Traditional wedlock had a clear mandate based on well-defined gender roles and division of labor. As long as each person did what she or he was supposed to do, it was a good match. “He works hard. He doesn’t drink. He provides for us.” “She’s a good cook. She’s given me many children. She keeps a tidy household.” It was a system in which gender inequality was etched in the law and encoded in the cultural DNA. When women married, they relinquished their individual rights and property, and indeed, they became property themselves.
