I'm not sure it was so much rooting out opponents to someone's beliefs, as just getting rid of all the women who were seen as a threat to male authority, and sending a message to the remaining women to stay silent and do as they were told. The messaging to men here was equally toxic and is at the root of patriarchal social structures today. The men who didn't think this was right got called heretics and were caught up in the same net.

I think the awakening to the cycles of nature is a remembrance of something intrinsic to our humanity that was mostly stamped out or went deep under the surface in western culture.