Yes, but then we also know of some very powerful, intellectually independent and very wealthy Catholic medieval women in Europe, like, for example, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Amalasuntha. We also know of influent intellectuals like Catherine of Siena and Theresa of Avila, even warriors like Joan of Arc. Does that mean that the general status of average women in the medieval Christian world was confidently represented by that elite minority of independent women? I don't think so. It is always too easy to romanticize and glorify the long gone past for which we have much less evidences than we have for more recent and literate times, but I definitely don't buy the theory that Celtic and Germanic women were in general much more free than women in other ancient cultures. Probably they had less strictly defined social roles, but they were far from equal and powerful except for a minority of especially talented or noble women.I don't affirm it was a definite advantage because we don't have enough proofs to establish that, but I do think we must at least ponder about the fact that in the first centuries of Christianity women were among the most enthusiastic converts and very often the vehicles through which their husbands and children eventually converted as well, and the fact that in many ancient Mediterranean societies the husband (but not, in general, the woman) had the right to reject her wife and had even, as was the case with the "manus" of the Roman "pater familias", the right to beat her and kill her if he thought necessary. A husband could simply get tired of his wife, reject her and get her out of his household. He was the patriarch, the owner of the household, the family wealth and even the children and grandchildren.For the average women, who had few personal possessions and was mostly a wife caring for little children and managing the domestic issues of the household, divorce meant not "liberation" nor "independence", but rather total destitution, social disgrace and lack of economic means and social networks to be able to survive in the community. An average divorced woman wouldn't go and farm the land for herself (the land wasn't hers), or find work in the city (most available works were exclusively male), or marry again with another spouse (she was already "too used" and "too old" for most men, and more often than not with children of another man). We definitely can't judge social conditions and customs of the past based on the economic and social opportunities of the present.