This article investigates possible correlates of women’s overt political power in a cross-cultural sample. Rule of descent—specifically, matrilineal or double descent— is the only factor the author found to be associated with women’s overt political power. Several other factors, including sex ratio, subsistence type, contribution to subsistence, and political system, are not associated. The author also includes a discussion of political activity among chimpanzees, as well as a brief ethnographic summary of several societies in which women have political power.

A materialist approach is used to study the status of women in hunter-gatherer groups. Techno-ecological factors are tested as predictors of women's status.

The second and third parts of this book classify the economic systems of foraging and agricultural societies in the SCCS based on correlations between their institutions of property an distribution. These economic types are then examined for relationships with other social, political, demographic, and environmental factors in order to draw tentative conclusions regarding the origins of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. The fourth part of the book uses cross-national data to examine similar associations in industrial/service economies, and is not included here.

This paper examines ritual surrounding the female reproductive cycle and its relationship with female power. Data support two patterns: female pollution ritual tends to take place in relatively complex societies with low female contribution to subsistence, low female status, unilineal kinship and extended families; male productive ritual, on the other hand, tends to take place in societies with higher female contribution to subsistence, higher female status, cognatic kinship and small families.

An early cross-cultural study that sought to establish correlations between "stages" of economic culture and a variety of different social and political institutions, such as form of government and justice, marriage and kinship, and behaviors during warfare.

This article presents a materialist approach to the study of women's status. The authors test a Marxist-feminist theory which situates women's status as the end effect in a causal chain that begins with the mode of production and is mediated by the extent to which women control production. Results point to separate, rather than confounding, effects of these two factors on the status of women.

This article presents an analysis of predictors of displays of manliness, women's inferiority, deference to men, and dominance of wives.

This study examines the effect of family structural complexity, residence and descent system, and female contribution to subsistence on women's power in marriage. Results suggest that wives have more power in marriage where there is nuclear family organization and matrilocality. The authors suggest that resource theory should broaden its conception of valued resources to include dimensions such as family organization patterns.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on the status of women in relation to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

This article offers a critique of Stover and Hope (1984). Gray challenges their findings and suggests that a third variable, sovereign groups, explains the correlation between monotheism and gender status.