There's never any doubt who your mother is.
Primitive nomadic cultures usually have much more egalitarian relations between sexes. Once Man settled down in fixed agricultural communities, inheritance and ownership of property mandated cultural mechanisms to specify and ensure ownership of land. The concept of "legitimacy" suddenly became vital, and with it the owership of women by men. To put it bluntly, nobody wanted anyone elses kid to inherit their stuff. To avoid this, women had to be placed in purdah and viewed as chattel.
Monotheism probably played a big role, too. In the Judeo-Christo-Islamic tradition, the Deity is fiercely male, and the goddeses of the old pantheistic faiths forgotten.
Shrine of the Virgin Athena, goddess of wisdom, in the Parthenon. "Parthenos" is Attic Greek for "Virgin"
Current Events » in reply to Re: What's going on in our armed forces?
You never know for sure who your father is.
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- What's going on in our armed forces?