Abstract

The article explores the main forms of domination which structure that category of classless societies in which inequalities of wealth and socioeconomic inequalities are absent, and which are often grouped together under the heading “primitive communism”. Our aim is to show that, contrary to the image conveyed by a certain Marxist tradition drawing on a rather sketchy body of ethnological information, such societies do actually present various forms of domination, which can sometimes be extremely harsh and formalized. These practices in particular involve the domination exercised by the old on the young, by the holders of the esoteric knowledge on the uninitiated or the common people and, perhaps most of all, by men over the women.