The term ‘matriarchal’ occupies a central and contested position across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a developmental stage, an archetypal orientation of consciousness, and a structural principle of cultural organization. Erich Neumann provides the most systematic treatment, deploying ‘matriarchal’ both synchronically — to designate the lunar, vessel-centered, earth-bound mode of psychic life — and diachronically, as the necessary predecessor to patriarchal ego-consciousness in the staged evolution of human awareness. For Neumann, the matriarchal is never merely sociological; it is grounded in the archetypal Feminine and its elementary and transformative characters, extending from prehistoric cave religion through the moon cult and into the mysteries of blood, fecundity, and death. Jane Ellen Harrison introduces an important corrective: the primitive matrilinear form of society should be distinguished from matriarchal proper, since woman functioned as social center rather than dominant force. Erich Fromm finds a concealed matriarchal element within Lutheran theology, where unconditional grace mirrors maternal rather than paternal love. Sallie Nichols, Otto Rank, and James Hillman each circle the term in passing, touching on its connection to lunar religion, royal succession, and the politics of female seed. The central tension in the corpus is between the matriarchal as irreducible archetypal reality and as historically relative cultural formation — a distinction Neumann himself acknowledges without fully dissolving.