[quote

When Marston first created Wonder Woman she was supposed to be a symbol of what women could become.

Bit more complicated than that. Marston had an obvious domination/submission fetish (he basically stated this in interviews, so it's not crap psychoanalyzing) and honestly believed the world would be a better place, and I shit you not, if run by what were essentially kind-hearted, loving, dominatrixes with a so-blatant-it's-a-hammer-to-the-forehead lesbian subtext (there's a reason why he had one of her catchphrases being "Suffering Sappho!"). The character was a method of trying to propagandize how awesome that would be.

So she wasn't a symbol of what women could become, she was explicitly a symbol of what he fetishized women should be, but even then he didn't have a consistent fantasy. She's a dominant, and carries a tool/weapon to assert dominance over others, but also wears symbolic manacles indicating submission, and for much of her early history getting tied up (and boy, was she tied up a lot) caused her to lose her power, ie submit.

There's an obvious reason that particular weakness got dropped.

To be honest, I much prefer her more modern incarnations.