quote:The matrilineal system was the basis of the social/political organization in Ancient Egypt. As a result, Ancient (and Baladi) Egyptians, married couples live with the wifes family. Consequently, there is a distinct tendency toward matrilocal residence among extended families. The very same system is to be found in the pueblo communities of Spain.
Living with the brides parents is the preferred rule. Even when the young woman leaves the maternal hearth, she settles nearby in a pattern that might be called matrivicinal. That is, the newlyweds try to move into a house next to or nearby the mother of the bride, so the women are rarely separated. Additionally, the children of the family are brought up close to their maternal uncles. A common Egyptian proverb affirms this special relationship between the children and their maternal uncles: The maternal uncle is (like) a father.
A matrilocal community generally consists of a number of extended matrilineal families who share the same female line, living in compounds clustered within a narrow area, or scattered about in groups. Each family has a specialty in which it excels, and between the neighboring family lineages, the different tasks are harmoniously divided. Each matrilocal community has its own religious center (shrine), to honor the founding ancestors of their community.
Autonomous food-producing matrilocal communities form a basic sociopolitical format varying from a few families (25-50 people), to up to several thousand. Each family has a leader, or family head, who is responsible for the material and spiritual welfare of every member. He also maintains law, order, justice, and harmony. A number of sub-heads are also selected from each household of the community. The elders of each family lineage settle internal disputes among members of their lineages.
In some regions where people have been attacked by foreigners, which created refugees and/or forced settlements by foreigners, the village community may commonly consist of families of totally different ethnic stock. When not all members of a village share blood ties, the head of the lineage and other elders still lead the community.
The elders, representing the established lineages of the community, form a council (legislative body), which elects a headman from the founder lineage of the community. This eldership assists the headman in the governance of the community. The council of elders serves as a court, helps the headman allocate access to resources (such as land, water rights, etc), carries out rituals, organizes public works, such as co-op facilities and granaries to store products, etc.
The head of the matrilocal community (like the model Ausar) is more of an overseer than a ruler. His legitimacy to rule over his people, was derived from following the matrilineal principles, as explained earlier. His main function was/is to link (directly and/or with other spiritual intermediaries) the community ritually to the authority of the local spirits of the land and the ghosts of past leaders, in the context explained below.
The Ancient and Baladi Egyptian beliefs in Animism were also reflected in their traditional relationships between people and earth. The Egyptians believed/believe that land had no value apart from people, and, conversely, that people could not exist without land. As such, all living people must recognize, respect, and coexist with the supernatural residents of the land. The spirits of a place (trees, rocks, rivers, animals, and objects) were identified and placated by the original founders, who arrived and inhabited the land at an earlier time.
The rights of a group, defined by common genealogical descent, were linked to a particular place and the settlements within it, not through ownership, but because of their pact with the primordial spirits of the land/site. The spirits, both of family and place, demanded loyalty to communal virtues and to the authority of the elders in maintaining ancient beliefs and practices.
It is therefore that all living people join the pre-existing local spirit population in a new covenant between themselves and the pre-existing local spirits. This covenant legitimized their arrival. In return for regular homage to these spirits, the founders could claim perpetual access to local resources. In so doing, they became the lineage in charge of the hereditary local priesthood and village headship, and were/are recognized as tenants of the place by later human arrivals.
Such respect for the spirits of the land is indicative of a people who will not violate anybody or any land. Egyptians, as such, are very peaceful people.
I don't know if there's any documentation or archaeological evidence to support matrilocality in ancient Egypt, but if the practice really does continue in parts of modern Egypt despite Islamic cultural influences, I am inclined to think it may have pre-Islamic origins.
Another source claims that predynastic Egyptians had a matrilocal culture too.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Egypt was a matriarchal/matrilineal society.The female carry the solar blood.In Ancient Egypt the eldest daughter inherit the throne from her father the Pharaoh.The male to become Pharaoh have to marry the eldest daughter who inherited the throne.When the man become Pharaoh he become an agent or representative of the eldest daughter.
The Queen mother and the Queen wife of the Pharaoh were very powerful in Ancient Egypt.They help the Pharaoh governed Egypt behind the scene.
Ancient Egyptian culture revealed, Egyptian Romany by Moustafa Gadalla .
quote:Originally posted by mena7: [QB] Egypt was a matriarchal/matrilineal society.]
If this was so more Pharoahs would have been female. There were over 300 Pharoahs. 3-6 were female
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
Moustafa Gadalla is an Egyptian American independent Egyptologist, who was born in cairo, Egypt in 1944. he holds a bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Cairo University.
From his early childhood,Gadalla pursued his Ancient Egyptian roots with passion, through continuous study and research. Since 1990,he has dedicated and concentrated all his time to researching and writing.
Gadalla is the author of thirteen internationally acclaimed books about the various aspects of the Ancient Egyptian history and civilization and its impact worldwide. His books are alos found in seven other living languages.
Gadalla is the chairman of the Tehuti research foundation -- an international, US based, non-profit organization dedidacted to Ancient Egyptian studies. Gadalla is also the founder and Dean of the on-line Egyptian Mystical Universisty for public education of the Egyptian deep knowledge and wisdom.
