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The Early History of Women in/and Patriarchy: 
   Women in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

Most of us, as products of a patriarchy-created educational system, believe that women have always had less status than and been dominated by men.  Eleanor Leacock informs us in her essay “Women in Egalitarian Societies,” that popular images of the relations between women and men in primeval society are epitomized by the brutish and hairy club-carrying “cave man” dragging “his” woman by her long hair.  In fact, the “research” and “work” of scholars such as Robert Ardrey, African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man (1961) and The Social Contract (1970);  Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape (1966); and sociobiologist David Barash, The Whisperings Within: Evolution and the Origin of Human Nature (1981) reinforce this image, she explains.

Image from http://www.artchive.com

Cave Painting of a bison, c. 15,000-12,000 B. C. E.

Most anthropological writings indicate that the general egalitarianism in these societies did not fully apply to women:
while women were by no means oppressed in the ways that developed in the classic patriarchal societies of the Mediterranean and the Orient, they have always been to some extent subordinate to men, according to these scholars whom Leacock cites, who have written:       

·  “It is a common sociological truth that in all societies authority is held by men, not women.”

·  "Men tend to regularly dominate women."

·   “Subordination of females happens to occur with remarkable persistence in a great variety of cultures.”

·   “Men have always been politically and economically dominant over women.”

·   “Regardless of the form of social structure, men are always in the ascendency.”

Leacock explains that these writings recognize that matrilineality--determining descent (or legitimacy) through women--existed and enhanced women’s status, but it is argued that it just substituted the authority of a woman’s male relatives for that her father and husband.  They suggest that women, even in foraging societies, were basically equal to men but had slightly lower status.  They suggest that women’s role is always “private,” while men’s is “public.” 

Leacock informs us that even female scholars reinforce these traditional interpretations of data; Dorothy Hammond and Alta Jablow, for example, in their 1973 work Women: Their Economic Role in Traditional Societies, explain the differences between women’s and men’s work: equally indoctrinated in the traditional gender assumptions, Leacock notes that they write “Women’s work is . . . bounded by the domestic framework, concerned with the familial, private sectors of society.  Roles within the public sphere are the province of men, and the public sphere is the locus of power and prestige. . . . In effect, whatever the nature of women’s work, or its economic value, it is never invested with glamour, excitement, or prestige.”

Theories of early humans or their predecessors have long believed that men were hunting, while women gathered seeds and plants and took care of the children. These views developed because of assumptions or stereotypes that scholars held about the differences between the sexes. They believed that men were more dominant and aggressive by nature and that women were more passive and weaker.

In her essay, Leacock explains that the message (sub-text) is this: humans have always been aggressive and competitive, and men--being more aggressive, competitive, and strong than women--have always been “dominant.”  Thomas Hobbes, a famous historian and philosopher, theorized that aggressiveness and competitiveness were what enabled people to “overcome” their environment and create great civilizations. Certainly we can see that this way of thinking is still popular is evident in the recent (1990) work of comedian Chris Rock, who cracks up his MTV audiences with his observation to women that they will never be equal to men because, as he explains, “we [men] will always be able to kick your [women’s] ass!”

A study of available data, however, suggests that these statements are not true, that probably some bias caused assumptions to be made about data that were not necessarily true.

We now believe that:

1) that a stage of primitive communism, a stage with egalitarian economic and social organization, preceded the emergence of social stratification    and

2) that women in certain ancient societies, such as Egypt, did hold a relatively equal position to that of men, even where stratification existed, but through social processes and changes gradually lost that status as patriarchal societies gained power and used it to institutionalize changes. 

Anthropologist Barbara S. Lesko asks that we understand that those who assume that total male dominance was the rule in antiquity--because of Biblical accounts--say that the existence of patriarchy in the Hebrew Bible negates all our questions.  The Biblical texts, however, she points out, date to the first millennium B.C.E. and that “civilization” flourished long before that in Europe and the Near East. 

