Gittin 16: Ritual Agency 'In Part'; Two Agents, Four Statements?

Washing hands properly is required to ensure that one's hands are ritually pure.  The rabbis discuss whether or not one might become ritually impure through the use of water improperly.  This includes things like part of a hand being washed, transferring the moist water from that hand to another object, connecting two parts of water in an attempt to create a larger, ritually pure pool of water, etc.  The rabbis consider whether or not a mikvah is kosher if it begins with exactly 40 se'a of water and one person immerses and then leaves.  Two people could immerse simultaneously and become ritually pure, but in the first scenario, the second person would enter a mikvah with slightly less than 40 se'a of water.

We learn in a note by Steinsaltz that mikvahs were often dirtied by the many people entering them.  People began to rinse off in drawn water following the ritual immersion.  To ensure that the primary importance of immersion in the mikvah would not be lost, the rabbis ruled that immersion in drawn water/falling water would cause ritual impurity.

In cases of seminal emissions (whether intentional, unintentional, or during intercourse), men were permitted to immerse half of their bodies while nine kav of drawn water was poured over the other half.  Immersion had to be completed before touching certain items or partaking of terumah (immersion with ritual purity achieved at nightfall).  However, notes teach us that the custom today is usually much more lenient: men need not immerse at all following an emission and they are permitted to pray, study Torah, and say the shema without transgressing laws of ritual purity.

Amud (b) brings us back to the questions about agents, witnesses, and gittin brought to Israel from foreign lands.  The rabbis discuss cases where two agents bring the document together.  Perhaps one attests to witnessing the signing and the other attests to witnessing the writing.  While our Sages did not make decrees based on unusual cases (such as this), Rabbi Yehuda deems the get valid.  Even without witnesses consistent with other forms of law, in this case, he states that the document would in fact be written and signed for her sake.  

Our daf ends with a tale about Rabbi bar bar Chana who is visited by Rav Yehuda and Rabba.  They ask him whether or not two witnesses must both state that they witnessed the writing and signing of a get delivered from overseas.  Rabbi bar bar Chana reasons that they need not validate in this particular way.  All they need to state is that the husband has ordered them to bring the document; if the husband ordered its delivery, he must have written and signed the document.  And thus the husband would have no grounds for further recourse.

It is fascinating to compare the rituals around ritual impurity for men and for women.  What are the customs that have been maintained?  Why have other rituals fallen aside?  And if the rituals for male ritual purity have diminished and yet men continue to be "Torah Jews", why can't we begin to change to rules regarding women's ritual purity without fearing the destruction of Judaism as we know it?  Many orthodox women suffer under the current stringent halachot of ritual purity.  Why must these customs be maintained in ways that can distance women from their Jewish connections?