But nowhere, it seems, are conditions more dire for women than where plough agriculture prevails. Or prevailed. Wherever there was plough use for intensive agriculture, the fate of women took a turn for the disempowered, even abject. They became uniquely dependent, their autonomy comprehensively undermined, circumscribed, and in many cases even extinguished by a rudimentary piece of equipment and the host of social changes it ushered in.
