For most of China's long history, the mainstream social ideology was "male superiority and female inferiority", and even in modern times, many women still suffer from this kind of thinking. Not only in China, but also in history, women around the world have long been on the margins of history and the political arena, becoming appendages of male regimes.
However, in ancient Egypt, women could have a relatively equal status with men, and the marriage relationship between men and women was clearly stipulated in writing, clearly stipulating the duties of the husband. Even legally, ancient Egypt had the practice of women as heirs.
Why was the social status of women in ancient Egypt so high?
1. Relative equality of power and status
In recent years, with the rise of feminism and the introduction of the concept of gender, more and more scholars have become interested in the social conditions of ancient Egypt. In their research, they found that women in ancient Egypt had a very high social status compared to other countries at the time.
1. Possession and distribution of property
First, women in ancient Egypt were able to have property rights. A high-ranking official of the Third and Fourth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom era left an autobiographical inscription in his tomb, which mentions that the official's mother owned 50 statt lands and that after her death, the ownership of these lands was transferred to her descendants by making a will.
From this, we can see that in ancient Egypt, women had the right to acquire land, real estate and other property very early.
Women in ancient Egypt were able to freely dispose of property while owning property rights. An ancient Egyptian document records the case of an ancient Egyptian woman who lent her gold to her husband and demanded that he repay it at 30 percent interest after three years.
Women have enough personal property to lend to their husbands and are recognized by law. Such an event would have been unimaginable in China and around the world during the same period.
Especially in Hebrew during the same historical period, all the rights and social status of women depended entirely on marriage with men. Or, as in ancient China, the mother relied on the value of the child, and the woman who gave birth to a male heir could improve her social status.
2. Personal freedom
In addition to this, women in ancient Egypt were free to choose whether or not to divorce. As we all know, in ancient China, only the term "repudiation" was heard, and "shufu" almost never appeared. In ancient Egypt, women could not only choose marriage according to their own wishes, but even obtain their husband's property after divorce.
This provision of the law differs greatly from the situation in Mesopotamia during the same period. Mesopotamian law states that if a husband dies unexpectedly, a wife must marry her brother. If the man has no brother, the wife is to marry a close relative in his family.
That is, in the Mesopotamian plains of the same period, women did not have the right to personal freedom at all. From the moment she married a man, fate was firmly tied to the family, not to mention the right to distribute property like ancient Egyptian women.
In addition, women in ancient Egypt could participate in state office. Although the role of ruler was largely male throughout the thousands of years of ancient Egypt's history, there have been some excellent female rulers.
Such as Cleopatra, Hortep Horis and Queen Nefertali. They have all made significant contributions to the country or society in different aspects.
The princess does not marry
We all know that in ancient China, there were often incidents of princesses and relatives. This is because through peace, friendly cooperation between two countries or two tribes can be reached. Even, some princesses and relatives are trying to calm the war between the two countries.
In either case, the rulers were happy to trade a princess for a long period of stability. In history, there are examples of Zhaojun out of Sai, Princess Wencheng and his relatives.
But in ancient Egypt, rulers never gave princesses out to kiss, why?
1. Absolute strength without peace
As one of the four ancient civilizations, Egypt has an extremely developed civilization and economy. On the stone carvings of the Egyptian pyramids, we can see that more than 3,000 years ago, Egypt's handicrafts and agriculture were very developed.
And through shipping, ancient Egyptians could buy precious jewelry, wood, spices and other goods from other places, and then sell them to other countries, making huge profits from them.
In the same historical period, Egypt should be the strongest in the entire Middle East. For Egypt at that time, it was completely unnecessary to send their princess out to kiss.
2. A system that violates ethics
In fact, there is another very important reason behind the practice of Egyptian princesses not marrying.
The Egyptians attached great importance to bloodlines, and in order to ensure the purity of bloodlines, the royal family has always practiced a system that violates ethics.
According to documents, the Egyptian pharaohs, who were appointed as their successors, had to marry a princess from the royal family before succeeding to the throne to ensure the purity of the blood of future generations. At the same time, marrying a royal princess means that you have the support of the royal family behind the princess, and you can also ensure the stability of her regime.
That is to say, although the princesses of ancient Egypt did not directly have the right to inherit the throne, the pharaohs who succeeded to the throne were very dependent on marriage with the princesses.
Once the princess of the Egyptian royal family is sent to a foreign country to make peace, it will be difficult to maintain this intermarriage system within Egypt, and the stability of the internal political system will be affected.
And in the Egyptian view, the state needed a man to defend it, not sacrifice a woman for a short period of peace.
So in ancient Egypt, princesses symbolized the royal power and had a high social status. The rulers disdained and were reluctant to marry the princess off to another country.
Equality from a male perspective
Interestingly, most of the Egyptian literature that one can see today was written by men. And what we learn about Egyptian women has been examined from a male perspective.
Literary works are usually emotional, difficult to be completely fair and objective, which may have the whitewashing of the author's own subjective feelings, but rational natural science can intuitively reflect some historical truths.
In the nineteenth century, the famous French linguist Chambolian deciphered the ancient Egyptian script. Since then, people have been able to interpret some ancient Egyptian documents and the words on papyrus records, thus further entering Egyptian civilization and gradually unveiling the mystery behind ancient Egypt.
However, scholars gradually discovered that the language used in ancient Egypt was gendered. Just as the German and French nouns are feminine, masculine, and neutral, the same is true of Egyptian languages.
Although it can be seen from the historical documents that have been handed down, the Egyptian queen has a high social status and is a symbol of power among the royal family. However, in the Egyptian language, there is no specific word for queen, and some are just a compound word that literally translates to "wife of the king".
Even in ancient Egypt, pharaohs usually did not have only one wife, but they would have one main wife, which we often call queens. The word describing the queen in ancient Egyptian texts is literally translated into Chinese, meaning "the king's main wife." ”
Like the queen, the word queen is literally translated as "mother of the king", and princess is also "daughter of the king." ”
From these words, it is not difficult for me to find that although the status of women in ancient Egypt was much higher than that of women in other countries during the same period, it was far from reaching the point of "equality between men and women". Even noble queens, princesses and others are just vassals of the king.
In the ancient Egyptian language system, one of the words most commonly used to represent women was the compound word that placed "house" in front of the qualifier. The house is equivalent to the family, so in ancient Egypt, women also played the role of "housewives" to some extent in ancient China.
summary
Although in theory, women and men in ancient Egypt enjoyed equal rights and status in law, in a large social group, in addition to cold laws, there were more secular selfish rules.
If a woman has the same legal equal rights to vote as a man, her main duty in the eyes of the world is to be a housewife. Then, there is a high probability that her life will be spent in baking bread and sewing clothes.
In other words, although Egyptian women also have the legal right to participate in the management of state affairs, but there is a natural discrimination against women, then it must be much more difficult for an Egyptian woman to truly become an important state official than a man under the same conditions.
In general, although the status of women in ancient Egypt still existed under the dominance of the male regime, it still had a high status compared with other countries in the same period.
Bibliography:
History of Egypt