In my story's world, witchcraft is a respected institution, with the most powerful practitioners being at the top echelons of society. Due to this, society traces its lineage through matrilineal lines. A witch has the power to summon a familiar by using her body as a conduit between the mortal and ethereal plane. These powerful spirits are forever linked with their master, and used in a number of ways, such as magical batteries and amplifiers, or for battle. Familiars are birthed into the world in the same way that human children are born, through a ritual ceremony, and grow in power with the user.
When creating a magic system, I was taught that there always had to be a cost, to keep the magic interesting. I am looking for a drawback to explain why every witch does not go through the process. One that I was considering was that the witch must have never given birth before the ritual, and that the process renders her infertile afterwards, ensuring that they will never have a lineage. For this reason, familiars are rare in this world.
In that particular example I am rethinking that scheme, because someone has told me that this concept is sexist toward women because it suggests that a female's only worth is her fertility and that having kids is the most important thing to them. I do question whether that is accurate, or if I am overthinking it.
However, that example aside, my real question is less about this specific scheme, and more general:
Presuming an author wishes to avoid bigotry and prejudice in their writing, how can they decide if some story element of theirs is prejudiced or not?
Are there tests to apply, or ways of analyzing their ideas to come to some objective conclusion?
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