Henry Becque noted, "The defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors". I would maintain that this same defect led early Friends to reject a push to the witness of equality promoted by Levellers for the pull towards the witness of inequality experienced by women.

To substantiate this claim, I refer to The Kindlers'(UK) pamphlet entitled "This I Warn You In Love: witness of some early Quaker women". In particular, "...to be seen as virtuous, she must accept the instruction to be silent, passive and obedient" mirrors the required receptivity of Quakerism to the Inner Teacher.

Could the women's inequality of the day have become the proto-type for the Quaker Meeting? For "though he was in essence God, Christ Jesus did not deem equality...."

Yet on the same page of that same pamphlet you will find: "Once married(the legal term was 'covert') the woman's identity was subsumed into that of her husband..." as somewhat coincidental to the 'covering' desired for a blessed Meeting for Worship. Indeed, Quaker men, as well as women, acknowledged the need for the covert/covered shelter and protection offered by the Presence in their midst. 

For "by coming in the likeness of people and by sharing in human nature, he humbled himself becoming obedient...."

The conclusion, "In the light of these legal and cultural constraints on women's roles, speech, behavior, Quaker women's activities were all the more remarkable" could easily have read: In Light of the legal and cultural constraints by male-dominant religious organizations, the challenging, if puzzling, Quaker Testimony to Equality is all the more detestable.

Quakerism, to my relief at least, levels the playing field of religion with "the same attitude towards one another that Christ Jesus had."