Leacock believes that Studying data from social and physical anthropology, archeology, and primatology in their entirety, rather than selectively, suggests that sociality, curiosity, and playfulness--not aggressiveness or competitiveness as Thomas Hobbes once theorized--made it possible for a fairly small and defenseless creature to evolve into the human being that created many different ways of life around the world.  Hobbes’s theory, and ones similar to it, she explains, has been pervasive and persuasive, causing speculation that when humans turned to hunting animals for additional foods that they were only reactivating deeply embedded aggressive drives and enabling ambitious and powerful people to rationalize their behavior and eschew responsibility to or for the less ambitious or powerless. 

According to Leacock, sociality is the abounding desire to be close to others of the same species and an overriding interest in them.  Rather than competition among individuals for an elevated status, some historians now believe that a rich group life led to cooperation, which itself led to and depended upon the development of tools, utensils, and language. 

In fact, private property, social stratification, political subjugation, and institutionalized warfare with standing armies are all social inventions that Leacock mentions as having evolved throughout the course of human history.  They were used by humans for a reason, she maintains, and their use has affected humans since, but their existences do not automatically express some innate human nature or some necessary linear progression of human history, which has been a guiding (and some would argue crippling) conception of history. 

One has only to consider the hundred thousands of Native Americans murdered or relocated through our government’s “Manifest Destiny” belief, which held that we, meaning white Americans, knew what being civilized meant, understood God’s plan better than other groups--in fact, were God’s chosen people--, and had the right (again a “might makes right” situation) to enforce our beliefs.  In my elementary and high school education (1975-87) I learned that trains equaled progress; that material, commercial, and industrial progress meant civilization and achievement; and that some white people were cruel to Indians--just like they were cruel to Irish immigrants. 

Until a student in my class asked the teacher about the “Trail of Tears,” an incident she’d read about in a book called Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I’d never heard of these mandatory moves; I’d always assumed the “Indians” wanted to live on reservations.  The teacher, at that point, explained a little about the “Trail” as being the “Government’s” mistake and mentioned that during World War II, the Government had made another mistake which caused the Japanese (not yet Japanese Americans) to be incarcerated and to lose their property.  Government is in bold print here to reinforce how Americans can rationalize their involvement or lack thereof and eschew responsibility.

                (These incidents also reinforce the idea that fear or insecurity, rather than competitiveness and aggression, can cause humans to be cruel or unjust to other groups of humans: a theorized condition for the shift to a strict patriarchal society).

                (The fact that I’m using a personal anecdote to illustrate a point is a recoupment of an ancient tradition of supporting arguments, which became increasingly devalued as “truth” during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries--largely because of its associations to the private--and womanly--sphere.)

Leacock explains in her essay that the institutionalized inequalities so familiar and “natural” to us, the dominance hierarchies, arose in the fourth millennium B.C.E., during the urban revolution. Prior to that, data suggests, that at different times, various egalitarian gathering and hunting, and later, horticultural (or hoe-agricultural) societies existed.  They elaborated ritually on various forms of social and ceremonial rank but still maintained, as far as can be determined, the equal right of all to basic sources of livelihood. The theory of urban revolution goes like this:

As a result of human inventiveness and ingenuity (agriculture and its tools) specialization of work developed, moving some out of direct contact with food production.  Barter became commerce, supplies began to be stored for the future for the first time, and Priest-chiefs gradually began assuming control of the stores, transferring ritual rank to elitism.  Equal access to land became restricted, and class systems were created--not always without resistance. (Leacock 18)

Fully stratified societies emerged in southwest Asia, and northeast Africa, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Persia.  In the Western hemisphere, precursors of the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs were becoming stratified.

 How were women treated, how did they exist, 
within these classless societies?  

These traditional sex/gender assumptions about men and women’s natures and their effect on human history are beginning to be revised, however. 

This is true for Liberal Arts, as well.  It is dangerous to say that something has always been the same through history because we don’t have knowledge of all history.  The ideas of male dominance and women’s place are being revised through new analyses of the data.

Next in Leacock’s essay she points to four main problems that scholars have to solve as they conduct and interpret data, especially when it concerns ancient societies.  She cites:

                Source Material, itself

Material about ancient cultures, produced by these ancient cultures is not always readily available or easy to come by.  Most of it must be literally un-earthed and can be damaged or destroyed in the reclaiming process.  Materials usually consist of burial or ceremonial sites, or in the case of more “advanced” or “civilized” societies--like Egypt or Sumer--written texts of economic accounts, laws or codes, or personal seals.  Much data from the past has not survived or is currently unavailable.

