Because a bunch of whiny entitled women decided raising their children was "beneath them," and a bunch of moronic followers listened instead of realizing they could have had careers anyway if they wanted them; lots of women actually did. ETA: They've done studies that actually prove that the more attractive a woman is, the less likely she is to be a feminist or have an issue with "patriarchy." So that's really as good an answer as you can get: "we" didn't want to get rid of it, a bunch of unattractive women with awful personalities wanted to, and they focused all their energy on trying to convince the rest of us and managed to win over a lot of young fools. I too wonder why we ever started messing with it. Seems to me things were a lot better and people were a lot happier in general (certainly women were), before we did.