Women’s legal equality arose from economic shifts, not ideology or religion.

Evidence

When the supremacy of royal power is imposed on feudatories, the lord loses a large part of his rights: his right, in particular, to decide on his vassals’ marriages is progressively suppressed; at the same time, the feudal lord loses the use of his ward’s property; the benefits attached to wardship fall into disuse; and when the service of the fief is converted to a monetary fee, wardship itself disappears; woman was unable to perform military service, but she was as capable as a man of paying the financial obligations; the fief is then little more than a simple patrimony, and there is no longer any reason for the two sexes not to be placed on an equal footing. In fact, women in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy remain subjected to a perpetual wardship; but France accepts, in Beaumanoir’s words, that “a girl is worth a man.” Germanic tradition gave women a defender as a guardian; when she no longer needs a defender, she goes without a guardian; as a sex, she is no longer taxed with incapacity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 209

Categorization

• XREF: This material-determinist explanation of women’s status aligns with the Marxist strand of Beauvoir’s analysis and connects to how the decline of feudalism altered gender roles. — connects to: Abstract legal recognition of rights fails to overturn women’s concrete economic inferiority — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 57; Pious women’s conflicts with authority do not reduce to gender-equality arguments. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 121; Equality is produced by political organization, not given by nature — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 736 (+7 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that women gain rights not from cultural progress but from changes in the material conditions of property and military service undermines a Whig reading of women’s liberation as moral advancement.

Broader Connections

• Capitalist economic change, not feminism, drove women into the workforce #corroborates (0.88) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 303
• Pious women’s conflicts with authority do not reduce to gender-equality arguments. #qualifies (0.80) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 121
• Ideology is shaped within material institutions, not by class or economics. #complicates (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 129
• Equality is produced by political organization, not given by nature #expands (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 736
• Socioeconomic and political conditions affect women’s rights far more than Islam itself #complicates (0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 289