Short answers, pulled from the story.
Patriarchy literally means "the rule of the father." The term comes from the Greek patriarkhes, meaning "father or chief of a race," built from patria (lineage, fatherland) and arkhe (domination, authority, sovereignty).
Anthropological and archaeological evidence suggests patriarchy as a formal social structure did not develop until after the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Some scholars link its consolidation to the emergence of agriculture around 4000 BCE, and evidence of male domination in the Ancient Near East reaches back to 3100 BCE. Historian Gerda Lerner documented in her 1986 book The Creation of Patriarchy that it arose in different parts of the world at different times, with no single initiating event.
Confucianism, adopted as the official religion of the Han dynasty, established strict dictates governing women's behavior. The text Three Obediences and Four Virtues required women to obey their father before marriage, their husband after marriage, and their first son if widowed. Ban Zhao's Precepts for Women reinforced this by instructing women to subordinate themselves before patriarchal figures and to set aside intelligence and talent as concerns.
Feminist theorists have defined patriarchy in several ways. Sylvia Walby describes it as "a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women." Shulamith Firestone, in her 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex, rooted it in biological inequalities. Gerda Lerner emphasized male control over women's sexuality and reproduction as fundamental. Iris Marion Young and Heidi Hartmann argued that patriarchy and capitalism interact to oppress women.
Sir Robert Filmer, writing sometime before 1653, defended the divine right of kings in a work called Patriarcha, which was published only after his death. He argued that royal authority derived from title inherited from Adam, the first man in Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.
The United Nations estimates that $6.4 trillion per year is required to achieve gender equality in critical sectors across 48 developing countries, which account for nearly 70 percent of the world's population. Dennis Francis, President of the General Assembly, cited a projection of 340 million women in extreme poverty by 2030.