The Peoples of Egypt: Baladi, Afrangi, and Christians by Moustafa Gadalla
The Unchanging Egyptians
The Egyptians are remarkably traditionalist to a fault. Throughout the history of Egypt, the emphasis was the adherence to traditions and Egyptians NEVER deviated from such principles. In the oldest surviving text of the world (5,000 years ago), the Egyptian scribe, Ptah Hotep, states:
Don’t modify/change anything from your father’s (ancestor’s) teachings/instructions—not even a single word. And let this principle be the cornerstone for teachings to future generations. The Egyptians never deviated from this principle. Early historians have attested to this fact, such as Herodotus, in The Histories, Book Two, [79]:
The Egyptians keep to their native customs and never adopt any from abroad. Herodotus, in The Histories, Book Two, [91]:
The Egyptians are unwilling to adopt Greek customs, or, to speak generally, those of any other country. The essence of such traditionalism is in the Egyptians’ total adherence to precedence established by their ancestors. Everything they did, every action, every movement, every decree had to be justified in terms of their ancestral precedence—to abide by and to explain their actions and deeds. The Ancient and Baladi Egyptians’ entire sociology and existence, from beginning to end, is nothing but a long chain of ancestral precedents—every single link and rivet of which became a custom and a law, from their spiritual fathers unto themselves, in the flesh. Plato and other writers affirmed the complete adherence of the Egyptians to their own traditions. Nothing has changed with this attitude since then, for each traveler to Egypt since that time has confirmed the allegiances to such conservatism.
With all the false claims of how the Ancient Egyptians changed their ways, languages, religion, traditions, etc, careful study will show that such claims are mere mirages. The truth is that the ancient traditions never died, and they continue to survive within the silent majority, who are called (and they call themselves) Baladi, meaning natives. The loud minority of Egyptians (high governmental officials, academicians, journalists, and the self-proclaimed intellectuals) are described by the silent majority as Afrangi, meaning foreigners.
The Afrangi are the Egyptian people who compromised the Egyptian heritage to gain high positions and approval of the foreign invaders of Egypt. As a tool of foreign forces, like Arabs, the Afrangi rule and dominate the Baladi—the natives. The Afrangi are, like their foreign masters, arrogant, cruel, and vain. After foreign forces left Egypt, the Egyptian Afrangi continued their role as the righteous rulers.
The Unchanging Baladi—the torch-bearers of the Ancient Egyptian ancestors—were cavilerly stripped of their nationality—as explained next.
The “Racial Religions”
It is commonly acknowledged that history is “written” (more correctly dictated/colored) by the winners of the latest conflict(s). As a result, it has been written and repeated: that the Ancient Egyptians accepted the domination of the Ptolemaic and Roman rules; that they had willingly changed their religious beliefs into Christianity; and a short time later, they willingly accepted Islam as a substitute for Christianity. Accordingly, many conflicting sides (Eurocentrists, Afrocentrists, Islamists, Christians,...etc), who use Ancient Egypt to promote each’s own agenda, insist that the ancient religion, language, and traditions have died. Such unfounded fallacies were reinforced by the minority Afrangi Egyptians—who serve the interests of the Arab conquerors ever since 640 CE—have dedicated their efforts to denouncing their ancestral heritage.
Because of the passive nature of the Baladi Egyptians, many people invented “theories” about the “identity” of the Egyptians that have absolutely no scientific and/or historical basis whatsoever. The premise of their baseless assertions is by division and racial identification of the people of Egypt, based on their assumed religions. Some claim that the Islamized population of Egypt (about 90%) are Arab settlers from the Arab Peninsula. The Christian population (about 10%) are claimed as the true Egyptians, referred to as Copts, descendants of the Ancient Egyptians. Others claim that the Islamized population of Egypt is of a mixed blood—of the Ancient Egyptians and of the Arabs who invaded Egypt in 640 CE. The Ancient Egyptian “blood” does not exist anymore.
In truth, the hundreds of Ancient Egyptian mummies—from all ages, together with DNA testing—as well as the numerous depicted figures in the Ancient Egyptian temples and tombs—show that present-day “Moslem” Egyptians are the same race as their Ancient Egyptian ancestors.
The Christian population of Egypt is markedly different than the “Moslem” population. Actually, the Christians in Egypt are NOT natives of Egypt, but a foreign minority that came to Egypt, from Judaea and Syria to serve the interests of the Romans—to man their military garrisons and/or to collect the various taxes imposed by the Romans. It is not a coincidence that the concentrated centers where the present Christian population of Egypt reside, are exactly the same locations where the Romans maintained their military and administrative (tax collection) centers. Now, 2,000 years later, these Syriac people are easily distinguishable in looks and mannerisms from the majority of native Egyptians. Foreign visitors, such as the British researcher, E.W. Lane, affirmed such differences in his book, The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians [1836].
Unlike the foreigners (Syriac and otherwise) living in Egypt, the native Egyptians never converted to Christianity. It was the Syrian migration to Alexandria that constituted the bulk of the early Christians to Egypt. In 312 CE, Christianity was made the official and only religion of the Roman Empire. A short time later, the Roman Empire split. Egypt became part of the Eastern (or Byzantine) Empire in 323 CE. Constantine’s declaration to make Christianity the official religion of the empire had two immediate effects on Egypt. Firstly, it allowed the Church to enhance the organization of its administrative structure and to acquire considerable wealth; and secondly, it allowed Christian fanatics to destroy the native Egyptian religious rights, properties, and temples. For example, when Theophilus was made Patriarch of Alexandria in 391 CE. A wave of destruction swept over the land of Egypt. Tombs were ravaged, walls of ancient monuments defaced, and statues toppled. The famed Library of Alexandria, which contained hundreds of thousands of documents, was destroyed. The fanatic early Christians went on appropriating Ancient Egyptian temples. In the 4th and 5th centuries, many ancient temples on the west bank of Ta-Apet (Thebes) were converted into monastic centers.
