According to historians, matriarchal systems may have existed in the Bronze Age (about 3000 BC to 700 BC), in Mycenae or Crete. However, in the older, well-known Mediterranean societies, such as that of classical Greece (5th and 4th centuries BC) or those of the Hellenistic period (3 to 1 centuries BC), women lived a limited legal status without political rights.
It was not, however, a uniform situation: in some Greek or Egyptian cities (polis), women had certain property rights or legal equality. In general, however, the woman depended on the father and the husband and their action was restricted to the scope of the house. The marriages were arranged between the groom, or his father, and the father of the bride. The widows and their property passed into the care of the next of kin in the line of succession, and these, if they wished, could take them as wives.
However, one can only speak of the claim of the rights of women from the 18th century, with the advent of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It dates from this time the first works of feminist character, written by women like the English Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). The latter wrote the book "In Defense of the Rights of Women" (in addition to - just out of curiosity - being the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of "Frankenstein").
