Daughters of Isis(7)

Now the wife of his elder brother grew afraid so she took fat and grease and made herself appear as if she had been beaten, in order to tell her husband, ‘It was your younger brother who beat me.’ Her husband returned home in the evening according to his daily routine. He reached his house and found his wife lying down and seeming to be ill. She did not pour water for his hands in the usual manner, and she had not lit a fire for him. His house was in darkness and she lay vomiting…



Anubis, foolishly trusting his false wife, instantly prepared to kill his brother who, magically forewarned by his favourite speaking cow, was forced to run away from home to face a life of danger, drama and adventure. Unfortunately Bata also proved to be a bad judge of the female character, and he too was eventually betrayed by a faithless wife.

A similarly unpleasant woman was featured in the New Kingdom Tale of Truth and Falsehood where the rather naive Truth, already betrayed and blinded by the lies of his more devious brother Falsehood, was seduced by a glamorous but selfish lady. Although the woman bore Truth’s son she treated her former lover very badly, making him serve as the humble doorkeeper of her house. It was only when the son was old enough to question his paternity that Truth was finally accorded his correct position in the family.

When I see you my eyes shine and I press close to look at you, most beloved of men who rules my heart. Oh, the happiness of this hour, may it go on for ever! Since I have slept with you, you have raised up my heart. Never leave me!

New Kingdom love song



Lyrical love songs and romantic poems were popular throughout the Dynastic age. These semi-erotic verses, with their explicit references to sexual intercourse mingled with a series of more veiled allusions to love-making, allowed young Egyptian girls a chance to express their own sexuality by making it quite clear that a woman can desire a man just as a man desires a woman. There is always a danger that the verses represent wishful thinking on the part of male poets wistfully conjuring up enchanting images of a non-existent world full of sexually receptive females. They do, however, indicate that Egyptian society was unusually relaxed in its attitude towards the relationships between two unattached and consenting parties, and was apparently untroubled by women expressing feelings of love and sexual arousal.

Keep your wife from power, restrain her… In this way you will make her stay in your house.

Old Kingdom scribal advice directed at young men



The role of the woman in Dynastic art and literature is very much the image of a stereotyped female seen through the eyes of the man. In paintings and in sculpture she represents the dutiful wife, daughter and mother, while in literature she provides a loyal support for her more adventurous spouse. She is invariably passive and submissive; her private life and thoughts are very much a blank. Although this type of evidence does give us some understanding of Egyptian family hierarchy – we can see, for example, that the husband clearly considered himself to be the head of the household, and can guess that men had little understanding of the woman’s daily routine – the real woman still remains tantalizingly hidden behind a mass of convention and tradition. This idealized image of the Egyptian woman and the Egyptian marriage can, to a certain extent, be balanced by a consideration of how women were actually treated within the community.

Unfortunately, no Egyptian book of laws has survived. However, there is enough evidence in the form of court documents and legal correspondence to show that, in theory at least, the men and women within each social class stood as equals in the eyes of the law. This equality gave the Dynastic Egyptian woman, married or single, the right to inherit, purchase and sell property and slaves as she wished. She was able to make a valid legal contract, borrow or lend goods and even initiate a court case. Perhaps most importantly of all, she was allowed to live alone without the protection of a male guardian. This was a startling innovation at a time when the female members of all other major civilizations were to a greater or lesser extent relegated to a subordinate status and ranked with dependent children and the mentally disturbed as being naturally inferior to males. The contemporary written laws of Mesopotamia and the later laws of Greece and Rome all enshrined the principle of male superiority, so that the regulation of female behaviour by males was seen as a normal and natural part of daily life throughout most of the ancient world.13

In Mesopotamia the Code of Hammurabi, which consolidated Babylonian law in approximately 1750 BC, included many regulations relating to the control of female behaviour and the proper conduct of a marriage. In particular, it emphasized the complete authority of the male within the home, with wives and children treated as the disposable property of the husband. Although women were allowed certain very important legal and economic rights, including the right to own property and the right to a protective and binding marriage agreement, these rights were strictly limited. For example, it was very difficult for a wife to divorce an unsatisfactory husband, and a woman had no control over the disposal of her dowry which legally passed to her sons at her death.14