There is no archeological evidence, outside Alexandria, to substantiate the Christians’ overly exaggerated popularity claims. The Ancient Egyptians did not need any new “enlightenment” from the Christian fanatics, since the very thing that is now called the Christian religion was already in existence in Ancient Egypt, long before the adoption of the New Testament. The British Egyptologist, Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, wrote in his book, The Gods of the Egyptians [1969],
The new religion (Christianity) which was preached there by St. Mark and his immediate followers, in all essentials so closely resembled that which was the outcome of the worship of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The main difference between the Egyptian and the New Testament versions is that the Gospel tale is considered historical and the Egyptian Ausar/Auset/Heru story is an allegory [see Appendix, pg 277]. The British scholar A.N. Wilson pointed out in his book, Jesus:
The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith are two separate beings, with very different stories. The early Christians confused fiction with fact. In their fanatic ignorance, they mistranslated the Ancient Egyptian spiritual allegorical language into alleged history. That “Christ is within you” is the Ancient Egyptian message of truth that was buried by those who want to make history out of a spiritual allegory. [For more information, see The Ancient Egyptian Roots of Christianity, by M. Gadalla.]
The history of the political and doctrinal struggles within the Church during and after the 4th century has largely been written in terms of the disputes over the nature of God and Christ and the relationship between them. These parties were distinguished by the familiar names Jacobite or Coptic, and Melkite or Royalist. The Jacobites were by creed Monophysites, by race mainly, though not exclusively people born in Egypt, but of foreign descent (mistakenly thought of as native Egyptians); while the Melkites were orthodox followers of Chalcedon and for the most part of Greek or European origin.
Monophysites had, from the outset, espoused a doctrine of Christ, which placed the greatest possible emphasis on his divinity, and rejected that he had a human nature. When the orthodox theologians of Rome and Constantinople agreed at the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, that Christ was to be worshipped “in two natures inseparably united”, the Monophysite opposition contended that though Christ could be “out of two natures”, he could not be in two natures. As a result, in 451, during the reign of the patriarch Dioscorus, the Monophysite Church in Egypt broke away from the Melkite Orthodox Church, and elected its own patriarch. Since the Council of Chalcedon in 451, each of the two Churches had its own separate patriarch and administration.
We hear a lot about the prosecution of the “Copts”. Yet it was they who asked for it, by not accepting other religious beliefs, including their fellow Melkite Christians. Their rejection of others’ religious rights was violent and destructive. Even though they were allowed to have their own patriarch, they insisted on denying Melkites and others their right to worship in their own way. The so-called persecution was blamed on Cyrus, who was sent as Imperial Patriarch to Alexandria in 631 CE. The double succession of pontiffs was maintained. Cyrus first tried a compromise between the two factions (Melkites and Monophysites). The compromise was rejected by the Monophysites—who did not recognize his authority.
Cyrus had to restore order, on behalf of his Emperor, for the Monophysites had terrorized and destroyed those who merely didn’t agree with their fanatic interpretations. Did Cyrus persecute the Monophysites, or did they ask for his reaction by rejecting him and his authority? By extension, they had been prosecuting the land and people of Egypt (their host) for several centuries, and ironically, Cyrus, the Christian, gave them a taste of their own medicine.
When the Moslem Arabs, in December 639 CE, set out to conquer Egypt with a few thousand men, their task was relatively simple, aided by the active support of the non-Egyptian Christian Monophysites. After less than two years of fighting and political maneuvering between the Arab invaders and the Byzantines, Cyrus signed a treaty with the Arab Moslems on November 8, 641, which called for the total withdrawal of Roman soldiers, imposing a tribute on all able-bodied males, and a tax on all landowners. The only parties to the treaty were the Moslem Arabs and the non-Egyptian Christians, who gave away a country—(Egypt)—that was not theirs.
Because of the active cooperation of the Christians, the Moslem Arab conquerors favored the Monophysite Church, using it to assist them in collecting the poll-tax levied on the native Egyptians. In other words, the Arabs maintained the same administration of tax collection that was under the Roman/Byzantine rule. In return, the Christians were guaranteed the right to continue to practice their religion. The final defeat of Byzantine rule in Egypt came when their soldiers evacuated Alexandria, in 642 CE. From that date, Egypt became an Islamic/Arab colony—being governed by foreigners—either directly or indirectly via the Afrangi Egyptians.
Under Islamic rule, a person must officially announce his allegiance to one of three “approved” religions [Islam, Christianity, and Judaism], since Islamic law imposes an additional special “tax” (known as Jizya) on Christians and Jews. The Egyptian population, controlled or threatened by the Arab invaders (and their tax collectors—Christians), had to declare one of the three “approved” religions. Such declaration was a necessity and never a true conversion. Once a person announced his “Islamization”, he could never change, since that would be considered blasphemy, which is punishable by death at the hands of any Moslem. Additionally, all the offspring of Islamized people are automatically considered Moslems—under Islamic law—and hence can never denounce Islam.
The term, Copt, predates Christianity and is the common word used by the Greeks for an Egyptian. The Arabs, after 640 CE, used this general term to label the non-Moslem Egyptians, and referred to the Islamized population as Arabs. In other words, the winners of the 640 CE invasion capriciously changed the race of Egyptians to Arab because of a religion that was imposed on them by the conquerors. As a result, the term Copt took on a different meaning by the 7th century—to mean Christian instead of Egyptian.
The Egyptians were invaded over and again, without ever putting up any real resistance. The Baladi Egyptians learned to maintain their ancient traditions under a thin layer of Islam. A common Egyptian proverb describes their survival mode,
“He/she plays with an egg and a stone—to protect the delicate egg from being cracked by the stone”. [More about the “Islamization” of Egypt in other books by Gadalla, such as Egyptian Mystics: Seekers of the Way, Egyptian Rhythm: The Heavenly Melodies, and Egyptian Cosmology: The Animated Universe.]
