Benephraim > social science
Exactly, this is an even better example than medicine. Lots of gemorot list implicitly reasons for takonot – how people are expected to behave, and then sometimes change them when behaviors change.
From recent kutobos:
– a man needs to get some benefit from the wife during marriage so that he’ll feel up to redeeming the wife if she is captured. He does not need that for the daughter, as any father will surely redeem the daughter.
– a widow does not get married while she is nursing. If she becomes pregnant, she might lose milk, and we presume that the new husband will not extend enough effort to keep the kid alive/healthy.
– if a kid dies, maybe we still stop her from marrying? Why? Because if we don’t, what if a woman kills the kid in order to get married ASAP?! In fact, there was one that did exactly that. Resolution: that woman was crazy, normal women will not do that.
So, most of that is being updated over time with changing social conditions. In fact, a lot of discussions in CR is about that, see college discussions.