                 Disciplinary Priority

The very people involved in reclaiming and studying these artifacts can hinder the study of those artifacts.  Archeologist, for example, tend to concentrate on excavating palaces, temples, and royal tombs rather than on town sites which could potentially tell us more about the lives of ordinary people in antiquity.  Philologists who translate texts often give higher priority to figuring out lexicographical and grammatical problems, seldom analyzing the content as thoroughly as a social historian. 

                Ethnocentric Bias                
             Ethno- meaning Race, from the Greek for People

Societies with histories outside of the traditions of Europe or the Orient are commonly all lumped together and labeled “Primitive.” 

                This has two effects. 

1) Statements made about women in “primitive” societies do not usually take into account the diversity of all those societies. 

2) Scholars can misinterpret data based on their own assumptions, such as assuming either that male-female dyads exist as the basic core unit of all societies’ social-economic and child care organization, as they do in Western civilization or that social action is always divided into public, formal, political (Men) spheres and private, familial, informal (Female) spheres.

This has historically been a difficult bias to overcome.  Many of the Greek and Roman historians found other societies, either ones which dominated and conquered or ones which they were dominated and conquered by, strange and less civilized--just based on different customs and, in some cases, different gender relations.

                Androcentric Bias                
            Andro- meaning Male, masculine, from the Greek for Man

Anthropologists and scientists have on the whole been men who interview other men and assume that the data collected is sufficient for understanding a society.  Women scholars have usually gone along with this, largely because they too are products of the same culture and institutions.  They are trained to think like the men have been trained to think.  Only recently have men and women become conscious of the distortions created by “male” or patriarchal bias.

An example of conclusions drawn based on the historian’s point of view that might be incorrect because of that point of view has tended to be the association that in every “primitive” society, the men were the warriors because they were buried with weapons and that the men controlled the wealth because they were buried with jewelry, while the women, who were sometimes buried with children, stayed home and took care of the kids.

These across the board assumptions have been questioned by recent findings in the Russian Steppes, where a nomadic culture’s burial sites have been recovered/discovered.  This particular culture buried the women with weapons and jewelry and the men with the children. This finding shows us that the assumptions we make might not be accurate.  They do not necessarily indicate that this tribe was matriarchal, any more than the previous findings indicate a definitively patriarchal society.

A recent re-analysis of the data suggests, again, that patriarchal traditions were preceded by egalitarian horticultural societies. Leacock then looks more closely at the earliest known societies:

Early Hunting Peoples of Europe  The few hints left about the life of the Neanderthals, the theorized ancestors of modern humans who lived until 40 or 50,000 years ago, according to Leacock, confirm the essentially social nature of human evolution.  Several families shared single large dwellings, and evidence suggests that the infirm were cared for.  Burial sites give the evidence of this:

· A Skeleton of relatively old arthritic cripple in one site

·  One of an older man whose right arm had been amputated when young

·  Older skeletons buried with flowers

This social nature is reaffirmed by studies of the Cro-Magnons, Leacock, maintains, while discussing the theorized successors of the Neanderthals and precursors to modern humans. Cave paintings of the Cro-Magnons indicate a respect for hunted animals (as opposed to an aggressive desire to kill a weaker creature) and an appreciation of their beauty. These paintings also suggest a ceremonial life in which both men and women participated.  Additionally, numerous female figurines, ranging from very fat to almost stick-like but always very stylized indicate the importance of women to ritual, Leacock believes. 

Eventually and gradually, Leacock informs her readers, foraging and hunting societies gave way to agricultural and pastoral economies.  In the Middle East, the domestication of plants was developed some 13,000 years ago, presumably by people (women) who gathered and processed wild seeds. By the early third millennium B. C., (2000 B. C.) the people of central Europe were horticulturists who used stone tools, were organized in “clan” units rather than “pairing families,” and were “peaceful” and “democratic.”  There were few weapons, and no hints of chiefs concentrating wealth.  Additionally, given the group sizes and ratios of children to adults, Leacock mentions, these societies were maintained at a level well within the limits of the environmental resources. It is possible that there was a possible conscious population limitation.  In addition to high infant mortality rates and low life expectancies, periods of abstinence, prolonged lactation, herbs for birth control or abortion, mechanical abortions (or attempts) and infanticide may also have been used.

