Variationists use a number of different variables to explain the decrease in women's social status. The argue that increased sexual stratification occurs along with a process of social stratification. So control over women is maintained by men within the nuclear family, but is supported by social institutions. The variationist work suggests that patriarchy did not always exist. It emerged as social conditions changed and men participated in these changes.
Most anthropologists agree that patriarchy existed way before capitalism.
The key process in the emergence of capitalism was primitive accumulation, a two-fold process that set the preconditions for the expansion of the scale of production. The creation of the wage-labor force and expansion of production had a stronger impact on women than men. Hartmann examines the work women did before this transition and how that worked changed. Rural women tended household gardens, orchards, animals, etc. as well as spun and wove. Some of these products were sold in towns, so women were able to contribute cash as well as products to the family income.