________________________________________________
^^^^ yest the recent DNA Consultants report says
Although not detected in the royal mummies whose DNA has been examined so far, this autosomal ancestry marker is also clearly African in origin. Today it enjoys its greatest spread in Egyptians. About 1 in 10 Africans or African Americans have it, but a sharp spike occurs in Copts, today’s successor population in the Land of the Nile, where up to 27% possess it.
quote:The matrilineal system was the basis of the social/political organization in Ancient Egypt. As a result, Ancient (and Baladi) Egyptians, married couples live with the wifes family. Consequently, there is a distinct tendency toward matrilocal residence among extended families. The very same system is to be found in the pueblo communities of Spain.
Living with the brides parents is the preferred rule. Even when the young woman leaves the maternal hearth, she settles nearby in a pattern that might be called matrivicinal. That is, the newlyweds try to move into a house next to or nearby the mother of the bride, so the women are rarely separated. Additionally, the children of the family are brought up close to their maternal uncles. A common Egyptian proverb affirms this special relationship between the children and their maternal uncles: The maternal uncle is (like) a father.
A matrilocal community generally consists of a number of extended matrilineal families who share the same female line, living in compounds clustered within a narrow area, or scattered about in groups. Each family has a specialty in which it excels, and between the neighboring family lineages, the different tasks are harmoniously divided. Each matrilocal community has its own religious center (shrine), to honor the founding ancestors of their community.
Autonomous food-producing matrilocal communities form a basic sociopolitical format varying from a few families (25-50 people), to up to several thousand. Each family has a leader, or family head, who is responsible for the material and spiritual welfare of every member. He also maintains law, order, justice, and harmony. A number of sub-heads are also selected from each household of the community. The elders of each family lineage settle internal disputes among members of their lineages.
In some regions where people have been attacked by foreigners, which created refugees and/or forced settlements by foreigners, the village community may commonly consist of families of totally different ethnic stock. When not all members of a village share blood ties, the head of the lineage and other elders still lead the community.
The elders, representing the established lineages of the community, form a council (legislative body), which elects a headman from the founder lineage of the community. This eldership assists the headman in the governance of the community. The council of elders serves as a court, helps the headman allocate access to resources (such as land, water rights, etc), carries out rituals, organizes public works, such as co-op facilities and granaries to store products, etc.
The head of the matrilocal community (like the model Ausar) is more of an overseer than a ruler. His legitimacy to rule over his people, was derived from following the matrilineal principles, as explained earlier. His main function was/is to link (directly and/or with other spiritual intermediaries) the community ritually to the authority of the local spirits of the land and the ghosts of past leaders, in the context explained below.
The Ancient and Baladi Egyptian beliefs in Animism were also reflected in their traditional relationships between people and earth. The Egyptians believed/believe that land had no value apart from people, and, conversely, that people could not exist without land. As such, all living people must recognize, respect, and coexist with the supernatural residents of the land. The spirits of a place (trees, rocks, rivers, animals, and objects) were identified and placated by the original founders, who arrived and inhabited the land at an earlier time.
The rights of a group, defined by common genealogical descent, were linked to a particular place and the settlements within it, not through ownership, but because of their pact with the primordial spirits of the land/site. The spirits, both of family and place, demanded loyalty to communal virtues and to the authority of the elders in maintaining ancient beliefs and practices.
It is therefore that all living people join the pre-existing local spirit population in a new covenant between themselves and the pre-existing local spirits. This covenant legitimized their arrival. In return for regular homage to these spirits, the founders could claim perpetual access to local resources. In so doing, they became the lineage in charge of the hereditary local priesthood and village headship, and were/are recognized as tenants of the place by later human arrivals.
Such respect for the spirits of the land is indicative of a people who will not violate anybody or any land. Egyptians, as such, are very peaceful people.
I don't know if there's any documentation or archaeological evidence to support matrilocality in ancient Egypt, but if the practice really does continue in parts of modern Egypt despite Islamic cultural influences, I am inclined to think it may have pre-Islamic origins.
Another source claims that predynastic Egyptians had a matrilocal culture too.
Yes, this matrilocality in ancient Egypt is still true. This goes especially for Southern Egyptian populations.
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
| IP: Logged |
In all the customes there are minor variations. In parts of Upper Egypt the wedding takes place at the bride's house, and the residence of the couple is matrilocal until the first child is born, when they return to the groom's family
____________________________________________
In social anthropology, matrilocal residence or matrilocality (also uxorilocal residence or uxorilocality) is a term referring to the societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents, thus the female offspring of a mother remain living in (or near) the mother's house, thereby forming large clan-families, typically consisting of three or four generations living in the same place.
The father does not have a significant role in the upbringing of his own children; he does, however, in that of his sisters' children (nieces/nephews). In direct consequence, property is inherited from generation to generation, and over all, remains largely undivided. Matrilocal residence is found most often in horticultural societies List of matrilocal societies
List of matrilineal or matrilocal societies
Bribri Filipinos – (both matrilocal and patrilocal) Garo Hopi Iban – (both matrilocal and patrilocal) Iroquois Jaintia Karen Khasi Marshallese Mosuo – (separate residence; each lives in mother's household) Siraya Tlingit Vanatinai Sinixt
Matrifocality is, according to anthropologist Prof. Maurice Godelier, "typical of Afro-Caribbean groups" and some African American communities.[6] These include families in which a father has a wife and one or more mistresses; in a few cases, a mother may have more than one lover.[6] Matrifocality was also found, according to Rasmussen per Herlihy, among the Tuareg people in northern Africa;[
Matrifocality arose, Godelier said, in some Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures as a consequence of enslavement of thousands.Slaves were forbidden to marry and their children belonged to the slavemasters. Women in slave families "often" sought impregnation by White masters so the children would have lighter skin color and be more successful in life, lessening the role of Black husbands. Some societies, particularly Western European, allow women to enter the paid labor force or receive government aid and thus be able to afford to raise children alone while some other societies "oppose ... [women] living on their own
Godelier, Maurice, trans. Nora Scott, The Metamorphoses of Kinship, op. cit., p. 457 n. 31.
