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ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WOMEN/ANCIENT ATHENIAN WOMEN HYPOTHESIS "the position of ancient women in their society makes their civilization unique to any other" INTRODUCTION In most of the ancient world, gender roles were fairly static throughout time and outside circumstances had little or no influence on gender construction. Men functioned within the public sphere, whereas women were restricted to the private, domestic sphere. This was the typical gender construction of most ancient societies, and remained so in much of the world until modern times. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LAW Most Greek women, however, did not get an education. Women were divided into three general classes. The lowest class was the slave women, who did the menial domestic chores and helped to raise the children of the wife. Male slaves worked in the trade arts, including pottery making, glass working, and wood working, or educating the sons of a house. The second class of women was the Athenian citizen woman, who could pass the right of citizenship to her sons. The third class was known as the Hetaerae. Unlike the slaves and the citizens, they were given an education in reading, writing, and music, and were allowed into the Agora and other places that were off limits to citizen and slave women. The social standing of the Hetaerae was at best at the level of prostitutes, and the level of power they achieved was only slightly significant. Girls in Athens were normally married soon after puberty to men who were typically in their late twenties or early thirties. Her father or other guardian provided the dowry and arranged the marriage. The betrothal symbolized the groom’s acceptance of the qualities of the dowry as well as the qualities of the bride. In arranging the marriage, citizenship and wealth were important considerations. Since property was involved, a guardian would want to chose the son of a relative or close friend, so marriage usually took place within a small circle. Rich married rich and poor married poor. The marriage ceremony began with the bride getting into a cart with the groom and driving through the streets of the city at night, with friends and family carrying torches to light the way. They went to the groom’s house, where the marriage was consummated. The wife had the duty of bearing legitimate children and managing the household. Only the boys could inherit property. If there were no male heirs, then the husbands of the daughters would inherit the property. The bride would not become a full member of her new family until the first healthy child was born. If the child survived mortality, the husband would decide if the bay would be kept. If he accepted it, it would live, but if he refused it, it would die by placing the child in a clay pot outside the home or by the roaside. The wifes child would be denied if it were unhealthy or deformed or even of the wrong sex. Athenian wives were expected to stay inside their homes, except when attending funerals and festivals of the cults that were open to women. A woman who was seen outside on her own was assumed to be a slave, prostitute, concubine or a woman so poor that she had to work. Child care, spinning and weaving were the most important activities in the daily routine of the good wife. Women could obtain a divorce, but if her family and kyrios (guardian) sipported the decission, and in that case, a dowry had to be returned. Many men feared tthe possibility of divorced because the return of a dowry could bankrupt a family, and men may have treatd their wives somewhat better than if there was no money to be considered. In other civilization, like Egypt, women did not receive a formal education. There only small number of women who were taught to write and most of them spend time with their mother to learn how to make clothes, prepare foods and other domestic art. They generally, did not get married until they had begun to menstruate at about age of 14. Some girls may have been married at the age of 8 or . Their marriage does not required religiouys or legal ceremony. A girl became universely acknowledged as a wife after she physically left the protection of her fathers house and enterd her new home. The new husband in no way became the new wifes legal guardian. Husbands could marry more than one wife, and people of close relations (first cousins, brother and sistes etc) could also wed one another. Divorced was a private matter, and for the most part the government did not interfere, unless upon the request of the "divorcees". The wife kept their independence, and still kept control her own assets. Although, the husband usually controlled any joint property obtained during the marriage, it was acknowledge that a share of this belonged to the wife; if and when the marriage endeed, she could collect the share. If the husband died while married, the wife got one-third of her husband's property, while the other two-thirds was divided among the children, followed up by the brothers and sisters of the deceased. Pregnancy was very important to ancient Egyptian women. A fertile woman was a successful woman. By becoming pregnat, women gained the respect of society, approval from their husbands, and the admiration of their less fortunate sisters and fertile freinds. The mechsnism of menstruation was not fully understood the significance of missing period was clear, and many Egyptian were able to determine if they were pregnant or not. If a woman is sterile, and could not produce a babies, many men solved this problem by divorcing them. A mother named her child immediately following birth, therby making sure in the afterlife in the fortunate case of a miscarriag. The Egyptians feared the second-death even more thsn the first one. The second-death ws the complete obliteration of all earthly memory, which is why names were so important to the Egyptians. WORK AND SOCIAL LIFE In Athens women were expected to take care of the houses they lived in and their husbands and children. Wives, daughters and female slaves (gynaeconitis) were the separate area of the house and was seldom seen by men. Respectable women stayed indoors as much as possible, and it was considered proper for them to keep out of the sun so their skin stayed white. The female slaves would have to fetch water and do the shopping at the agora (market). It was not conbsidered proper for a respectable woman to handle those sorts of business transaction, so if she did not have a slave, her husband would purchase their household provisions. Women also played a major role in religious activities and were thought to attend plays. They were prominent in functions such as weddings, and funerals, since they were the ones who took care of the bodies. Women were not allowed to visit the ekklesia, the Pan-hellenic games, or even the cherished oracular shrines of the Greek world. Free women of the poorer classes worked in the market place and went outdoors much more than weltheir women. All in all, it does not seem possible that most women were shut away and never seen. They could not hold professional jobs like medical doctor because, they had no access to the education the profession required, although it seems possible that they in the agora, in the production of wool and clothing, and some were surely prostitutes. Women were restricted and were not allowed to go wherever they wanted, but they were not kept indoors like prisoners, depending upon their social status. The Egyptian women in general was free to go about in public; they worked out in the feilds and in estate workshops. They certainly did not wear a veil and however, it is not safe for them to venture far from her town alone. The work of the upper and middle class woman was limited to the home and family due to a consequence of her costumary role as mother and bearer of children, as well as the public role of the Egyptian husbands and sons who functioned as the executors of the mortuary cults of their deceased parents. In the textual sources upper class woman are occasionally described as holding an office, and have executed real jobs. However, it is possible that the title was merely honorific and granted to her posthumously. Through the length of Egyptian history, we see many titles of women which seem to reflect real administrative authority, including one woman entitled, "Second Prophet (i.e. High Priest) of Amun" at the temple of Karnak, which was, otherwise, a male office. Women could and did hold male administrative positions in Egypt. However, such cases are few, and thus appear to be the exceptions to tradition. Given the relative scarcity of such, they might reflect extraordinary individuals in unusual circumstances. Women functioned as leaders, e.g., kings, dowager queens and regents, even as usurpers of rightful heirs, who were either their step-sons or nephews. We find women as nobility and landed gentry managing both large and small estates, e.g., the lady Tchat who started as overseer of a nomarch's household with a son of middling status; married the nomarch; was elevated, and her son was also raised in status. Women functioned as middle class housekeepers, servants, fieldhands, and all manner of skilled workers inside the household and in estate-workshops. Women could also be national heroines in Egypt. Extraordinary cases include: Queen Ahhotep of the early Eighteenth Dynasty. She was renowned for saving Egypt during the wars of liberation against the Hyksos, and she was praised for rallying the Egyptian troops and crushing rebellion in Upper Egypt at a critical juncture of Egyptian history. In doing so, she received Egypt's highest military decoration at least three times, the Order of the Fly. CONCLUSION In conclusion, the position of women in Egyptian society was unique in comparison to the ancient world of Athens. The Egyptian female enjoyed much of the same legal and economic rights as the Egyptian male--within the same social class. however, how their legal freedoms related to their status as defined by costum and folk tradition is more difficult to ascertain. In general, socail postion in Egypt was based, not on gender, but on social ran. On the other hand, the ability to move through the social classes did wxist for the Egyptians. Ideally, the same would have been true for wome. However, one private letter of the New Kingdom from a husband to his wife shows us that while a man could take his wife with him, as he moved up in rank, it would not have been unusual for such a man to divorced her and taje a new wife more in keeping with his new and higher sopcial status. On the other hand, the ancient Greek world was a very practical culture, with men holding all the positions of power. Women and children did not have many rights. Women were able to trvel alone, but maybe the men felt that they were protecting them. When looking at Athens, it seems realistic to say that life was not very easy for anyine. Although the Arhenians were not pioneers in social equality, the civilization that came out of athens was brilliant and very influential for both men and women in subsequent generations BIBLIOGRAPHY ATHENIAN WOMEN http://www.hist.uib.no/antikk/antres/Womens%20life.htm http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/culture/womenofathens.html https://www.angelfire.com/ca3/ancientchix/ http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/old-athens-women.asp http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/women%20in%20ancient%20athens.htm http://www.chs.harvard.edu/discussion_series.sec/athenian_law.ssp/athenian_law_lectures_2.pg EGYPTIAN WOMEN https://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/Egyptianwomen.html http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/women_in_ancient_egypt.htm http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/WomenandGender/power.html http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/11/29/egypt9728.htm http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/wardlect.shtml
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