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Egyptian civilization belongs to the agrarian civilization. The ancient Egyptians lived on the Nile and created the immortal Egyptian civilization. In terms of materiality, Egypt has well-known pyramids, mummies, sphinxes and other masterpieces that will amaze future generations.
Spiritually, Egyptian civilization is not as good as the later Hebrew civilization, but as a typical agricultural civilization, it occupies an important position in the process of human development.
The Egyptians lived on the fertile land gifted by the Nile, and we know that the Nile floods regularly, and although it affects agriculture, the soil left behind by the flooding also becomes fertile soil for the Egyptians to cultivate.
They determined the flood season according to the flooding cycle of the Nile, and the flood waters receded to sow seeds and harvested in the spring. According to this cycle, a step-by-step farming life was lived.
The Nile is also Egypt's natural waterway and main water source. Therefore, the water of the Nile River gave life to Egypt and continued to nurture the entire Egyptian society.
The Egyptians called the Nile the mother river and worshipped it as a god, composing carols, hymns, myths, etc. for the Nile. The favorable ecological conditions of the Nile increased the productivity of the Egyptians, promoted the development of production and the progress of agricultural civilization.
Most ordinary Egyptians lived mainly on agriculture, so they followed the rule of "sunrise and sunset", and their farming technology was in the leading position in the world at that time.
Egypt is an agricultural country, economically manifested as an agricultural economy, agriculture is the basis of national development, Egypt's political, military, social and cultural development are inseparable from the development of agriculture. Therefore, agriculture is the main industry in Egypt, and farmers are the main labor force.
As in most agricultural countries, the country's main source of income is taxes paid by farmers, whose harvests are handed over and left for trade as they need.
The development of agriculture is related to the stability of the regime, so the Egyptian pharaohs attached great importance to the development of agriculture. In addition to agriculture, the weaving industry in Egypt is also very developed, because in addition to people making clothes, a large amount of cloth is needed to wrap corpses and make mummies. They also fired pottery, built water conservancy, and built the pyramids of the pharaohs, creating a glorious agricultural civilization.
Ancient Egyptian civilization has its own distinctive characteristics, due to the influence of the geographical environment, its civilization is rarely influenced by the outside world, belonging to the indigenous civilization; Egyptian culture is generally stable and continuous, but by no means static, it is constantly moving forward and gradual;
Culturally, religion had a great influence on the lives of ancient Egyptians and played a dominant role, which can be found from the relics they left behind, and the Egyptian nation also created a culture with national characteristics, with its own national costumes, songs and dances, living habits and customs.
In the past, I mentioned that women in ancient Egypt engaged in many occupations in the family and society, as well as in commercial trade. Women also have a place in many industries, especially textiles.
Herodotus claimed that in Egypt "women entered the market and were employed in trade, while men stayed at home and weaved." Herodotus may have exaggerated this phenomenon, but it is undeniable that, unlike in other parts of the ancient world, women did trade in Egyptian history.
In the mural of the tomb of Kenamon, the mayor of Thebes during the reign of Amenhotep III, we are shown a scene of a harbor with two men and a woman selling cloth and sandals.
In the mural of Dir Medinaypi's tomb, a man pours grain into a woman's basket, and a woman sells beer and produce from a vegetable garden, such as honey. The value created by women's participation in the labour force is considerable.
During the Middle Kingdom, a male head of household, Hegankot, had a lot of land in his family, and not only did he have excess land to rent out, but part of his income came from the cloth spun by women, and during the New Kingdom, a woman accumulated enough money to buy goods, even slaves.
When asked how she had the money to buy slaves, she replied, "I sell the produce from my garden in exchange for slaves." Another woman, in the years of famine, traded silver for food.
According to this evidence, the ancient Egyptian peasants under the agrarian civilization guarded their one-acre and three-point fields and lived a life of "men and women weaving, self-sufficiency".
And you can also trade the remaining agricultural products. At that time, most of the cloth, agricultural products, bread, beer, etc. were produced by women, and the income was used to support the family.
It is precisely because women in ancient Egypt played an incomparably important role in family production and life that they often held a certain amount of economic power. As a result, ancient Egyptian women had a higher status in Egyptian society.
Ancient Egyptian social development experienced a period of matrilineal clans, in which women gave birth to offspring to expand the size of the tribe, and during this period, because of the lack of planting and breeding, most of the human food sources relied on hunting and gathering, but the way to obtain food through hunting was unstable.