Successors of these villages show evidence of increasing stratification (chiefly dwellings and burials more elaborate than the commoners), and metal tools, which had to be traded for, became important--especially as warfare increased.

How, then, did Patriarchal Practices become so pervasive?

One answer is given by anthropologist Eleanor Leacock who believes that Frederick Engels’s theory, from his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, is likely: that the initial egalitarianism of human society included women, and their status relative to men declined as they lost their economic autonomy.  Women’s public work was transformed into private work and lost its economic importance relative to the still public work of men.  Leacock writes that “The transformation from egalitarian society to societies built on inequality and stratification was not due to a psychobiological combination of dominance drives and population pressures.  Instead, a profoundly social process--sharing--sparked the change, for sharing developed into barter, which in turn developed into the systematic trade and specialization of labor that eventually led to the innovation of individually held wealth and power. . . . The process enriched life and promoted skill.  As an unforeseen result, it ultimately transformed the entire structure of human relations from the equality of communal groups to the exploitativeness of economically divided societies”(32).

Anthropologist Barbara Lesko believes, however, that applying Engels’s ideas to the decline in women’s status is oversimplifying the process.  As we’ll see through a review of her study of gender roles in Egypt and the Near East, other factors contributed to the gradual decline in women’s status.  Lesko writes in her essay, “Women of Egypt and the Ancient Near East” that ”The growth of private wealth and the rise in importance of commerce seems to have affected women’s freedom, particularly their sexual freedom, as women became, in time at least in western Asia, a commodity of exchange through marriages arranged by male heads of families.  The continual warfare which raged through Mesopotamia for centuries led to the rise of standing armies and professional militarism, which also deleteriously affected women’s status. . . .  The insecurity bred from the threat of continual invasion and the rise in importance of the armed defenders of the State (surpassing the food producers’ importance) denied women a useful role and equal status in society.  Furthermore, it seems logical, judging from the contemporary scene, that insecure and impoverished men are most likely to vent frustrations upon the women in their lives and most likely to try to control them, and that the same should be true collectively for groups of men who feel threatened and insecure” (43).

Lesko traces archeological evidence that indicates two broadly differing streams in the later social history of Europe: 

1) that of the Mediterranean world, where the classical patriarchy of the ancient Middle East finally succeeded in submerging what had been the formal public participation of women in social, political, and religious matters;

and

             2) that of the northern European periphery where women, though far from equal to men, nonetheless retained a relatively higher status than in Mediterranean cultures--a status that persisted long enough to effect early medieval society.  

Lesko explain that the earliest cities emerged in the Near East 5,000 years ago. The first written records that tell us about the status of women in antiquity date back nearly 5,000 years and are from Egypt (which flourished in the valley of the Nile in North Africa) and Sumer (which existed in the fertile basin between the Tigris and The Euphrates rivers--which is now southern Iraq).  Of these two civilizations, Egypt’s lasted the longest--3,000 years--but Sumer passed on aspects of its culture-- the writing system (cuneiform), artistic and literary themes, and religious beliefs--to the Semitic peoples who gradually replaced the Sumerians in the area and whose city-states grew into empires further to the north in Mesopotamia.

Data exist in each culture, Lesko notes, because the people recorded their lives--not only on expensive and fragile papyrus--but on pottery and in tomb paintings in Egypt and in Sumer, on clay tablets that were fired like pottery and became virtually indestructible.  Recent advances in deciphering and translating these documents bring the people and their beliefs back to life, quashing some of the long-held assumptions we have had about them.

 Ancient Egypt

Hatshepsut Image from http://www.artchive.com	Hatshepsut's Obelisk Image from http://www.george.jean.connectfree.co.uk/Egypt2001/	Hatshepsut, Front View Image from http://www.touregypt.net/historicalessays/hatshepsut.htm
	Queen Hatshepsut, c. 1473-1458 B. C. E.

