Women managed households, organised provisions, and produced textiles that were both necessities and valuable trade goods. On a farm this work was economically central, not merely a private background to male activity.
Written sources recognise women’s inheritance, divorce, and property claims, but rules varied across time and place. Wealthy women could wield considerable influence; poor, dependent, or enslaved women faced entirely different conditions.
Burials offer evidence for dress, status, and relationships, but objects are not unambiguous job badges. Keys are often treated as universal symbols of the housewife although they occur less often in female graves than popular accounts imply.
Weapon burials of women and literary female warriors deserve serious study. They prove neither universal equality nor widespread female fighting units. A complex history lies between “women had no power” and “complete equality”.