Distaff side

Yesterday was the Kirkin' of the Tartans at our church, always a cheery celebration, accompanied of course by the rousing sound of bagpipes.  

My selection of music through the balance of the day favored various bagpipe marches, bands, etc.  At one point, Spotify offered up a Scots Guards Band piece titled Distaff.

Now there's a word I hardly ever see and it provided a 24 hour mystery.  A distaff is a shaped stick around which one wraps flax or wool to keep it from getting tangled prior to spinning.  OK.  Good with that though why that came to be the title of a martial bagpipe tune remains a mystery.

But I am plagued with the nagging recollection of the term "distaff side."  I am certain it is a term I have read or heard in the past but when I search distaff, none of the results refer to distaff side which I would have expected.  

I have an extremely vague recollection that it does indeed have reference to a side of something and am wondering whether it might be a nautical term (flax, thread, cloth, sails perhaps?) indicating a position on the ship or the direction of wind possibly?  A military term, maybe?  The dots are not connecting and "distaff side" remains unexplained.  

I wake this morning with the obvious next action clear in my mind.  Don't search "distaff" expecting it to answer about distaff side.  Search "distaff side."

And sure enough, there it is.  From Cambridge Dictionary 

female members of a family; especially used to talk about people related to someone through their mother: 

 

In 1948 Joanna's grandmother on the distaff side won the title. 

 

He had hoped that the heirloom might be passed through the distaff side to his beloved daughter. 

 

She objects to the tradition that prevents names being inherited via the distaff side. 

 

On the distaff side, certainly, we're a very long-lived family. 

 

My grandmother on the distaff side was French.

The tool distaff used in spinning, was associated with work done by women in the home.  There is a natural pathway then from the tool used in work associated with women to "distaff side" being the mother's side of the family.

Wikipedia notes

As an adjective, the term distaff is used to describe the female side of a family. The corresponding term for the male side of a family is the "spear" side.

I revel in the quirks of the English language.