Just finished Scion of Cyador, which I really enjoyed. Cyador seems to have changed a lot between Lorn’s time and The Chaos Balance. By the latter time, unaccompanied women seemed to be considered fair game and the Emperor was an unanswerable despot. What happened to change the culture so much?

Gender roles in human society are based on comparative power. The power that women hold in most societies is based on custom/tradition and occasionally law. Men’s power is based on physical strength. Unless law and custom limit how men can use their physical power, history suggests that in most societies (with the possible exception of nomadic ones) women will have fewer rights. In early Cyador (in the time of Alyiakal) men have more power than women, but enough women have the talent to use magery. This semi-balance lasts through Lorn and Kerial, but as the chaos towers fail, that changes.