History has seen many changes in the views of men, and one of these changes has been the status and roles of women. Only in the last hundred years have women been seen rightfully as equals to men. History, however, is not recent, and there are myriads of examples to how the female gender was given inferior status to males. Surprisingly, the evolutions of women's rights were not particularly in chronological order. In different times and different societies, the status of females advanced or retrogressed depending on a variety of reasons.

One example in which women were given at least some respect and rights is seen in Hammarabi's laws. Under these Mesopotamian laws, women were given the right to divorce their husbands under certain circumstances. If a husband divorced his wife, the wife was entitled to receive her dowry and then return to her father's house. There are...