Status of Women Around the Time of the Gita

Several people said that they were curious about verse 1:41 from the Gita, which is concerned with women becoming corrupt and society sliding in chaos. I did a little digging to find out more about the status of women around the time of the Mahabharata (roughly 1000 BCE) and the time the Gita itself was written (much later, perhaps 200 BCE). Here's what I found:

"The Aryan incursion into India about 1500 BCE, succeeded in imposing a patriarchal order and predominantly male pantheon on the formerly matriarchal [matricentrist?] society of the Indus valley. Surprisingly, this period of upheaval, the spirit of which is captured in the figure of the warrior god Indra, was one in which the position of women was comparatively good. Economically, women made valuable contributions, participating in agricultural work, making clothes, baskets, and arrows. In the religious sphere, too, women had a fair degree of equal opportunity. Girls, like boys, were initiated at puberty, after which they could study the sacred texts, the Vedas, which harked back to the period of conquest in the Punjab of northwestern India. Not only did initiated women receive a religious education, but they were able to share in Vedic rituals with their husbands, and unmarried women could also offer sacrifices. However, this relatively privileged status applied only to women belonging to the higher castes. [...] Women could also become poets, scholars, and teachers. [...]  

"In the period from 1000 to 500 BCE, the Aryan political expansion was complete and included the Ganges as well as the Indus valleys. As a significant segment of the native Dravidian population had become sudra [the laborer caste, one of the lowest social positions in Indian society], and as a large pool of cheap or unpaid labor became readily available, women's work became less valued. Women no longer participated in agriculture, a mainstay of the economy, but were restricted to home and cottage industries. In addition, intermarriage and/or intermixture of Aryan men with non-Aryan women lowered the status of women generally. During this same period, Brahmanic texts became increasingly esoteric, and ritual and sacrifice grew so complicated that a longer course of study was required. Fewer women could devote themselves to this study. Increasingly, girls' initiations were abandoned and women's participation in sacrifices became a formality."Susan Murcott, First Buddhist Women. 

I hope you all find this illuminating!