_________________________________________
^^^ unplesant info I found here if it's true.
Apart form this slave issue, the topic in general, matrilocal, would your really want to live around your mother in law?
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ Interestingly enough, the monster mother-in-law is more common in patrlineal societies.
Excellent thread, Truth! I've been meaning to create such a thread myself but I've been really busy with double-time work after I got back from Christmas vacation.
Suffice to say this and other related topics were discussed before including here and here
Matrilocality in ancient Egypt is a theory that is not new at all but has been postulated by countless scholars based on not only the traditions practiced by rural Sa'idi and Baladi Egyptians cited by Gadalla but also because of the simple fact that there are NO historical records whatsoever of formal marriages at all from the Kemetians! This lack of marriage records let alone licenses even among the royals have caused many scholars to wonder if Egyptians even had marriages at all. However the records to indicate relationships of husband and wife as well as incidences of adultery. The remaining conclusion was that marriage itself consisted simply of an agreement that a couple may live together in the same home. In fact even the phrase for adultery in Egyptian was "going into another house". The records do indicate that daughters tend to stay in the households of their mothers or at least move into a nearby house if they had enough financing, and that estates especially farmland was passed through the female line from mother to daughter. Many clan names are in fact feminine in nature and scholars agree that the sepat (nome) was essentially the territory of a tribe which consisted of multiple clans. This also explains why protodynastic kings lists name the mothers of the kings and not the fathers. It was only in later dynastic times that patrilineage began to assert itself alongside matrlineage where sons were named after their fathers or grandfathers and sons inherited trades or tools of their fathers. This also coincided with laws against adultery, since a man needed to know that his children, especially his sons were his. This bilineal type set up survives in modern Egypt today where men are still named after their fathers or grandfathers while the surname tends to be the village or community of where they are from which is a feminine name. Before the rise of patrilineage, biological paternity didn't matter and maternal uncles could fill in as 'fathers'.
This likely explains the custom of brother-sister marriage among the royals and gods to whom they are said to descend from. The king or god gains greater power and control over the familial property and wealth by not merely being brother to his sister and maternal uncle to her children but also husband to his sister as well as actual father! This explains why brother-sister marriages among the elite and deities are strongly correlated in cultures where matrix/mother-right (matriarchal) cultures exist or once existed. Even then the mother-right tradition of female sexual choice may be so great as to circumvent husband's preference or correspond to his own privilege of a harem in that the great royal wife or queen may still have consorts of her own hence polyandry in the case of other husbands or cicisbeos in the case of other lovers aside from the actual pharaoh. Of course all these sexual privileges for both the pharaoh and his wife are granted to them alone as well as the taboo of brother-sister marriage and was something unusual for the common folk.
quote:Originally posted by the lyinass:
quote:Originally posted by mena7: Egypt was a matriarchal/matrilineal society.
If this was so more Pharoahs would have been female. There were over 300 Pharoahs. 3-6 were female
That's because political leadership was usually the sphere of men. One should not mistake matriarchy for absolute female power because it is not! This is why I prefer Max Dashu's term of matrix culture. A matrix culture is one wherein women's capability as well as burden to carry and give birth to offspring gave them the privilege of having kinship and family being based on them as mothers and as mothers having the natural role of nurturers made them leaders of domestic matters and the households. They produced and dispensed the resources in the family especially to the children, and may even be leaders of the clan, but women can't have all the power. Men played a role in leadership as well in the community if not tribe. Thus is in matrix societies there was more of a balance between the sexes in terms of gender role. In many matrix cultures while the overt authority was male either in the form of a chieftain or king, his position was granted to him as such by either being elected by female elders, or by inheritance from his mother or his wife. This is why in Egypt a man can only become pharaoh if he weds a royal lady since the throne is passed from mother to daughter but can only be sat on by a man who marries the royal lady. The name of the goddess Aset (Isis) means 'throne' and her glyph was symbolized by such. So really in Egyptian history, while there were no men who held absolute power there were women who did by both inheriting AND sitting on the throne!! In fact this same pattern was repeated by royal women from various other African cultures as well.
posted
Matriarchy or rather Matrix or Mother-right is a broader issue than the actual topic of this thread which is just one aspect of the former. Matrilocality is based on the simple fact that in early times women tend to stay in the vicinity of their homes, and this is especially true of sedentary agricultural societies. The men tended to leave the vicinity to conduct activities like hunting, herding, or trade with members outside the community. Also, to prevent incest/inbreeding a man had to leave the vicinity to seek sexual partners. Thus men in matrilocal societies were the source of geneflow. Because women invented agriculture, the land and any associated property especially housing was originally under the ownership of women with inheritance from mother to daughter. Depending on the culture a man could either stay in his mother's house and visit his wife or partner, OR he could leave his mother's house and moves into the house of his bride completely. If the man stays in his mother's house, he assumes the father figure to his sister's children.
