Matrilineality is the tracing of descent
through the female line corresponding
to a societal system in which each person
is identified with their matriline;
– their mother's image –
and which can involve the inheritance
of property and/or titles. A matriline is
a line of descent from
a common female ancestor
to a descendant of either ***
in which the individuals in all intervening
generations are mothers –
in other words, a "mother line".
In matrilineal descent,
individuals belong to the same
group as their mother.
The matriline of historical nobility
was also called the enatic or Uterine ancestry;
From Middle English wombe, wambe,
from Old English womb, wamb
(“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”),
from Proto-Germanic *wambō
(“belly, stomach, abdomen”),
from Proto-Indo-European *wamp- (“membrane (of bowels),
intestines, womb”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”),
Dutch wam (“dewlap of beef; belly of a fish”),
German Wamme, Wampe (“paunch, belly”),
Danish vom (“belly, paunch, rumen”),
Swedish våmb (“belly, stomach, rumen”),
Norwegian vomb (“belly”), Icelandic vömb
(“belly, abdomen, stomach”), Old Welsh gumbelauc (“womb”),
Breton gwamm (“woman, wife”),
Sanskrit वपा (vapā́, “the skin or membrane
lining the intestines or parts of the viscera,
the caul or omentum”).