Lesko then explains the historical context of ancient Egypt as it can be reconstructed by scholars. Egypt survived for 3,000 years until the Greco-Roman civilization, led by the Roman war machine under Ceasar, finally conquered it in the era of Cleopatra.  As the culture survived many different dynasties, it would be difficult and impractical to detail that context here, so what follows is a generalization of Lesko’s findings. 

In ancient Egypt, Lesko argues, men and women were treated relatively equally to each other, although they experienced differences in treatment based on class.  For instance, a wealthy Egyptian man and a wealthy Egyptian woman were seen as equals under their laws, as were a poor man or a poor woman; however, the wealthy citizens had more rights and more advantages under their law than did the poor. Generally, especially in the Old Kingdom, a woman’s status equaled that of the men of her own social station, and royal women enjoyed positions of great prestige and power.  Although it was not always practiced consistently, the right to succeed to the throne passed through the women of the royal family.  Thus the king, who was considered to be an incarnation of the sky-god Horus, had to marry a princess of the royal blood known as the Daughter of the God because of her kingly father’s acknowledged divinity.  Often in the royal family, brother married sister to keep the throne within the family.  This corresponds to their mythological accounts of Isis and Osiris, sibling deities who marry to maintain power. The king, however, could have more than one secondary wife and several concubines.  The idea that the familial line of descent passed through the women of the family (matriliny) shows up frequently among African tribes and survived in the royal family because theology and tradition governed much of their life.  Lesko mentions:

 .  Lists of kings often record their mothers’ names as well because of their role in the succession.

 .   Splendid tombs provide evidence of this high respect of kings’ mothers, as well.  One queen (Hetepheres) was buried with golden furniture.

 .   Royal women did not dwell secluded in harems but took an active role in court life, assuming the duties of regents if their husbands died before the heir apparent came of age.

Lesko points out that in the Old Kingdom  the administration of the country was in the hands of the ruler, so the entire royal family--including, the wife, mother, and daughters of the king--occupied administrative positions.  The women had (no separation of church and state here) religious functions and officiated as priestesses in cults of major deities like Thoth and Hathor.  At times, queens became involved in political intrigue. 

 .   Pepi I (about 2300 B. C. ) was apparently conspired against by his wife, Intes, although the plot was uncovered in time.  

 .   Amenemhet I, founder of the Twelfth Dynasty, was assassinated in 1962 B. C..  The plot apparently originated in his harem.  His son claimed that “women had marshaled the ranks against him.”

Lesko then explains that through much of Egyptian history that common women also received treatment equal to that of the common men. Women among commoners assumed roles outside the home.  Murals show unveiled women selling products in marketplace and working in harvest scenes alongside men.  Women winnowed wheat, handpicked flax, spun it into thread, wove it into linen cloth, ground wheat, and brewed beer.  Household accounts of an Egyptian farm in 2000 B. C. Shows that all members of one family received wages for the work they performed; adult men and women receiving equal amounts, youths less.   Egyptians, it seems, did not perceive women as the “weaker sex.”  In fact, they could be called up by the state for labor service, apparently as part of the tax program.  Recent historians believe that perhaps the Pyramids were built by the common Egyptian peoples as part of the tax program, in addition to or perhaps instead of the slave labor that has been assumed based on some of the biblical writings. 

Lesko further mentions that there is evidence that even humbly-born women were respected for their intelligence, and the equality practiced in employment and wages applied to inheritance issues, too.  Records exist of mothers willing property to children with no need of a co-signer and daughters could inherit property and employment from their fathers.

As time went on, Lesko continues, power was transferred from divine ruler to wealthy business-types and back to the nobility again.  During this time, women gain and lose rights with respect to the men of their station.  These gains and losses occur over thousands of years, but generally, women could engage in the same professions as men and get relatively the same compensation for that work, even within the field of religion; women could be priestesses and officiate over ceremonies.  While the rulers were determined largely matrilineally, the men tended to be the ultimate pharoahs.  The king is still considered the incarnation of Horus, and the Great Royal Wife continued to be regarded as the great heiress and, in theological terms, the embodiment of the goddess Hathor.  Sobekneferu, a queen of the Thirteenth Dynasty, ruled alone as king at the end of that period (1789-1786 B. C.), according to Lesko.

