Generally speaking, ancient Egyptian women were equal to men under the law, whether in matters of property disputes, inheritance, marriage or crime. Surviving documents show us that women could inherit property from both of their parents and oversee and dispose of their property as they saw fit—practices that contrast with the situation in some other early complex societies in which women had limited property-owning rights. For example, the so-called “will” of a woman named Naunakht,1 who lived at Deir el-Medina—the town where the workers who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived—outlines which of Naunakht’s children will inherit from her and which are to be disinherited completely. She includes the reason for excluding some of her children: they did not care for her or support her financially in her old age. The disposition of Naunakht’s property is completely separate from that of her husband, whose property would be divided among all of the children unless he wrote a similar document to specify otherwise.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 23:40:39 +0000
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