I'm listening to the history of Rome podcast, and it seems like the Romans did not hold women in high regard.
Were the Sassanids, in say, 400 or 500 AD, like their western neighbors?
Could women exist independently of husbands/fathers?
Could women own businesses?
Did women have equal contractual rights and fair rules governing divorce?
Could women hold formal military, political, and religious power?
From an ideological point of view the role of women was abysmal. Blood was seen a pollutant and the regular menstrual bleeding that women experienced didn't help their status. They were to be segregated and prohibited from many activities during the extent of their menstruation. The paternalistic attitude towards woman that has been characteristic of many societies apply to the Sassanian period as well and from a legal point of view women were likened to slaves and children. Women were to be obedient to the head of their household, be it a husband or father. Women were expected to cover their head and feet to fit ideas of modest dress.The ideal age for a person to be wed was set at 15 for men and a significantly younger nine for women. Polygamy was accepted, with a primary wife who received more rights than her husband's other wives. In order to secure an heir men had the possibility to have different men procreate with their wives. A position preferably given to kin. Daughters had a similar moral obligation. In spite of all the previous, women had the right to initiate divorce. The state sponsored Zoroastrianism regulated matters relating to divorce in some detail. The regulations did much to affirm the authority of the head of the family, usually the father. However they also stipulated that after an unlawful divorce the divorced wife was entitled to compensation. If the wife initiated the divorce her dowry was to be returned, but any additional value derived from the dowry was not.
In the aftermath of the Roman wars a Queen Buran ruled the empire for two years. She came to power after all the male heirs of the last two generations were killed and the male warlord who tried to usurp the throne was also killed. She to lost her throne to another warlord, indicative of the state of Sassanian kingship in her age.
The Sassanian Empire was pluralistic. Besides Persian Zoroastrians there were significant populations of Jews, Nestorian Christians, Manicheism. A Pillarisation similar to that which has become iconic of the later Ottoman Empire developed where different religions were given authority over their own flocks.