As Engels argued a hundred years ago, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, the oppression of women began when class society began. But his basic argument still stands. But to achieve this, it is necessary to get rid of class society. History shows that there have been as many ways of keeping women down as there have been class societies, and that the position of women has always been different for different classes in the same society. This is important because it helps us to understand the particular ways in which capitalist society oppresses women today and the reasons why.
History shows that there is no one 'natural' role for women.
Ancient Greece and Rome were slave societies. Women valued the respectability that slaveowning gave even though it meant many restrictions for them. There were slave women who tried to pass themselves off as free, but no free woman ever tried to become a slave. In Europe in the middle ages, serfs tilled the land for the lord of the manor, but unlike slaves they lived in families on their own plot of land and could pass the plot on to their children. Serf women were obliged to marry serf men and reproduce the labour force of the manor, and most of them lived in small households of one couple and their children.