A slight offtopic, if I may.
Contrary to what some think, the situation of women in middle ages (especially the second part, after the turn of the millenium) wasn't _that_ bad. First of all, there were no slaves, so no sex or pleasure slaves either. There were serfs, of course, and a lord could rape a peasant woman or a servant without any consequences - but at least he would have to confess it and repent (remember, extra-marital sex is a mortal sin in Christianity).
And women of better means - from the families of craftsmen, merchants or nobility - were often an asset to the family. Marriage was treated as a business contract, a way to strenghten ties between families or consolidate lands - and you would not dare to mistreat your wife if her daddy was your biggest business partner, would you? And then some women governed lands or businesses in the absence of their husbands, which was not perceived as strange. A good wife was a woman who supported her husband and knew how to deal with everyday issues at home and household. True, these were not marriages out of love, but this whole concept is modern.
And, although it didn't happen very often, at that time there were also some female rulers and female scholars (mostly nuns), and a daughter of a wealthy family who decided on monastic life could rise very far indeed (there are several examples of powerful abbesses).
But then again, Bakker's Earwa is not really a mediaeval setting, for me it was always more of a late Roman empire. And situation of women in Greek and Roman times was much, much worse.