> The other aspect of gender roles here is the idea that women ought to stay away from battle because they should be raising children From a survival standpoin

> The other aspect of gender roles here is the idea that women ought to stay away from battle because they should be raising children From a survival standpoint, it's not about raising the children but creating the children. Men went to war and the ones that came back fathered all the children of the next generation. Even heavy losses in battles wouldn't really affect the ability to grow the tribe's population that much. And the fathers of that new generation would be the strongest and most able to survive combat. A good example of this is Paraguay, which lost about 70% of its male population back in the 19th century in a war with its neighbors. But the population recovered in the course of 1-2 generations because the women mostly survived. But in militaries that aren't going to experience the kind of staggering losses that Paraguay's forces did and in societies that have no shortage of population like ours does, the policy of sending only men to war makes less sense.