Not many people know this but the Bible gives ample evidence that the early Jews or rather their Hebrew ancestors were matrilineal and matrilocal. Even Jewish law acknowledges two types of marriages-- sadiqa and baal. Sadiqa is the Semitic word for "sincere" or "truthful" and is the name for matrilocal type marriage. Sadiqa comes in two forms-- motah and beena. The Semitic word motah means "enjoyment" or "fulfillment" as in fulfillment of pleasure and describes a temporary form of marriage where the groom visits his bride at her home. This is similar to the 'walking marriage' of the matrical Mosua people of China. I am unsure of the meaning of beena but I think the suffix 'ena' means renewal and this type of marriage is more so permanent with the groom moving into the bride’s household. The beena is the basis of Genesis 2:24: 'Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.' It is the man who leaves his parents and cleaves unto the wife and not the other way around. But then you have the baal form of marriage. Baal is the Semitic word for 'owner' or 'master' as in the husband is the master and so is the patriarchal form of marriage. With patriarchy, the men take complete control of property including land and estates and the property is passed from father to son, thus patrilocality and women become the source of geneflow as they are taken from their homes completely to live in the household of their husbands. There are two types of baal marriage. The most common type is the berit or agreement form where a man asks permission from a woman’s father or male guardian before they are married. And then there is the lakhad type meaning ‘seizure’ or ‘capture’ where a man basically kidnaps a woman by force usually in times of conflict, war, or raiding. Either way the bride lives under the dominion of the husband and his relatives and she does not have the protection of her own family that she gets in the matrilocal form. These are all the parts of the Bible that say a woman is to be submissive and desire her husband only. This control over the woman is to ensure her sexual fidelity and thus ensure paternal certainty of the husband’s offspring as legitimate. This pattern of matrilocality being replaced by patrilocality and the usurpation of female property and rights is repeated throughout many cultures in ancient history.
Getting back to Egypt, we know we know that homes were set up to house matrilocal clans. In Upper Egypt during predynastic times, houses were large one story mudbrick homes. These homes were spread throughout the land during the wet phase, but when the climate changed and land dried up, populations moved closer to the Nile. Because living space was more scarce, homes were no longer built wide but taller with multiple stories usually two or three for commoners. In Lower Egypt during predynastic times, the style of dwelling was more of a compound setting consisting of a cluster of small straw-thatched huts. Each hut housed a single family unit but all units grouped together likely comprised a clan. The architecture of the houses changed to more mudbrick type dwellings but the cluster type setting persisted throughout much of dynastic times.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ I forgot to mention that the Lower Egyptian scheme of settlement bears a resemblance to that of Berber settlements further west where sedentary Berbers also traditionally had homesteads consisting of clusters of huts with each cluster comprising a clan. Even the nomadic Berbers have a similar set up only with tents.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by mena7: Egypt was a matriarchal/matrilineal society.The female carry the solar blood.In Ancient Egypt the eldest daughter inherit the throne from her father the Pharaoh.The male to become Pharaoh have to marry the eldest daughter who inherited the throne. When the man become Pharaoh he become an agent or representative of the eldest daughter.
Actually the throne is inherited from mother to daughter. The throne in this case being symbolic for the royal estate which in theory was the whole of country of Kemet. The man who marries the royal heiress gets to sit on the throne and become king. As pharaoh he becomes manager and overseer of the country while his wife manages affairs of the palace and perhaps sepat. This is why royal ladies were forbidden from marrying foreigners, because it was conceived blasphemous and unthinkable for a foreigner to rule Kmt.
quote:The Queen mother and the Queen wife of the Pharaoh were very powerful in Ancient Egypt. They help the Pharaoh governed Egypt behind the scene.
Ancient Egyptian culture revealed, Egyptian Romany by Moustafa Gadalla .
Correct. This was the case in virtually all African kingdoms where queen mother and queen wife had significant influences in the royal court unlike in patriarchal societies where the king alone had all the power. In a way, the royal ladies acted as checks and balances against the king just as the priesthood and sepat governors did.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
THE QUEEN’S HUSBAND A common assumption has been that the queen is Menkaure's wife, and that the position she occupies in the sculpture shows that she is subordinate to the pharaoh. Her more relaxed, naturalistic pose, the fact that her left foot does not extend as far forward as Menkaure's, the less rigid position of her arms, her open hands compared to his clenched fists, are believed to indicate her inferior rank within the rigorously hierarchic social organization of Egypt. Her pose has therefore been interpreted as that of passive, dutiful wife standing supportively next to her powerful husband. Especially recently, this interpretation of the queen has been challenged [see Nancy Luomala's article in the BIBLIOGRAPHY].
The queen's status, and that of all Egyptian women, but especially of those in the royal family, has been a matter of some debate. Women in Egypt seem to have enjoyed the same legal and economic rights as men, a situation which the Greeks, writing about the Egyptians, found very strange.
Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE and who had visited Egypt, lists among their contrary customs that "women buy and sell, the men abide at home and weave" (Book II, 35) [see Herodotus in the BIBLIOGRAPHY].
Diodorus of Sicily, who had visited Egypt some time between 60 and 56 BCE, writes that the Egyptians had a law "permitting men to marry their sisters" and adds that "it was ordained that the queen should have greater power and honour than the king and that among private persons the wife should enjoy authority over her husband" (Book I, 27) [see Diodorus of Sicily in the BIBLIOGRAPHY].
Such notions have contributed to the so-called "heiress" theory which argues that the right to the throne in Ancient Egypt was transmitted through the female line. A man, no matter what his status, be he the eldest son of the previous pharaoh or a commoner, became a pharaoh through his relationship to the queen. The pharaohship was legitimised through marriage to the "heiress" who was often the pharaoh's sister or his half-sister. It has been argued, therefore, that Ancient Egypt was a matrilineal society where power resided in the female line.
The queen represented in the statue, therefore, was no mere wife. Her position and gestures should be interpreted not as indicating inferiority and submission, but signalling her legitimization of Menkaure as pharaoh. She is shown in the act of presenting him, indicating to the world that he is the man whom she is identifying and establishing as pharaoh. Her pose, in fact, deliberately imitates that of the goddess Hathor in the triad statues and with whom she is clearly intended to be identified. The statue itself is a representation of this act of confirmation, and perhaps even a record of part of an actual confirmation ceremony.
