Yeah, but the Spartans took things to extremes. No other recorded civilization went to the lengths of institutionalized child abuse, deliberate mistreatment of slaves and social militarism as the Spartans.

Spartan (well, Spartiate) women had unusually broad rights for that time (Even if they were still mainly valued for their ability to give birth to Spartan warriors). With the entire male half of the ruling class out of Sparta most of the time, it's no surprise that the women were given charge of things at home.

Spartan women also were encouraged to be in top physical condition and to know how to fight (the Lamarckian notion of heredity was widespread then). The Spartiate male on leave was encouraged to sneak into the house past bodyguards and abduct his own wife to "prove" to her that he was a fit soldier; the wife was encouraged to cut her hair short and dress in a man's uniform for the occasion. And older Spartiate men often invited younger, fitter warriors to their homes to "freshen up" the family bloodline with the older mens' wives.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort