Unlike the position of, including that of Greece, the Egyptian woman
seems to have enjoyed the same legal and economic rights as the Egyptian
man - at least in theory. This notion is reflected in Egyptian art and
historical inscriptions.
It is uncertain why these rights existed for the woman in Egypt but no
where else in the ancient world. It may well be that such rights were
ultimately related to the theoretical role of the king in Egyptian
society. If the pharaoh was the personification of Egypt, and he
represented the corporate personality of the Egyptian state, then men
and women might not have been seen in their familiar relationships, but
rather, only in regard to this royal center of society.
Since Egyptian national identity would have derived from all people
sharing a common relationship with the king, then in this relationship,
which all men and women shared equally, they were--in a sense--equal to
each other. This is not to say that Egypt was an egalitarian society. It
was not. Legal distinctions in Egypt were apparently based much more
upon differences in the social classes, rather than differences in
gender. Rights and privileges were not uniform from one class to
another, but within the given classes, it seems that equal economic and
legal rights were, for the most part, accorded to both men and women.
Most of the textual and archaeological evidence for the role of women
that survives from prior to the New Kingdom pertains to the elite, not
the common folk. At this time, it is the elite, for the most part, who
leave written records or who can afford tombs that contain such records.
However, from the New Kingdom onward, and certainly by the Ptolemaic
Period, such evidence pertains more and more to the non-elite, i.e., to
women of the middle and lower classes. Actually, the bulk of the
evidence for the economic freedom of Egyptian women derives from the
Ptolemaic Period.
The Greek domination of Egypt, which began with the conquest of
Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., did not sweep away Egyptian social and
political institutions. Both Egyptian and Greek systems of law and
social traditions existed side-by-side in Egypt at that time. Greeks
functioned within their system and Egyptians within theirs. Mixed
parties of Greeks and Egyptians making contractual agreements or who
were forced into court over legal disputes would choose which of the two
legal systems in which they would base their settlements. Ironically,
while the Egyptians were the subjugated people of their Greek rulers,
Egyptian women, operating under the Egyptian system, had more privileges
and civil rights than the Greek women living in the same society, but
who functioned under the more restrictive Greek social and legal system.
WOMEN'S LEGAL RIGHTS:
The Egyptian woman's rights extended to all the legally defined areas of
society. From the bulk of the legal documents, we know that women could
manage and dispose of private property, including: land, portable
goods, servants, slaves, livestock, and money (when it existed), as well
as financial instruments (i.e., endowments and annuities). A woman
could administer all her property independently and according to her
free will. She could conclude any kind of legal settlement. She could
appear as a contracting partner in a marriage contract or a divorce
contract; she could execute testaments; she could free slaves; she could
make adoptions. She was entitled to sue at law. It is highly
significant that a woman in Egypt could do all of the above and initiate
litigation in court freely without the need of a male representative.
This amount of freedom was at variance with that of the Greek woman who
required a designated male, called a kourios, to represent or stand for
her in all legal contracts and proceedings. This male was her husband,
father or brother.
WOMEN'S PROPERTY RIGHTS:
There were several ways for an Egyptian woman to acquire possessions and
real property. Most frequently, she received it as gifts or as an
inheritance from her parents or husband, or else, she received it
through purchases--with goods which she earned either through
employment, or which she borrowed. Under Egyptian property law, a woman
had claim to one-third of all the community property in her marriage,
i.e. the property which accrued to her husband and her only after they
were married. When a woman brought her own private property to a
marriage (e.g., as a dowry), this apparently remained hers, although the
husband often had the free use of it. However, in the event of divorce
her property had to be returned to her, in addition to any divorce
settlement that might be stipulated in the original marriage contract.
A wife was entitled to inherit one-third of that community property on
the death of her husband, while the other two-thirds was divided among
the children, followed up by the brothers and sisters of the deceased.
To circumvent this possibility and to enable life to receive either a
larger part of the share, or to allow her to dispose of all the
property, a husband could do several things:
1) In the Middle Kingdom, he could draw up an imyt-pr, a "house
document," which was a legal unilateral deed for donating property. As a
living will, it was made and perhaps executed while the husband was
still alive. In this will, the husband would assign to his wife what he
wished of his own private property, i.e., what he acquired before his
marriage. An example of this is the imyt-pr of Wah from el-Lahun. 2) If
there were no children, and the husband did not wish his brothers and
sisters to receive two-thirds of the community property, he could
legally adopt his wife as his child and heir and bequeath all the
property to her. Even if he had other children, he could still adopt his
wife, so that, as his one of his legal offspring, she would receive
some of the two-thirds share, in addition to her normal one-third share
of the community property.
A woman was free to bequeath property from her husband to her children
or even to her own brothers and sisters (unless there was some
stipulation against such in her husband's will). One papyrus tells us
how a childless woman, who after she inherited her husband's estate,
raised the three illegitimate children who were born to him and their
female household slave (such liaisons were fairly common in the Egyptian
household and seem to have borne no social stigma). She then married
the eldest illegitimate step-daughter to her younger brother, whom she
adopted as her son, that they might receive the entire inheritance.
A woman could also freely disinherit children of her private property,
i.e., the property she brought to her marriage or her share of the
community property. She could selectively bequeath that property to
certain children and not to others. Such action is recorded in the Will
of Naunakht.
WOMEN BEFORE THE BAR:
Egyptian women had the right to bring lawsuits against anyone in open
court, and there was no gender-based bias against them, and we have many
cases of women winning their claims. A good example of this fact is
found in the Inscription of Mes. This inscription is the actual court
record of a long and drawn- out private land dispute which occurred in
the New Kingdom. Significantly, the inscription shows usfour things: (1)
women could manage property, and they could inherit trusteeship of
property; (2) women could institute litigation (and appeal to the court
of the vizier); (3) women were awarded legal decisions (and had
decisions reversed on appeal); (4) women acted as witnesses before a
court of law.
However, based upon the Hermopolis Law Code of the third century B.C.,
the freedom of women to share easily with their male relatives in the
inheritance of landed property was perhaps restricted somewhat.
According to the provisions of theHermopolis Law Code, where an executor
existed, the estate of the deceased was divided up into a number of
parcels equal to the number of children of the deceased, both alive and
dead. Thereafter, each male child (or that child's heirs), in order of
birth, took his pick of the parcels. Only when the males were finished
choosing, were the female children permitted to choose their parcels (in
chronological order). The male executor was permitted to claim for
himself parcels of any children and heirs who predeceased the father
without issue. Female executors were designated when there were no sons
to function as such. However, the code is specific that--unlike male
executors--they could not claim the parcels of any dead children.
Still, it is not appropriate to compare the provisions of the Hermopolis
Law Code to the Inscription of Mes, since the latter pertains to the
inheritance of an office, i.e., a trusteeship of land, and not to the
land itself. Indeed, the system of dividing the estate described in the l
aw code--or something similar to it- -might have existed at least as
early as the New Kingdom, since the Instructions of Any contains the
passage, "Do not say, 'My grandfather has a house. An enduring house, it
is called' (i.e., don't brag of any future inheritance), for when you
take your share with your brothers, your portion may only be a
storehouse."
WOMEN IN PUBLIC:
The Egyptian woman in general was free to go about in public; she worked
out in the fields and in estate workshops. Certainly, she did not wear a
veil, which is first documented among the ancient Assyrians (perhaps
reflecting a tradition of the ancient semitic- speaking people of the
Syrian and Arabian Deserts). However, it was perhaps unsafe for an
Egyptian woman to venture far from her town alone.
Ramesses III boasts in one inscription, "I enabled the woman of Egypt to
go her own way, her journeys being extended where she wanted, without
any person assaulting her on the road." A different view of the
traveling women is found in the Instructions of Any, "Be on your guard
against a woman from abroad, who is not known in town, do not have sex
with her." So by custom, there might have been a reputation of
impiousness or looseness associated with a woman traveling alone in
Egypt.
Despite the legal freedom of women to travel about, folk custom or
tradition may have discouraged that. So, e.g., earlier in the Old
Kingdom, Ptahhotep would write, "If you desire to make a friendship last
in a house to which you have access to its master as a brother or
friend in any place where you might enter, beware of approaching the
women. It does not go well with a place where that is done."
However, the theme of this passage might actually refer to violating
personal trust and not the accessibility of women, per se. However,
mores and values apparently changed by the New Kingdom. The love poetry
of that era, as well as certain letters, are quite frank about the
public accessibility and freedom of women.
MARRIAGE
Marrige was a very important part af ancient Egyptian society. Some
people say it was almost a duty to get married. Husbands could marry
more than one wife, and people of close relations (first cousins,
brothers and sisters, ect.) could also wed one another. For the most
part, however, incest was frowned upon, except in the royal family,
where incest was used to safeguard the dynastic succession.
There was no age limit as to when people could be married, but generally
a girl did not get married until she had begun to menstruate at about
the age of 14. Some documents state that girls may have been married at
the age of eight or nine, and a mummy of an eleven year-old wife has
also been found. Marriage required no religious or legal ceremony. There
were no special bridal clothes, no exchange of rings, no change of
names to indicate marriage, and no word meaning wedding.
A girl became universally acknowledged as a wife after she physically
left the protection of her father's house and entered her new home. The
new husband in no way became the new wife's legal guardian. The wife
kept her independence, and still kept control her own assets. Although
the husband usually controlled any joint property obtained during the
marriage it was acknowledged that a share of this belonged to the wife;
if and when the marriage ended, she could collect he share. If the
husband died while married, the wife got one-third of her husband's
property. re-marriage after widowhood was very common, and some grave
sites indicate three or four marriages between one person.
Divorce was a private matter, and for the most part, the government did
not interfere, unless upon the request of the "divorcees". Almost any
excuse could be used to end a marriage, and an alliance could be
terminated at will. Anyone who had drawn up a marriage contract would
have to honor those terms, and those who hadn't could, if they wished,
could invest in a legal document. Legal cases, however, were very
unusual; most marriages ended with the wife moving back to the
matrimonial home, returning to her family, therefore setting both
parties free to marry again.
The more intimate parts of married life were very important to the
Egyptians. They saw life as a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Much
of their theology was based on the "cycle-principal". Sexual intercourse
was a very important part of this cycle, and the Egyptians were not
modest about sex, like today's society. The Egyptians, unlike us, were
not concerned with the spiritual part of the afterlife, but rather about
potency and fertility. Consequently, false penises were put on the
mummified bodies of men, and artificial nipples were put on the
mummified bodies of women. Both of these were designed to be fully
functional in the afterlife.
Pregnancy was very important to ancient Egyptian women. A fertile woman
was a successful woman. By becoming pregnant, women gained the respect
of society, approval from their husbands, and the admiration of their
less-fortunate sisters and sterile friends. Men needed to prove their
"manliness" by fathering as many children as the possibly could, and
babies were seen as a reason for boasting.
Although the mechanism of menstruation was not fully understood the
significance of missing periods was clear, and many Egyptian women were
able to determine if the were pregnant or not. If women were not sure,
they could go to a doctor, who would perform a detailed examination of
the woman's breasts eyes, and skin. If a woman was sterile, and could
not produce babies, many men solved this problem by divorcing them. But
this treatment was harsh, and for the most part, frowned upon. A more
publicly-accepted way of solving the problem of sterility was adoption,
and due to the short life expectancy and high birth rate, there was
always a supply of orphaned children.
A mother named her child immediately following birth, thereby making
sure the child would have a name in the afterlife in the unfortunate
case of a miscarriage. The Egyptians feared the "second-death" even more
than the first one. The second-death was the complete obliteration of
all earthly memory, which is why names were so important to the
Egyptians. Spells were painted on the coffin of the deceased to ensure
nobody would forget him or her. Many people say the Egyptian time was a
good time to live. It seems that it was, at least, a nice place for
women to live. It was filled with equality for them, and gave them some
basic rights that today's society is lacking.
The First Women Doctor in Ancient Egypt
Like mathematics and astronomy, medicine was quite well-developed in the
Old Kingdom. Many of the physicians sunu were attached to the royal
palace. Among them, there were degrees of specialization. Specialists
included the physician of the eyes of the Great House sunu irty per-aa:
an oculist. Other physicians were also described as dentists,
entereo-gastrits, etc.
Medical instructions and precepts were written down as early as the
Fifth Dynasty (2465-2322 B.C.). In the Vizier (Prime Minister)
Wash-Ptahs tomb at Saqqara, an event is recorded in which the King,
Neferirkare Kakai (2446-2436 B.C.), ordered the chief of physicians to
bring books with which to cure an illness from which his high official
suffered. Some medical works of later times - such as the so-called
Edwin Smith Papyrus, for example - have been credited with great
antiquity.
In 1930, in a text entitled Excavations at Giza I, 1929-1930, Dr. Selim
Hassan published the stela of Peseshet, which was discovered within an
Old Kingdom tomb{3}. Dr. Hassan translated Peseshets title as follows:
"Overseer of the doctors." In fact, the word imyt-r, "overseer," does
exist for the feminine gender. Moreover, the word swnu (sunu), "doctor,"
is written in the text with the grammatical ending for the feminine
gender, the symbol for "t". It is clear, then, that Peseshet was a woman
doctor (swnwt) and the director (imyt-r) of the women doctors (swnwwt).
The fact that the word swnu, "physician," was used declares that this
title involved a question of medicine. That the word "swnwt" was used
indicates a woman physician.
Lady Peseshet had another title which reads as follows: imyt-r
hm(wt)-ka, that is "woman director of the soul-priestesses." The
soul-priests (or priestesses) were appointed to tend the funerary cults
of private persons. As we know, women in Egyptian society enjoy high
social and professional status like men. All professions were open to
educated women and men, including the clergy, administration, business,
and medicine, among other fields.
Apparently There was a body of female physicians in Ancient Egypt during
the Old Kingdom and Lady Peseshet was their director. The contemporary
problem of exlucing women in special professions was absent in Ancient
Egypt.
There were more than a hundred prominent female physicians in Ancient
Egypt. In contrast, we do not know of any female physicians in
Mesoptamian history. The medical historiography must include the fact
that Lady Peseshet was indeed the first female physician in Africa and
in world history. This is a fact absolutely verifiable: historical
scholarship in Europe, in Africa, and across the globe has not
previously brough this important historical moment to the consciousness
of humanity.
