Marriage and family ties among the common ancient Egyptians were not
significantly
different then those we see around the world today. The
ancient Egyptians held marriage as a sacred bond. This has been made clear in
the many statues and writings that depict men and women in a relationship where
both depended upon each other. Many myths of the ancient Egyptian marriage
practices have been found to be untrue. For a long time many people thought
that the Egyptian man would take many wives. This has been proven largely
untrue. Some kings would take many wives in order to produce an heir to his
throne, however, the common man would take more then one wife only in the event
that his wife couldn’t produce a child. Instances of child adoption have
been documented in their history.
Instances of incest were once thought to be
commonplace in ancient Egypt. This has been proven false with the discovery of
the semantics of the Egyptian language. When the scholars were first
deciphering the hieroglyphs they ran into many references of women and men
referring to their spouse as their “brother” or "sister." The terms
Brother and Sister reflected the feelings that two people shared, not the
heriditary kinship relationship.
“My brother torments my heart with his voice, he makes sickness take hold of me; he is neighbor to my mother’s house, and I cannot go to him! Brother, I am promised to you by the Gold of Women! Come to me that I may see your beauty.”
The basic family unit in ancient Egypt was the nuclear
family. The family was broken down into
roles that each would play in order for
things to run smoothly. The father was the one who would work all day. In
smaller households the mother was in charge of all things pertaining to the
house. Cooking, cleaning and watching the children were all her
responsibilities. In some larger homes servants served as maids and midwives to
help the mother.
Ancient Egypt was a patrilineal society with people’s histories being traced through their father’s background. Legal documents have shown that and and property was inherited through the males of the family.
Bibliography
Erman, Adolph. “Life in Ancient Egypt.” Benjamin Blom Inc., New York. 1884
Sameh, Waly-el-Dine. “Daily Life in Ancient Egypt.” McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York. 1964
Silverman, David. “Ancient Egyp.” Oxford University Press, New York. 1997.
Stead, Mirium. “Egyptian Life.” New Ithero, Italy. 1986
Strouhal, Eugene. “Life of the Ancient Egyptians.” University of Oklahoma Press. 1992
 |
Archaeology of Egypt | History | Hieroglyphs | ||
| Religion | Daily Life | Links | |||