and grey." […] But though Mr. [Andrew] Lang's matriotism is thus divided, he has only one fatherland [Scotland], and to that he is faithful against the world.

2. Love or celebration of a woman's influence upon society; the female equivalent to male patriotism.
   • 1894, The New England Kitchen Magazine: A Monthly Journal of Domestic Science, volume 1, Boston, Mass.: New England Kitchen Publishing Company, OCLC 6418920, page 84:

     Patriotism has incited men to live and die for the country and government; but Matriotism has impelled women to live and work for mankind. […] The Matriotism of household economics needs to be recognized as necessary for the whole of society.

3. Love of the motherland, as opposed to patriotism as love of the fatherland.
   • 1995, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, “Masochism and the Collective”, in The Slave Soul of Russia: Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, ISBN 978-0-8147-7458-8, page 225:

     The most extreme Russian patriots are matriots at heart. By this I mean that their devotion to "Mother Russia" is so intense that the underlying maternal fantasy basis of patriotism comes to the surface as maternal imagery, while paternal imagery fades away.

4. Pacifist patriotism; love of society as opposed to love of the state.
   • 2006, Cindy Sheehan, “Matrioism”, in Dear President Bush (Open Media Series), San Francisco, Calif.: City Lights, ISBN 978-0-87286-454-2, page 113:

     Matriotism is the opposite of patriotism. A yin to its yang, a counterforce to the violent militarism of patriotism. […] a Matriot would never send her child or another mother’s child to fight nonsense wars. She would march into war herself to protect her child from harm. […] Patriots cower behind the flag and send young people to die for the sake of material wealth.

5. Devotion to Mother Earth, ecology, sustainability, peace, and the survival of the human species for as long as possible.

Derived terms

• matriot, Matriot
• matriotic