While anthropologists have had few problems with the "heiress" theory, Egyptologists have been troubled by what they see as a lack of supporting evidence. Arguments against matriliny and the existence of an "heiress" are the apparent lack of a title for such women (none of the recorded titles, such as "principal wife," "king's wife," "king's daughter," "king's sister," "king's mother," "god's wife," or "mother of god," "daughter of the god," appears to specifically define the position), and the fact that there is not a "heiress list", an unbroken line of descent of royal women similar to the "king list" for pharaohs (however, it should be noted with respect to the latter that the surviving king lists, such as the Turin Papyrus, were drawn up in much later periods when a patriarchal bias dominated). Some scholars have rejected the theory outright.
The issue has become politicized in recent years by feminists who believe that denial of the "heiress" theory and the notion that Ancient Egypt was a matrilineal society are prompted by patriarchal thinking which is unwilling to acknolwedge the possibility that women could have played such a powerful role in a well-established, highly-structured, and long-enduring civilization. Some feminists also use the case of Egyptian matrilinearity to support the argument that patriarchy is a relatively recent phenomenon and that women enjoyed a much higher status and played a much greater role in prehistoric societies.
The "heiress" theory was developed partially to explain the phenomenon, noted by Diodorus of Sicily, of brother-sister marriages in Egyptian royal family. This is a sensitive issue because it seems to imply an incestuous relationship. Some scholars believe that this was indeed the case and that royal marriages between brothers and sisters were consummated and children born. Others, however, have argued that the "marriage" was ceremonial and that there is no evidence of sexual relations between the queen and the pharaoh.
Certainly part of the problem from our standpoint is a proper understanding of what constituted "marriage" in Ancient Egypt and what was meant by the term "wife", or "husband." In surviving formal documents and texts there is no mention of any religious or legal ceremony by which a man's relationship with a woman was formalised in marriage in the modern sense of cohabitation and sexual relations. In fact, "to marry" seems to have meant little more than "to enter a household."
Records show that pharaohs had several "wives" of different standing within the royal bloodline. It would appear to be also the case that an heiress-queen could both be "married" to the pharaoh and also be married and have children with another man, a consort-king. The children of the pharaoh and his wives, and the children of heiress-queen and her consort-king, would all refer to the pharaoh as "father" and the heiress-queen as "mother." Evidence of this is the way that the pharaoh is always the "son" of his predecessor, even though there may be no physical link.
I believe the evidence in support of the "heiress" theory outweighs that against it. Once adopted, it can be used to clarify much of the present confusion surrounding royal relationships, inheritance, and pharaonic succession, especially during the period of the Old Kingdom when the great pyramids were built at Giza, and when the statue of Menkaure and his queen was carved.
Power in Ancient Egypt descended through the mother's side of the royal family. The queenship was a mortal manifestation of female power and the feminine prototype, while the pharaoh represented the power of the male and the masculine prototype. The roles of the male pharaoh and the female queen were interpreted as one element in a system of complementary dualities. Many Egyptian stories and folktales revolve around the need to reconcile opposites. It was seen as necessary to maintain a balance between the male and the female. Men are more visible in the historical record because they served as the public manifestation of the power of the (female) throne and as the administrative head of the kingdom.
An heiress-queen may, or may not, be married to the pharaoh. If she was closely related by blood, her "marriage" to the pharaoh was ceremonial. Occasionally, however, she would "marry" and establish as the new pharaoh a man from outside the royal family, which brought about the founding of a new dynasty and introduced new blood into the royal bloodline. Men in the royal family, though, had certain claims to the throne by right of birth and kinship to the heiress-queen who may be their mother, step-mother, sister, half-sister, or niece. But none of the pharaoh's own children would automatically be his "heir." Inheritance resided in the female progeny of the heiress-queen.
MATRILINY IN DYNASTY IV Given the importance of the "heiress-queen", it may be presumed that it is an heiress queen shown standing next to Menkaure in the statue. The woman is commonly identified as Khamerernebty II. But, was Khamerernebty II Menkaure's "heiress-queen"?
In order to answer this question it is necessary to reconstruct, as much as it is possible, the female line of descent through the 4th Dynasty. For the most part, I have followed the family relationships laid out by George Reisner (1931) [see BIBLIOGRAPHY], William Stevenson Smith (1955) [see BIBLIOGRAPHY], and Ahmed Fakhry (1959) [see BIBLIOGRAPHY], but have interpreted perceived relationships from a matrilineal perspective. It's a rather complicated history and the following section is dense with names and relationships; you can skip to the end for my conclusion if your not interested in this sort of thing.
First, a few words about the chronology and dating of the Dynasty IV. The order of succession of pharaohs in the Old Kingdom has been more or less established using "king lists", compiled mostly in the period of the New Kingdom, of which one of the most important was written on papyrus during the reign of Ramesses II (c. 1301-1234 BCE) and is now in the Turin Museum. The Turin Papyrus provides not only the order of succession but the length of reign, though the latter especially often seems fantastical. While a workable relative chronology can be established, an absolute chronology, the actual dates of a pharaoh's reign, remains imprecise.
The problem of dating has been exacerbated by the tendency among Egyptologists over the past twenty or thirty years to down-date earlier chronologies, which effectively lowered the founding of pharaonic Egypt, and the beginning of Dynasty I, to around 2955 or 2920 BCE, with Dynasty IV beginning around 2600 BCE. Since the late 1980s, however, following the analysis of eighty new carbon samples collected from the pyramids, it is now necessary to shift the entire chronology up by approximately 300 years or so. Dynasty I now begins around 3400 BCE (as it had done earlier before the down-dating trend), and Dynasty IV around 2900 BCE.
According to the Turin Papyrus, Sneferu [Snofru], the first pharaoh of Dynasty IV and the builder of the pyramids at Dahshur, reigned for 24 years. His successor, Khufu (Cheops), who is believed to have built the first of the great pyramids at Giza around 2570 BCE (now revised to c. 2870 BCE), reigned for 23 years, Khafre (Chephren), the builder of the second pyramid around 2530 BCE (now c. 2830 BCE), reigned for 25 years, and Menkaure, who built the third pyramid around 2500 BCE (now c. 2800 BCE), for 18 years. Dates put forward by different scholars for the statue of Menkaure and his queen currently span a period of 130 years, ranging from as early as c. 2600 to as late as c. 2470 BCE (or now c. 2900 to c. 2770 BCE).
