I am not a historian nor a theologian, but it seems to me that women would be originally thought of as the "creators" of life. But, ever since males figured out they had "something" to do with it, men "created" relgion in their image. Simply to give them the power to control human creation, because they cannot "bring forth life". So men came up with rituals and laws to give them control over women, marriage license/certificate, some would say "certificate of ownership". By viture of control over birthing and stating that the child is the fathers, this limited the female role to being simply a vessel for the all important male. This essentially removed the female from the "natural" role as "Creator of Life". As I stated this is a laypersons perspective.