Reddit reviews The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings

> I think a better characterization of women's role under restrictions is that they had a similar position to that of a child. Highly valued an protected with relatively few obligations but also restrictions and lack of autonomy.

It seems to me that you are viewing childhood from a perspective of the last 200 years. May I suggest an excellent book about how different cultures have viewed childhood in history, and what value a child has had in various historical societies? At the time when I first started studying social history, this book was a real eye-opener of the skewed modern view we tend to have of social issues.