On October 10, 1866, the pro-life founder of the women's movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, declared herself a candidate for Congress from the 8th Congressional District of New York, even though women did not yet have the right to vote. As a mother and a feminist, Stanton reported "four hundred murders annually produced by abortion in [one] county alone," Condemning the "murder of children, either before or after birth," Stanton "pointed to the only remedy, the education and enfranchisement of woman...."
http://www.feministsforlife.org
NOTE: Stanton did make the error of focussing on "anti woman" stuff in the Bible and denouncing The Bible therefore whether at the same time or later, these points however taken in the overall picture show that it was an allowing not a demanding and the created order was nothing of the kind,
all male rule came as part of the curse after the Fall, and the mechanism was the default of the woman "your desire will be to your husband and he will rule over you." mitigation of curses on Adam was never called a sin (labor saving inventions like the plow and harnessing animals to do work) so why should mitigation of the curse on women be a sin? But it has to include changing her attitude and helping women develop what in Stanton's time was called "a man's mind." Paul warned women can be deceived, and refers to a woman being in subjection "as says the law." Now the Torah never dictated subjection except that one point, the curse, all other subjection was moderating an existing situation that was coming into play noticeably in Laban's time.
Jacob's wives complained of behavior that was normal later on, "he has treated us like strangers," devoured their inheritance and sold them. Clearly this wasn't the way it was in their childhood memory or they would not have thought it bad or strange.
So it would seem Paul is arguing (unless talking about local and Roman law in which case it was a matter of public relations only) that if a woman insists on having Eve's flaws she can keep her curse. The converse is implied of course.
male supremacy hinged on the bride price, and theoretically if a savvy girl were to save or beg money and buy herself from her father, she could start her own lineage, marrying only a man who would abandon his own lineage and adopt hers. bilateral or even revived matrilineal. No indication anyone did that. But shifts in inheritance based on adoption existed, I Chronicles lists a man of Judah who had no sons, so married his daughter to his Egyptian slave and raised the child to his own name, and it was in the rolls of Judah. Because this adoption erased legally the Egyptian blood, the rule in Deuteronomy that required three generations from an Egyptian ancestor before the child could be counted as Israelite did not apply. Effectively, the bride price compensated for loss of the labor of the girl as a field hand, and transferred the produce of her womb from her father's lineage to that of her husband's father.
The neo matriarchist crew argue women are pacifist by nature and men rebelled and slavery developed from first enslaving women, but I think a more credible scenario is this: matrilineal amazonian tribes or extended family groups were short of women because of wars, and bought women from other groups. These were of course in subjection to the matriarch through her sons and nephews, so children grew up seeing their mothers bossed by their fathers, which set a pattern in their minds. Slavery in general started as war captives, and probably predated this, but once YHWH was forgotten, and one did not credit her children as Eve did to YHWH but to themselves, then with this attitude, whether it be father or mother in charge, the child is an object, the produce of your body ergo your property to sell or kill (or abort) at will. This laid the groundwork for other forms of chattel slavery.
oddly enough, the sentimental icky notion of oneness between mother and child, a total falsehood since it begins as free floating non attached conceptus which then implants and feeds off her like a parasite for a while until it is ready to be born, this notion, while it may support the child's survival if the notion motivates care for the child, is also at the root of abortion - that the child is just an extension or part of the mother, and she can therefore do as she please with it, incl. abort. In ancient times, it was usually after birth that the child's life was on the line, if it was sickly or deformed it might likely be killed or abandoned.
A quiver full of children was a collection of future workers and warriors, useful. Of course God prohibited extreme manifestations of this attitude, killing the child for any reason but it being evil and both parents had to agree and get the town elders' permission. In the absence of God's Law however, the utilitarian view of human life incl. that of your children prevailed.
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