Women in Ancient Egypt
Excerpt from
Historical Deception: The Untold Story of Ancient Egypt – 2 nd Ed.
by Moustafa Gadalla
General
No society, past or present, did or does value their women like the ancient
Egyptians did. Whenever a society values women so highly, equality between
men and women is the natural outcome.
The woman was referred to as Nebt-Het, literally meaning The Golden
(meaning highest/noblest) Lady of the House. There is not a single reference
made to a man as the “master of the hous e”.
The most important aspects/attributes/principals of God were personified
by women. The netert, Ma-at, personifies the cosmic -ordering principle.
She keeps the universe in balance, order and harmony. Her cosmic power is the source without
which the other neteru (gods/goddesses) are functionless and nil.
And there are Auset (Isis), Mut, Sekhmet, Nebt-Het(Nephthys), Het-Heru(Hathor),
Seshat, and many other female neteru, who personify the greatest aspects of the One Universal
God.
Matrilineal/Matriarchal Society
The ancient Egyptians were totally
aware of the planetary laws. The modern
“discovery”/rediscovery of such laws is
attributed to Johannes Kepler (1571 -1630),
who himself boasted in print, that he had
rediscovered the lost laws of Egypt. He
was honest, but his followers were/are not.
Kepler rediscovered that the orbit of a
planet/comet, about its sun is an eggshaped path (ellipse).
Each planetary
system is balanced only when the planet’s
orbit is an egg-shaped plane that has 2
foci, with its sun’s center of mass at one of
its foci.
The creation stories in ancient Egypt, and throughout Africa, begin with the cosmic egg (an
ellipse). In the Khmunu (Hermopolis) traditions, the cosmic egg contained the bird of light
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(the sun). All planets/comets follow the egg-shaped (elliptical) orbit, with a sun at one of its
foci.
Likewise, on earth, the female is the source of energy, the sun. It is her power that keeps
the planets (children), each in its own independent orbit. That is to say, the
matrilineal/matriarchal system follows the planetary laws.
The matriarchal system, as the social manifestation of planetary laws, was the basis of the
social organization in ancient Egypt and throughout sub -Sahara Africa. All these societies,
whether discovered in East, Central, or West Africa, had the same features in common. The
queen sister and queen mother had positions of great respect and potentially much authority.
Throughout Egyptian history, it was the queen who transmitted the solar blood. The q ueen
was the true sovereign, landowner, keeper of the royalty, and guardian of the purity of the
lineage. Egyptian kings claimed a right to the throne through marriage with an Egyptian
princess. Through marriage, she transmitted the crown to her husband; he only acted as her
executive agent.
They followed the example of Ausar, who became the first Pharaoh of Egypt, as a result of
his marrying Auset (Auset means seat, i.e. authority). Sabt (Sirius) is the dwelling star of
Auset. It is the sun of our sun. Sabt’s precise cosmic role, in our modern astronomy and
physics, is still unfolding. Some scholars suspect that Egypt knew that Sopdit is the greater
sun, about which our sun and solar system orbits. The Sabt (Sirius) star, i.e. Auset, is the sun
of suns, i.e. the mother of mothers, the Cosmic Queen.
As a rule, in the tombs of the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom, the mother of the deceased is
represented with the wife, while the father rarely appears. On the funerary stelae of later times
also, it is the usual custom to trace the descent of the deceased on the mother’s side, and not on
that of the father. The person’s mother is specified, but not the father, or he is only mentioned
incidentally.
Surviving records from the Middle Kingdom show that the nomes (provinces) of Egypt
passed from one family to another through heiresses; thus he who married an heiress would gain
for his son the inheritance of his father -in-law.
Western academicians are uncomfortable with writing about the African matrilineal a nd
matriarchal societies. Some even went so far as to state that the reason they traced the mothers
only, was because fathers were unknown or in doubt. They are in pain, trying to ignore,
downplay, and explain it through their own dark sides. Their unde rlying, pathetic, resentful and
contemptuous thinking is, what Europe did not have, cannot be!
In High Positions
As mentioned earlier, women personified major aspects/attributes of the One God.
much higher can a woman get t han that?
Women in Ancient Egypt – Excerpt from Historical Deception: The Untold Story of Ancient Egypt
How
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Since women were the legal heirs to the throne, they played an important part in the affairs
of State, performing as a kind of power broker. The Queens of Egypt sometimes wielded
exceptional influence, as advisers to the Pharaohs. Some queens governed Egypt for long
durations. Hatshepsut, in particular, is a good example of a woman Pharaoh.
Women could hold any position in the temple. There were priestesses of the neteru.
Several of them reached the position of ‘holy women.’ Some of those ‘holy women’ (similar to
nowaday saints) had their own special shrines.
As early as the 4 t h or early 5 t h Dynasty, there are records of female doctors. One woman
(Doctor Peseshet) had the title ‘Lady director of Lady physicians’ .
The office of scribe was not limited to males; women were known to have held the title,
too.
Women enjoyed every right pertaining to property, and had legal status that enabled them to
buy, sell and take legal action.
As a Wife
The Wise Man, Ptah-hotep, gives the following advice to men:
If thou art a man of note, found for thyself an household, and love thy
wife at home, as it beseemeth. Fill her belly, cloth her back; unguent in
the remedy for her limbs. Gladden her heart, as long as she lives; she i s
a goodly field for her lord.
