Through the enlightened eyes of study of socialistic feminism we can see that throughout most of recorded history women have been chattel, owned and controlled by men. They have been relegated to taking care of tasks of lesser importance while they fulfilled their main societal function of bearing and raising children. In hunting/gathering societies they were reduced to gathering fruits, berries, and other edible plants, a position that had much less status than hunting. As society moved into the agricultural realm, women were kept closer to the house to keep them isolated from contact with others.
The teachings of socialistic feminism show that the main reason for this control was to protect the reproductive rights of the owning male. As soon as people had a rudimentary understanding of the reproductive process, it became obvious that for the male to insure that the offspring from his woman were truly his offspring, he had to ensure that his woman was isolated from all other fertile males. All primitive societies have extensive rules and taboos to protect this basic male right. Families paid dowries to have their daughters taken by successful men as soon as they reached menarche so that they would still be intact on their wedding night; a girl who was not demonstrably a virgin on the wedding night was disposed of as soiled since no one could guarantee that the children to whom she gave birth would belong to her new owner, her husband.
With the introduction of cities and commerce, it became more difficult to keep women isolated from the ever expanding number of men that passed through an area. The rise of property owners and gentry made it more important that their wives and daughters were protected. Less important females were not as closely watched because it was expected that they would be used by those in the ruling class as a matter of right; their virtue became less important. Thus women became sub-classes of the class to which their husband or father belonged; ranking above the lower classes, but below the men in their class. Women’s position within their class was established by the position of her husband or son.
As societies moved into the industrial age the disparity of women in the different classes in society became even more marked in the eyes of socialistic feminism. Women and girls were particularly useful in many industrial tasks that required dexterity instead of strength, so the protections afforded to these working class females were loosened even more to allow them to spend extended time in factories under the control of males to whom they were not related. At the same time the rules surrounding females of the ruling classes became even more rigid and hide bound. The isolation of the younger females became so extensive that it became necessary for the ruling elites to have “coming out” parties to introduce their daughters to the young men of polite company once they reached the age where they became suitable for marriage.
It was not until the advent of classless socialist societies that females finally ceased to become the property of the ruling class. Those that study socialistic feminism know that the removal of class and ownership finally provided the female half of society with the opportunity to become true members of society instead of second class citizens.