Did the oppression of women in culture serve a practical purpose?

Of course it did. It is every males instinct to reproduce and further the species. In many cultures even today a man needs to have children, especially boys so they could carry on his name. It's our need to leave something behind when we die.

Now, with very few exceptions, the mother of a child is always known, the father on the other hand could be anyone. Today we have DNA testing but in ancient times we only had the word of the mother that a certain man is the father. By oppressing women they raised the odds of being able to procreate (in many cultures today a woman has no say weather she marries a man) and that the child the man is raising is his own. (if a remember correctly 18 % of men in the US are unknowingly raising another man's child)
It was also a matter of vanity, since a man only needed to be rich or powerful to be able to have whichever woman he wanted.
 
No. In fact I think the oppression of women in culture has had no practical purposes at all. I don't believe in slavery of any kind whether it is physical entrapment or intellectually or of the spirit. The rights of humankind come from the hands of God and not from the dictates of one sex over another or for the purpose of one group to dictate itself over another whether it is due to race, culture or creed. Any suppression of full human rights is archaic and an insult to human intelligence. It is also an affront to the dignity of humanity. Women still suffer in many nations. They are not allowed to receive an education; they do not have rights to vote; they are punished for how they dress. As in the words of President John F. Kennedy, "Freedom is indivisible, and when one man (or woman) is enslaved, all are not free.".
 
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