Recently on the college channel here discussing ancient artwork, the professor noted fertility was the original deity power.
Ancient religions had more female deities and the ability to bear children was considered the most sacred thing.
Then men figured out they actually played a role in procreation and they quit revering women.
According to the professor, I've not verified this independently.
I'm not sure they were that different, actually.
Childbearing being "sacred" appears in Christianity too, for example. 1 Timothy 2:15 "
Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." You could think God thinks pretty highly of that if he's going to grant an extra salvation chance for that alone. Well, that is, you could think that _if_ somehow you landed directly at 2:15 and managed to miss the bigotted mysoginism of the previous verses.
Don't confuse the lip service to the role you're relegated to, with actual worship, basically.
But were the other major ancient cultures that different?
E.g., the Athenians for example paid major lip service to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and learning. You'd think they appreciate a woman's intellect, right? In practice a woman, regardless of class and status, was not even permitted to talk in court in her own defense. 'Cause they're too dumb for that, see? And, again, I'm not even talking about becoming a lawyer or a judge, but what we'd now consider the basic human right to defend oneself. If you had a husband or father, he'd do the talking for you, 'cause he's a man and all. If not, only the other side would do all the talking.
E.g., a lot of tribal cultures were described as matriarchal... by ultra-patriarchal Europeans in the Renaissance and then Victorian era. In practice those had no qualms with stuff like kidnapping women and raping them, and in fact it was a major reason for raiding each other. And virtually all decisions were taken by men anyway. But they let their women talk back! Even in public! Why, that's almost like being ruled by women! They're that uncivilized and savage, that they don't even know how to put their women in their place, see? Thank goodness we Europeans were around to civilize them
As for childbearing, I'd say that the realization that men are involved too, came pretty early. At the latest, when animal husbandry entered the scene. Even in more primitive cultures, virtually all did figure out there is _some_ link between sex and pregnancy. Even if for some it wasn't a clear cause-effect relationship, but more of a case of "sex helps too". I mean, heck, some tribes even figured out contraception. They're smart humans too.
And from there it was just a small step towards the more mainstream ancient world view that the man provides all the seed, and the woman is just a sort of flower pot where it grows. Well, in the civilized parts at least. That idea was so hard to let go that in 1694 someone even invented seeing little homunculi in the sperm cells under a microscope, and some even argued that they observed behaviours in the homunculi or animaliculi in those cells. And the resulting spermist theory would be the dominant theory during the 18'th century.
But it wasn't invented then. For an earlier description of the same theory (minus the microscope part, of course), see, for example, Pythagoras. Same idea: the father contributes the parts that count, while the mother just contributes a mere material substrate, much like a pot contributes to a flower.
So, anyway, sure they acted all in awe of childbearing, because they wanted offspring and even more importantly they wanted sex. They had to pack that "that's your role, woman" in some mystical and religious (and occasionally philosophical) mumbo-jumbo, lest those gals started asking "why?"
Basically, if I started acting all in awe of the woman's ability to cook food, it might just mean I want her to cook me a meal