The historian Diodorus reported that part of the agreement entered into at the time of
marriage was, that the wife should have control over her husband, and that no objection should
be made to her commands.
An instruction from the New Kingdom (c. 1500 BCE) affirms Diodorus’ account:
Do not control your wife in her house,
When you know she is efficient;
Don’t say to her: “Where is it? Get it !”
When she has put it in the right place.
Let your eye observe in silence,
Then you recognize her skill:
It is joy when your hand is with her,
There are many who don’t know this.
It has been stated by some that the Egyptian priests were only allowed to h ave one wife,
while the rest of the community had as many as they chose. On the contrary, the monuments
depict each individual with a single consort. Mutual affection, tenderness and expression of
endearment can be noticed by the fond manner, in which th ey are seated together, and with their
children.
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Men and women either sat together, or separately, in a different part of the room. They
were not kept in the same secluded manner as those of ancient Greece. The Egyptians treated
their women very differently, as the accounts of ancient writers and the sculptures sufficiently
prove. At some of the public festivals, women were expected to attend, in the company of their
husbands or relations.
The ancient Egyptian woman was described best by a widower, wr iting of his late wife:
She is profitable of speech, agreeable in her conversation, of good
counsel in her writings; all that passes her lips is like the work of Ma -at,
the netert of Truth, a perfect woman, greatly praised in her city, giving
the hand to all, saying that which is good, repeating what one loves,
giving pleasure to all, nothing evil has ever passed her lips, most beloved
by all....
In the Ausar (Osiris) Legend, Auset (Isis) and Ausar (Osiris), the sister and brother got
married. The relationship between Auset and Ausar was purely an allegorical fable.
Some historians, such as the Sicilian Diodorus, reported tha t marriages, between brothers
and sisters, were owing to and inspired by the Auset (Isis)/Ausar (Osiris) legend! This
misunderstanding may have come as the result of the fact that the ancient Egyptian word for
brother and husband is the same word, sn, as well as the word for sister and wife, sn.t. These
words are derivatives of the verbal stem sni, which has the meaning “to embrace, to kiss”.
Used in context, they would represent “ person whom one usually embraces ”, “person whom one
is familiar with”. Therefore, we must be cautious when encountering sn and sn.t in certain
texts, and we should not draw too many conclusions about incest and the like.
During certain periods of the ancient history, it was lawful for ancient Egyptians, Athenians
and Hebrews to marry a sister by the father’s side, not however, born by the same mother. Very
few Egyptians married their half -sister (from the father’s side), and only if she was the legal
heir, so as to inherit the throne. The Ptolemies did not observe the restric tions of the father’s
side, but Ptolemies were not Egyptians.
The few marriage contracts that have survived the ages show that the woman’s rights were
all well respected.
In a contract dating from 580 BCE, but probably based on earlier contracts, the pros pective
husband takes oath that if he leaves his wife “either from dislike, or preferring another” , he
will return the dowry and a share of all paternal and maternal property for the children which
she may bear.
If the marriage failed, the formula for the man was to say before duly accredited witnesses,
“I have abandoned thee as wife. I am removed from thee. I have no
claim on earth upon thee. I have said unto thee, ‘Make for thyself a
husband in any place to which thou shalt go.’”
At the same time, financial provision had to be made for the divorced wife. Similarly, a
wife wishing to divorce her husband also had to pay compensation.
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As a Mother
Motherhood was revered in ancient Egypt. The following sage sums it up:
Thou shalt never forget what thy mother has done for thee. ...She bore
thee and nourished thee in all manner of ways. If thou forgettest her, she
might blame thee, she might lift up her arms to God, and He would hear
her complaint. After the appointed months she nurs ed thee for three
years. She brought thee up, and when thou didst enter the school, and
was instructed in the writings, she came daily to thy master with bread
and beer from her house.
Children
One of the characteristic traits of the ancient Egyptians was their
love for their children. They displayed such a parental affection
without limitation.
As reported by Plato, education for the young was very essential.
Mannerism and discipline were emphasized. They had rooted respect
for old age, as well as for strangers. They required e very young man to
give place to his superiors in years. If seated he was supposed to rise,
on the elder's approach.
The Egyptians always expected a great deal from their children, and, on the whole, their
expectations were fulfilled. This was true among all classes of people.
Their tremendous love, coupled with these high expectations of their children, may have
contributed to the long duration of the Egyptian civilization.
There was no distinction being made between their offspring by a wife or any othe r woman,
and they all equally enjoyed the rights of inheritance.
Family Members by Feeding
In the Middle East, since ancient times, mothers regularly nurse each others' babies when
they get hungry. The act of suckling a child will make the woman a 'mother' to the child, and
henceforth her offspring will be 'brothers' and 'sisters' to the nursed (suckled) child. The nursed
children will refer to their feeding nurse as 'mother', the same term that they used for their
biological mother.
Many Egyptologists (who are almost all Europeans or their descendants) don't recognize
this fact, and as a result, confused the chronology and the relationships between individuals in
ancient Egypt (and the biblical characters as well). W hen an un-informed "scholar" gets stuck
in his chronology, s/he does not hesitate to paint the Egyptian relationship as "incest".
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