The inequalities in education, income, leisure, and political power that exist between men and women in most of the world today have a long history. Our question in this chapter is, how long? Some critics attribute these inequalities to a system of patriarchy, by which they mean a general complex of male domination that pervades ideas, institutions, and personal expectations throughout society. We ask here if this patriarchy has a historical dimension, a historical beginning, middle, and presumably an end. As you read the selections in this chapter, pay particular attention to the lives of women.
  The selections in this chapter span the three types of societies known to human history: hunting and gathering (the earliest human lifestyle), agricultural and pastoral (beginning about ten thousand years ago), and urban (beginning about five thousand years ago). Thus, we can speak of the agricultural revolution (8000 B.C.E.) and the urban revolution {3000 B.C.E.) as two of the most important changes in human history. These events drastically transformed the way people earned a living and led to increased populations, greater productivity, and radically changed life styles. Each of these stages of human development brought to the fore unique methods of working, living, and thinking.
  We know, for instance, that human populations increased greatly with each of these revolutions in human technology. We know that as people became permanently settled in agricultural villages and then Clues, economic and social differences between groups of people became more marked. Class differences became more distinct. Did differences between men and women increase as well? Specifically, did patriarchy originate as part of the transition from agricultural to urban society?

To answer the previous question, you must think about the changing roles of women in history and determine whether urban society is a distinct stage of history. Thinking of historical stages is different from thinking of isolated dates or even time lines. Once historians have dated and placed events on a time line, they are able to see overlap and concurrence. Simultaneous events appear at the same point on the same line, highlighting potential similarities between societies. For instance, the development of the first cities along three important river valleys the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, and the Indus- occurred approximately five thousand years ago {3000 B.C.E.). The discovery that all three of these areas produced cities {and the elements of city life -- specialization, social classes, kingship, priests, writing, etc. -- at the same time leads us to a more useful sense of time. We can speak of an urban revolution, or an "urban stage" of history that recognizes the similarity between regions, peoples, and processes. If a number of the world's major societies undergo a process of city building at the same time, and if that process is not reversed but rather repeated elsewhere, we can think of that stage as an almost inevitable part of the historical process.
  Even if all societies did not go through the same urbanization process five thousand years ago, we can still recognize that similarities occur in the development of city or urban societies regardless of when they were formed. We, recognize that there is an urban stage of history that is distinct from our time lines. So, for instance, when we notice that some American societies became urbanized around 1000 B.C.E. and some European societies did not become urbanized for another thousand years, it does not matter, because we have recognized the process.
  When we recognize a pattern, we are able to think of history in stages, which allows history to become more meaningful and intelligible to us. It is no longer just "one damn date after another." Rather, history takes on a direction and, sometimes it seems, even a goal.
  The problem with stage theories of history, however, is that they are abstractions of actual historical events. They provide a nice plot, but because of their search for similarity and order, often they risk ignoring the facts. History does not have a goal, most historians would caution. It is difficult enough to discern direction. In this chapter, consider whether the stage theory helps or hinders our understanding of the history of women.