In the New Kingdom (1567-1085 B. C.) Queens achieved the peak of power and possessed great wealth in the form of extensive estates and their own palaces.  The Great Royal Wife often lived apart from her husband and some of the most prominent men of the kingdom served her as stewards, tutors, and advisors.  Pharaoh would have to travel to her palace if he wanted her company.  Lesko cites a male scholar, Donald Redford, as commenting, “Here was matriliny and matrilocal residence with a vengeance!”

She then explains that there are records of the high position some women attained within Egyptian society:

 .   King Ahmose (1554-1529 B. C.) Left a monumental inscription honoring his grandmother and exhorting his subjects to render gratitude to his mother, Queen Ahhotep, for her vital role in the war of liberation against the Hyksos (foreigners who, for a time, had ruled Egypt).  She rallied the troops after her first son Kamose fell in battle.  She was buried with ceremonial weapons and military medals.  She was the first queen to bear the title “God’s Wife,” which allowed her to participate in religious ceremonies. 

 .   Hatshepsut was the sole surviving child of the great warrior-king Thutmose I and his Great Royal Wife Ahmose.  She had reasons for feeling a stronger right to rule than her husband, as her lineage was more illustrious than her husband’s.  Upon his death, Hatshepsut shared the throne as regent for Thutmose III, but after she obtained wide support from the powerful men of her father’s reign and from her own ministers and servants, she assumed the full regalia and power of king.  She vigorously continued the policies of her father strengthening the defenses and bolstering the economy (through foreign trade) of Egypt.  She led armies south into Nubia to secure that southern flank--and ensure the flow of Africa’s tribute into Egypt.  She encouraged building, and her impressive terraced temple, Deir el Bahri, is the greatest surviving monument from antiquity to a woman.  She intended for her only child and daughter, Neferure, to succeed her, but when the child died, she bowed to political expedience and accepted Thutmose III (who did not express his bitterness toward her until years after her death, at which point he had her face removed from msot of the statuary bearing her likeness). 

 .   Tiy, the daughter of commoners, fell in love with King Amenhotep III, and records indicate that she was involved in the conduct of foreign affairs and matters of state, corresponding with foreign rulers among Egypt’s allies.

 .   Nefertiti, Tiy’s daughter-in-law, was apparently much-loved by her husband, King Akhenaten.  She appears on temple walls officiating both with her husband and alone, which suggest co-rule.  In later art she appears wearing traditional kingly regalia, in one brandishing a scimitar over a cowering foreign captive.  She succeeded her husband as Pharaoh Smenkhkare.  

Such political power for queens was short-lived, however, Lesko reportss, as a backlash occurred precipitated by Nefertiti’s third daughter.  Widowed by Pharaoh Tutankhamun, she tried to seize power by allying herself with a foreign (and rival) prince.  Her plot was discovered before it succeeded, and she lost political power. 

By the Nineteenth Dynasty, literati wrote satirical pieces which reflect badly on the character of highly placed women, but some kings still honored their wives and built temples to them, and at the end of that dynasty, another queen, Tausert, reigned as pharaoh. As time goes on and foreign influences and attacks increase, Lesko observes, the women’s status does seem to decrease. While they were still educated and still worked alongside men, the idea of their equality seems to change. Literature, such as the love poetry which appeared for the first time, now reflected women in a different light, as objects of veneration; lyrics suggest a free mingling of the sexes outside of, or prior to, marriage.  Tomb scenes of naked serving girls and entertainers at banquets, erotic papyri and other documents indicate that free sexual expression was tolerated or encouraged.

Virginity seemed to matter little in arranging marriages, according to Lesko’s findings. Couples were brought together by the goddess Hathor, patroness of love and joy.  Women were valued for beauty and love but also for their skills and feelings.   The general practice seems to be that the woman moved into a new house with her husband.  Sages recommended that young men wait to marry until they could afford their own house, so the newlyweds would not have to live with the groom’s parents.  The wife shared everything acquired by the husband and inherited one-third of the estate upon his death; two-thirds went to the children.  If no children were born or survived, the husband could”adopt” his wife legally to make her his sole heir.

