Revelation of the week:

Plow technology marks a critical threshold because a good piece of land suddenly becomes valuable. People want to keep particular fields and pass them on to their children. Defining legitimate heirs becomes important. Unlike in simpler economic systems, men start to worry about female premarital virginity, because they want to be sure that the children who will inherit the land come from the husband and not someone else.

- Morris & Powell, The Greeks: History, Culture and Society.

Lo and behold, the heavens opened up and cast new light upon the history of civilisation!

Now the real question is why it took me a university course in Ancient cultures to find out about this.