Menkaure's heiress-queen, according to my own reconstruction of the female royal line, was probably the great granddaughter of Hetepheres I, the heiress-queen of Sneferu, the first pharaoh of Dynasty IV. Sneferu's parentage is unknown, though it is thought he may have been the son of Queen Meresankh I who may have been related through marriage to the family of Huni, the last pharaoh of Dynasty III. There are no records to show Sneferu was related by blood to the family of Huni. He evidently attained the position of pharaoh through his "marriage" to Hetepheres I, and he was sufficiently unconnected with the royal family of Huni to bring about a change in dynasty. Sneferu's consort-queens bore him numerous sons, among them Kanefer, Khufu, Ankh-haf, and possibly Rahotep (who married Nofret), and several daughters.
Meanwhile, Queen Hetepheres I married a consort-king and among their children were the daughters Hetepheres II and Meresankh II. When Sneferu died after 24 years on the throne, it was Hetepheres II, as the new heiress-queen, who "married" Sneferu's son Khufu (Cheops), making him the new pharaoh. Khufu's mother was probably Queen Henutsen. It seems clear from the tombs surrounding Khufu's great pyramid at Giza that other women in the royal family were also recognized as queens - his sisters (other daughters of his own mother), half-sisters (daughters of Sneferu's consort-queens) and, it would seem, even his step-mothers (Sneferu's consort-queens, such as Queen Merytyetes [Meritites] - and all were "married" to him.
When Khufu died after 23 years on the throne, Hetepheres II seems to have first "married" Kawab [Kewab], Khufu's son by a consort-queen (not Merytyetes, as has been suggested) and Hetepheres II's half-brother-through-heiress-marriage. However, no record survives of Kawab ever being pharaoh. It seems very probable that he died (possibly even murdered, it has been suggested), at which point Hetepheres II then "married" Radedef (also written as Dedefra), another of Khufu's sons by a different consort-queen, who became pharaoh and reigned for 8 years (according to the Turin Papyrus). In the meantime, Hetepheres II (and not another woman identified as "Hetepheres A") had joined in a consummated marriage with Ankh-haf, who was perhaps the son of Sneferu and a consort-queen.
I would suggest that their first-born daughter was Meresankh III (she is also thought, however, to be the daughter of Hetepheres II and her first "husband" Kawab). Meresankh III, as the new heiress-queen, "married" her uncle Khafre (Chephren), a "son" of Khufu and the builder of the second pyramid at Giza. As in the case with his father, Khafre also "married" his "sisters", including Queen Khamerernebty I, one of Khufu's daughters by a consort-queen.
At this point, the records used to reconstruct the chronology of succession at this time become unclear and contradictory. Khafre may have been succeeded directly by Menkaure, but there is also the possibility that one, two, or even three pharaohs (Bikheris, Thamphthis, and Seberkheres) may have sat on the throne for an unknown period after Khafre's death. Part of the uncertainty may be due to real problems of rivalry among the consort-queens and their respective sons which may have started with Hetepheres II's second "marriage", following the death of Kawab, to Radedef.
Radedef was a minor "son" of Khufu, of lesser rank than Khafre, and who, on assuming the throne, as if in rejection of that established by the Khufu at Giza, started a new royal cemetery at Abu Roash. When Radedef died, rather than making one of his sons pharaoh, Hetepheres II's daughter, Meresankh III, "married" her uncle, Khafre, thereby restoring the dynastic line and returning the royal family to Giza. However, the "marriage" did not go uncontested, and Radedef's son, Bikheris, engaged in a struggle for the throne in which he may have been successful, perhaps becoming pharaoh at the death of Khafre.
Meresankh III was apparently still alive when Menkaure became pharaoh. Did Menkaure become pharaoh through "marriage" with her? Three of Menkaure's queens are buried in small pyramids next to his at Giza, but their names are unknown. Only the name of one of his queens is known, Khamerernebty II, Menkaure's full sister and daughter of Khamerernebty I. Circumstances would suggest that she was only a consort-queen, and not the queen of the female line.
In its unfinished state, the statue of Menkaure and his queen lacks any identifying inscriptions. The woman standing next to Menkaure has been identified as Khamerernebty II, but that is because hers is the only name we know among Menkaure's queens. According to the argument laid out above, it seems more likely that she is, in fact, Meresankh III.
An inscription over the door of Meresankh's tomb (discovered in 1927) records that she died in the first year of a unnamed pharaoh and was buried nine months later. It has been argued that the unnamed pharaoh was Menkaure's successor, Shepseskaf. From an examination of Meresankh's skeleton, it has been estimated that she died when she was a little over 50 years old.
According to one reconstruction of the chronology of Dynasty IV, Menkaure was pharaoh for 18 years. Although carved late in Menkaure's reign, in preparation for his tomb complex, the statue now in Boston was perhaps conceived as representing a moment at the beginning of his pharaohship, when his claim was being legitimized or confirmed or established by the woman standing next to him. At that point in time, Meresankh III would have been in her early thirties, which looks about right for the woman in the statue.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ I never understood why the heiress theory was 'unpopular' when there is so much evidence in support of it. Perhaps because this institute was the same as that practiced in Africa, though pretty much all the other Egyptian institutes including pharaoh was African as well and there is evidence that the royal heiress institute was once practiced in the Near East as well as early Europe!
Regardless, what other reason than this theory could account for royal women being forbidden from marrying foreign princes, since only a native Egyptian can become pharaoh?!
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic