First, I see the term "bronze-age" tossed about by many of the intellectuals on this board. When was the "bronze-age" if you don't mind me asking.
Second, there were some definite "issues" that some of the early Fathers had beginning in the second century in regard to women and virginity.
It should be noted that the following teachings are not biblical and sprung from the method of interpreting scripture using techniques gleaned from the Greek Philosophers called allegorical method.
Many of these "fathers" were very influenced by Greek philosophy and you can trace the view of women they carried to the tale of Pandora (Hesiod, 53-105).
Here is an example of such error from Tertullian:
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? [2] The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert----that is, death----even the Son of God had to die (Tertullian, II, 1).
You see from his writings that he already blamed Eve for the fall of man. Thus all women were to blame. However, the teaching developed that if a woman was to remain a virgin she could still be considered clean. It was for them the only way a woman could reach her potential.
Gregory of Nyssa states, “ For you are only calling virginity by another name when you speak of the pure and the incorruptible” and later “It is as if virginity were a kind of bond in humans’ relationship with God” (qtd in Clark, 118-119).