Patriarchy marked a real regression from earlier high status of women.

Evidence

These distant ages have left us no literature. But the great patriarchal periods conserve in their mythology, monuments, and traditions the memory of times when women occupied very high positions. From a feminine point of view, the Brahman period is a regression from that of Rig-Veda, and the latter a regression from the primitive stage that preceded it. The pre-Islamic bedouin women had a much higher status than that accorded them by the Koran. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 163

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses a common progress narrative; later echoed in feminist archaeology debates about matriarchy and goddess worship.