Marriage In The Women

Ancient Egyptians are one of the earliest nations which use marriage contracts to protect the rights of women. Nowadays, the greater part of these marriage contracts were saved from Ptolemaic period, most of them were written in demotic, the others were in Greek. As the private documents which had close relationships to family life after marriage, marriage contracts of ancient Egyptian people not only directly concerned with various rights and duties of women in marriage relationship, but also indirectly reflected the impacts that social change had made on women’s family status. All these things provide us a peculiar view to observe the ancient Egyptian women in the private sphere. This thesis takes marriage contracts as a starting point to research ancient Egyptian women’s living conditions and family status in four chapters.The first chapter observing bride-price, dowry and the terms of maintenance in the records of demotic marriage contacts, analyzes economic situations of married women and relationships between women and their husbands. According to the information provided by marriage contracts, whether it was a bride-price given by man, or the dowry delivered by woman, husband had the dominant power of managing and controlling these family properties. In addition, the detailed measures of maintenance formulated by marriage contracts actually reflected the wives’ dependence on their husbands from another side. Husbands’ support was their most important and most stable source of income.The second chapter elaborates that terms of divorce in demotic marriage contracts played a different role in the maintenance and restrictions of related rights and interests of their wives. And further examines the realities of divorced women. Though marriage contracts provided women with strong guarantees to have economic compensations from their husbands, at the same time, women’s rights given by marriage contracts were restricted strictly by various factors. It reflected double standard for women and men in ancient Egyptian society. Furthermore, historical data besides marriage contracts further presented to us various disadvantages of women suffering from losing protection from their husbands.The third chapter starting from the terms of inheritance formulated by demotic marriage contracts, discusses the roles and positions of women as a daughter and a mother. Terms of inheritance as an important part of marriage contracts, not only were concerned with the inheritance rights of their children, but also were closely related to the economic interests of married women as a mother. Women in ancient Egyptian family as a mother and as a daughter in these two different identities not only enjoyed their own rights and interests but also undertook corresponding obligations.The fourth chapter through comparing the differences and similarities between Greek marriage contracts and demotic marriage contracts, analyzes profound impact on the evolutions of marriage contracts and women’s status caused by changes of times. In the Ptolemaic period when Greek-Macedonian ruled Egypt, demotic marriage contracts basically continued the traditions of the Pharaonic period, and Greek marriage contracts clearly showed the sides of changes and innovations, and it indicated family status of immigrant women in Greek families were significantly improved. However, even so, in Greek family from Ptolemaic Egypt, the women were still vulnerable groups in need of male protection.In short, marriage contracts of ancient Egyptians on one hand indicated the responsibilities and obligations of husbands guaranteeing rights and interests of their wives and family properties, on the other hand maintained the dominance of husbands, suggesting that the dependence of their wives on their husbands, and their attachments in the family situations. Thus, although the marriage contracts in ancient Egypt played an important role in protecting women’s rights, but it can not concealed the essence of subordinate position of women in the male-dominated society.