Women in charge

Interesting idea- I'd assumed that dress like garb for ancient time soldiers and religious personnel was to do with ease of bodily functions whilst on the go

Are you telling me you don't value or invest in your house more than you value or invest in your cooker?
Because if you are I AM calling you a liar.

That clearly establishes the fundamental principle that one possession can be valued and regarded as being of more worth, and worthy of more respect, than another.


Look, you want go to a University Library and pick up a few books on sociology and law in Ancient Greece then be my guest.
But it is clear that from contemporary sources, primarily aimed at the literate upper classes, that part of the reason Greek (especially Athenian) women were treated (by modern standards) so badly was because of the prestige they conferred by producing legal citizens.  The way to ensure that was to keep them away from men who were not legal citizens.  
Yes, they were chattels, but the WERE high-value chattels, held in significant esteem.

NOTE: I am not saying I necessarily agree with these sentiments; just that they were the established sentiments of the times.
When talking of historic periods, especially the further back in time you go, you have to be very, very, VERY careful not to corrupt the "thinking of the time" by over exposing it through the "lens of the now".

Almost no one today would suggest that slavery is acceptable.
However, reporting that slavery was acceptable to the Romans and Greeks and that sometimes people actually chose to become slaves, and that some slaves were treated really well (some being treated even better than freeborn men) is not to condone those situations, nor does it diminish that horrible treatment experience by the vast majority of claves; it is merely to acknowledge they existed and that was how people of that time thought and behaved.

All The Best

Split-type lower dress didn't become common in Europe until ~ the 13th C. Robes and dresses are just simpler.

Really?

The Tuetons (ancient Germans contemporary with the later Roman Republic, early Roman Empire) wore woollen, knitted trousers - long or short - usually under a tunic or smock.
Celts of the same period were wearing brightly chequered trousers or breeches.

That was over 1,000 years before the 13thC.

All The Best

You are still making the anachronistic fallacy.

I AGREE with the quoted but above.

That does NOT mean they weren't valued, or held in high esteem.
Their "role" within society at that time was to a) produce heirs, and b) manage the household.
The former to ensure the continuation of the Family and City State, the latter to allow the "man of the house" time for War and Politics - which were the primary routes to both wealth and power.

If you lived in a society where your route to prosperity relied, almost totally, on having a wife who could provide heirs and run a household do you honestly suggest that a man with such a wife would not hold her in high esteem (relative to the social norms of the day)?
His whole social, economic, and political "career" depended on her doing that for him.

STOP judging this by modern social standards; then you may finally start to understand it at something above primary school level.


All The Best

Yes really.

Or to put it directly to you because you don't seem very good at catching an inference - before this, a 'dress' would not have meant a female.