Women enjoyed equal rights with men throughout Egyptian history.  A married woman maintained her status as a completely independent legal personality. Lesko cites a number of examples to support this equal status:

 .   Egyptian women did not need a male cosignatory when they witnessed legal documents; executed their own wills; inherited, bought, administered or sold property; freed slaves; adopted children; or sued someone. 

 .   They could testify in court--even the highest in the land.

 .   They could disinherit children who did not look after them in old age.

 .   They could own property and have an income (inherited or from labor or investments) and administer or dispose of it.  Women could loan money, buy or sell slaves or land.

Lesko concludes her discussion of Egypt by pointing out that after the conquest by Alexander the Great in 323 B. C., two parallel legal systems functioned in the country: Egyptian and Greek.  A crucial difference, she explains, was that under the Egyptian law, a woman held the same position as the Egyptian man; under the Greek law, a woman required a male guardian to perform many legal acts.  Herodotus, the “father of history,” was so struck by the oddity of seeing women in public that, she notes, that he wrote, “The Egyptians themselves, in their manners and customs, seem to have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind.  For instance, women attend market and are employed in trade, while men stay at home and do the weaving.” 

Lesko believes that this equality among Egyptians should have changed over time, given Engels’s materialistic theory which links women’s status to the economic organization of a society.  As women’s status did not change markedly over the millennia, even though private property became more widely distributed, Lesko is able to refute Engels’s theory.  She suggests that several factors contributed to the maintenance of this equal status:

  .   The basic optimistic and secure outlook of the people and of the country as a whole

 .   Preservation and respect for age-old traditions

 .   The state’s official view that women could be depended upon to perform useful work for the greater society outside the home

Ancient Egyptian society seems to be the first documented example of relative liberation.  While not totally equal, Lesko reminds us that important precedents are provided by these ancient women: they received equal pay for equal work; they had independent and equal legal status; and equal opportunities existed in many kinds of work, including positions of leadership and authority.  Egypt’s society sustained itself for 3000 years, outliving the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations, all of which were very patriarchal in nature.

On the other hand, she notes, when women gained supreme control, resentment arose, especially because although some women ruled in secure times, the others ruled when there were times of crisis--perhaps when no man wished for responsibility in what seemed to be impossible economic or political situations.  In Egypt’s 3000 year long history, the female examples of pharaonic rule remain in the minority.

 Egyptian Mythology

Because ancient Egypt existed for so long and over such a large area, creation myths can be traced to three separate regions.  In each we see the pattern of order being created out of chaos.  Egyptians believed that the waters of chaos surrounded their world, which was separated into three parts: the earth, the sky, and the underworld (the Duat).  Paralleling the idea of creation with the Nile and its fertility capabilities, they thought that land rose out of the waters of chaos, and their god Tatjenen, personified this. In these separate creation stories, we see a patriarchal but non-misogynistic culture emerge. This will be contrasted to Sumerian creation stories, where female deities originally hold more importance than males, or the ancient Israeli creation stories, which have traditionally been interpreted as affirming a patriarchal structure.
 

In the region of Heliopolis, a family of nine gods, the Ennead, was worshiped. The first created, Atum, came into being of himself, masturbated to produce the next two: Shu (Air) and Tefnut (Moisture).  They then created Geb (Earth) and Nut (Sky), who, in turn, created Osiris and Seth, and Isis and Nephthys.

In Memphis, the creator god was Ptah, who was part of a trio of deities, along with the lioness-goddess Sekhmet and their son the lotus god, Nefertem.  This myth co-existed with the Atum myth, neither superceded the other.

And in Hermopolois, the Ogdoad, “Group of Eight,” was worshiped.  Four pairs of gods and goddesses, who inhabited the primeval waters before the world existed.  The men were represented as frogs, the women as either snakes or baboons. Initially separated by sex, they eventually were driven together, which produced the violent upheaval that produced the primordial mound.

