THaT is a good question, and it is interesting that no historian has ever addressed it, as far as I know.
It has been addressed, but mostly by social historians and women's/gender history. Basically, the massive gender imabalance is credited (to varying degrees) with having contributed to educational and employment opportunities for women, discrediting and undermining traditional family structures and gender roles (not only did many women lose husbands, many husbands came back crippled or psychologically damaged and needed their wives to provide for them), giving rise in the process to a broad-based women's movement (as more women found themselves facing inequalities and disadvantages alone and in their roles as family providers), and fuelling a strong masculinist backlash.
Duby/Perrot 'History of Women in the West' is a good starting point (IIRC it's in volume 5). A bit heavy going at times - your typical Annales school grand oeuvre - and not the newest out there, but written by leaders in the field and well sourced.