So i occasionally hear (usually good speakers who I generally agree with politically) people talk about "back when women had no legal rights", referring to the system of "coverture" where a woman was generally legally considered an extension of her husband.

But the flaw I always hear in this particular framing is that it treats coverture as a sort of default state of history. That's just How Things Were until women fought for and won their rights.

But it really, really wasn't. It was a specific rollback of rights, dating to roughly the 18th century. And at least in the form people recognize it was very specific to England and its empire.

And i think the particular framing of it makes it easier to fall into the liberal myth of linear progress.