Why or why not?
Answers (2)
Yes because during the early 1900's Christianity was the religion of America and it was against many women rights and many Christians believed women are beneath men, but women stood up and got their rights. Without the rights of the individuals, women would have been out weighed by the society but that wasn't the case.
When people of a culture decide that their communal desire is more important than an individual's right, the culture is headed for collapse. We have seen many demonstrations of the tendency for people to decide that the accused is obviously guilty and the community needs to kill this creep. That is what you are calling "broader needs of society". In recent years we are flooded with people yammering something about "right to marry" and it does not occur to them that they don't even know what the words mean.
In the broader context, it does not matter what rules you write or what you call this or that. When the people decide to get crazy, they simply ignore the rules and guidelines. For example the constitution says we have a right to be free from unreasonable search, yet Bush created a federal agency whose only job is to search airline passengers without a warrant, and the people of the nation just make a joke of it. The nation will collapse.