Women in the ancient world were really treated badly. Most Greek women lead very secluded lives. That is unless they were very poor or had debatable morals. The Jews had a particularly low view of women. One Rabbinic saying of the time said that teaching women the law (the scriptures) was to "cast pearls before swine." The Talmud actually list among the plagues of the world "the talkative and the inquisitive widow and the virgin who waste her time in prayer." It was even forbidden to just speak to a woman on the street.
It is into this society that Paul writes that women should be quiet during worship, and that they should ask their questions to their husbands when they get home.
Many theologians believe that Paul wrote this in a very specific context with a specific purpose in mind and not as a statement about the role of women in the church of 2011.
"In all likelihood what was uppermost in Paul's mind was the lax moral state of Corinth and the feeling that absolutely nothing, must be done which would bring upon the infant Church the faintest suspicion of immodesty. It would certainly be very wrong to take these words out of their context and make them a universal rule for the Church."
William Barclay's commentary on the Letters to the Corinthians.
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