Where have societies' views of women come from?

[u4ic]

24. I believe it started when we became an agrarian society

Until then, people in tribes seemed to have looked after each other, including children. This is still done in some other countries, ie it takes a community to raise a child. The theory that women live longer than men, and beyond menopause is due to the grandmother effect - an evolutionary strategy that they could help out in caring for families while their daughters had more children, and/or foraged for food.

When we became an agrarian society, pair bonding flourished, and the nuclear family became standard. Also, once we became settled, populations expanded with a more stable food source. Humans then wanted to protect what they had, and eventually, gain more at the expense of other settlements. War became that means, and since soldiers were killed off fairly easily, more were needed. Hence the importance of 'male' children. Women's importance was as a broodmare more than anything else. Then it expanded to cheap labour.

War, I think, came before religion.