 Sumer

Next, Barbara S. Lesko recounts details from the region held by the Sumerians. The Sumerians, she explains, arrived in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys around the second half of the fourth millennium and fused with the aboriginal inhabitants.  Their society was structured into city-states which centered around a temple dedicated to a local deity.  Industry arose surrounding these temples to provide for the citizens.  The leadership of these city-states was held by the priests and priestesses of the god or goddess of the city-state. In the early era, both men and women could have ritual roles in the worship of the deity or outside occupations.   

Lesko believes that two things happened to change this relatively equal status. First, private property developed, which caused families to become dedicated to monetary pursuits.  Once this happened, Sumerians formulated law codes to govern marriage, and marriage itself became contractual. Second, she believes, there began to be increasing pressure from bordering societies.  War became more common, and the clans seemed to unite somewhat under male leadership, which when united with the concept of private property put more power and wealth in the hands of the kings, who began to raise their own private armies of trained male warriors. Women, then, seem to be relegated to possessions that need to be protected along with property.

The myths of the culture show this change, she explains. The religion of the early Sumerians seemed to value or honor women, as well.  In the beginning, a female deity, Nammu, created the gods and the universe and was, accordingly the highest-ranking deity.  However, once the list of deities was drawn up, her ranking was decreased, and her son Enki was assigned the functions formerly ascribed to her. Another female deity of the culture with much respect was Inanna, the “queen of heaven,” who was the personification of female sexuality, who was involved in the annual sacred marriage rite the ruler participated in to ensure the ongoing fertility of nature and the continuance of the human race. The first known female poet, a Sumerian priestess named Enheduanna, composes "Exaltation of Inanna," a hymn to the Great Goddess.

 Assyria

Lesko then explains that the Sumerians as a cultural group disappeared early in the second millennium after famine and invasion.  She then focuses on the Amorite peoples, largely dependent upon livestock breeding and trading, a male associated profession, who took over the region.  In Assyria, she explains, misogyny borne out of a “patriarchy in the extreme” seems to be the rule of gender relations.  Assyrians, unlike Egyptians, expressed little or no faith in an afterlife; their law code then is extremely harsh as all penalties for improper behavior cannot be left for the “next” life. Private property was extremely important, and women had no right to property.  Their fathers or their husbands controlled everything. A husband could give property his wife brought into their marriage to anyone at anytime. However, a woman could still be held responsible for her husband’s debts, and daughters could actually be enslaved for their father’s debts.

Lesko then goes on to explain some aspects of the culture which seem very cruel to women by modern American standards. Women who were victims of crime, she notes, usually suffered at the hands of justice.  A virgin who was raped by a man would be made to marry him, perhaps because he had claimed her only asset or perhaps because the rape was seen as being her fault. A rapist was punished by having his own wife raped by the victim’s father; the rapist of a married woman was put to death. Along with these instances of “justice,” Leko explains that female sexuality was intensely regulated.  As the descent was patrilineal, legitimacy was guaranteed by restricting women.  Virginity was prized for brides, and women needed to be veiled when in public.  Even queens were highly restricted, guarded by eunuchs along with their husbands’ concubines in the kings’ harems. Many offenses under the law code could result in a woman’s death, such as abortion, adultery, or “suspicious” activities outside the home.  

Even in this extremely patriarchal culture there is evidence that some noble woman could wield some power. Queen Sammuramat, or Semiramis, ruled the Assyrian Empire for five years following her husband's death, from 811-817 B. C. E.. Although she was officially her son's regent, records indicate that she held the actual power during that time.

As we will see with our study of the earliest creation myths across several societies, a pattern seems to emerge in ancient history: that of a creative mother goddess or a creative male/female deity pair that, over time and corresponding to the development and entrenchment of patriarchy, gets replaced with a male creative deity/deities.

Most text excerpted from:

Leacock, Eleanor.  “Women in Egalitarian Societies.” Becoming Visible: Women
        in European History. Eds. Renate Bridenthal et al. Geneva, Illinois: Houghton
        Mifflin Company, 1987. 15-38.

Lester, Barbara S. “Women of Egypt and the Ancient Near East.” Becoming Visible:
        Women in European History. Eds. Renate Bridenthal et al. Geneva, Illinois:
        Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987. 41-77.

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This page was last updated on 30 May 2006 . Copyright Kimberly M. Radek, 2001.