This makes me think of a passage in the Old man and the Sea by Hemingway:
"He always thought of the sea as ‘la mar’ which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as ‘el mar’ which is masculine.They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought."
In most Romance languages the sea is feminine, while it is neuter in English proper. In maritime speak it becomes feminine gendered again. Hemingway alludes to ascribing feminine characteristics to the Sea, but most likely it is due to the Tides I think. The moon and menstruation have always had an association in primitive peoples' minds, as the lunar cycle is about the same length as the menses and both are dramatic cyclical changes. It is the same reason why the moon is usually presented as a goddess in polytheism. The clear lunar association with tides therefore suggests a femininity to the waters as well. Many mythologies have primordial water goddesses as well.
There is no reason to think a woman specifically is more furious than a man or more mutable. We do seem to have this association often, but this might as well be a derivation from a furious feminine sea applied to human females than the reverse.
It is heart warming to read again this passage from the Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. I had completely forgotten about this one and many others in the Old Man and the Sea.
If there is not some factual equivalents there is not a possibility of analogies.
The attraction of the sea pulls on the desires of man much like the attraction of a woman.
Love of the sea and of women -
Fury of the sea and of women - both unpredictable - states nothing about the fury of men -
Beauty of the sea and of women-
Sustaining food from the sea and sustaining life from women -
The un-fathomed depth of the sea and of women -
Pleasure of the sea and of women -
etc. - You must be able to list more than I can.
While none of these comparisons to the sea are necessarily feminine,
the men, not women, traditionally have gone to sea and have written about the attraction - as with Hemingway in the Old Man and the Sea.
Back to my question - "Why then does a language assume gender for some nouns?" - unless your post #19 answers it, and I am too dense to understand.