This may be a bit of a depressing point but, for a long time in western society, a women's role was accepted to purely be a mother and caregiver. When you say

This may be a bit of a depressing point but, for a long time in western society, a women's role was accepted to purely be a mother and caregiver. When you say "was seen" I think it's important to clarify that it was seen that way from the point of view of society - society certainly impressed this view on women raised within it but I don't think we can disentangle the taught behaviors from natural behaviors. Some of these beliefs still stretch into the modern day in really toxic ways - my sister-in-law (a tenure track professor) got a lot of flack from tenured professors who had deferred having a family until the window had closed when she had to duck out of a semester for maternity leave.