Women found that hunted prey could be domesticated for captivity, and when collecting plant fruits, they found that seeds fell and new shoots grew in the soil.
These are the production experience accumulated by women in gathering, expanding the tribe's food source, slowly forming breeding and animal husbandry, and then hunting becomes less important, so that the tribe development becomes more and more dependent on women, and the status of women becomes important.
Women play a greater role than men at the time of collection and in producing offspring, and women have a higher status than men. Although with the development of productive forces, men play a greater role in social development than women, and their status is lower than that of men.
But its tradition of high status and respect for women also influenced the perception of women in ancient Egyptian society. It can be said that the status of women in ancient Egypt was naturally formed in life and production, rarely influenced by the outside world, and was the inevitable development of history.
Relatively speaking, the nomadic life of Hebrew has made Hebrew society constantly accept foreign civilizations, and its female status is not only influenced by nomadic life, but also by surrounding peoples and civilizations, which is the main reason for the difference between the two.
The Hebrew civilization belongs to the nomadic civilization. Unlike Egypt, before the Hebrew settlement, it was a nomadic people, which was characterized by no fixed place to live and a difficult living environment.
Nomadic herders grazing is inevitably influenced by the natural environment, which makes them have to migrate and move frequently in search of aquatic grass resources. Hebrew society was made up of nomadic tribes.
Before the settlement of Canaan, the Hebrews were in nomadic tribes, and the nomadic nature made them move at any time, had no fixed territory, and lived and produced within a general range, so that many of their daily necessities needed to be exchanged with the goods of the surrounding peoples.
The lack of domestic demand is one of the important reasons why they develop commodity exchange and form commercial trade activities. Therefore, nomads can easily form a commercial culture, and Hebrew society has a strong commercial atmosphere, and is called "natural merchant".
The Hebrews lived in Canaan, halfway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert, a rich region compared to the desert environment that surrounded it.
Canaan is known by historians as the "fertile crescent," and the Hebrew Bible describes the region of Canaan several times as a land "flowing with milk and honey."
In fact, it is full of sand dunes and rocks, and the water and grass are not abundant, and it is obviously impossible to develop agriculture and breeding here like Egypt.
The Israeli Jewish scholar Abba Eban, in his book History of the Jews, wrote that a road in Canaan ran through the coastal plain through which armies and caravans from countries on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers entered the Nile Delta.
That is to say, trade between ancient Egypt and ancient Babylon had to pass through the Canaanite region. Located in the middle of the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, Canaan is the necessary place and corridor for trade between the East and the West.
Canaan is also located in the center of the Middle East, an important strategic point and transportation artery, and neighboring countries and peoples fight for control of the Middle East, resulting in frequent wars here.
But it also makes it an important place for communication between different countries, different ethnic groups and tribes. In such a social environment, the Hebrew nation absorbed the achievements of other civilizations to form its own unique culture, and also gave birth to the Hebrew business consciousness.
Insufficient domestic demand and the location of transportation hubs caused the Hebrews to engage in commercial trade activities and develop a market economy long ago.
During Solomon's reign, emphasis was placed on the development of trade, and the fleet formed developed Hebrew trade to Arabia, India, Spain and other countries, not just to the surrounding areas.
In such a social environment, men play a greater role than women. Due to the geographical environment, nomads could not develop agriculture and animal husbandry, so animal husbandry was the main industry of Hebrew society, and grazing mainly depended on men.
During the migration in search of aquatic resources, women may become a burden due to physical factors. In the process of trade, it is necessary to travel long distances with goods, and in terms of physical and psychological comparison, men have more advantages than women.
As a result, the parties to the contract are mostly male. When competing for territory and resources, they often go to war with other tribes and peoples, and men are better at fighting than women in order to win the war.
The Hebrews valued fertility, especially boys. Because boys can increase family wealth, expand family size and maintain family property when they grow up, the Hebrew development of society depends on men, and the expansion of tribes also depends on men.
One of the reasons why women in Hebrew society do not have inheritance rights is that girls grow up and marry into their husbands' families, and if they are given inheritance rights, they will lead to the loss of family property, and the rise and fall of the family is not based on the number of daughters.
So when Boaz and Ruth got married, the blessing was: "May Avid make this woman who enters your house like Rachel and Leah who established the house of Israel." "So having a boy is especially important for Hebrew women. It is for these reasons that women in Hebrew society became vassals of men and had a lower status than men.