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Polygamy in Ancient Egypt!
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Djehuti: [QB] In another [URL=http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=008382]thread[/URL] I discussed ancient Egyptian marriage. This subtopic on the other hand deserves a thread of its own which it already has here. As I explained before, the mating rites of humans are essentially no different from animals except in that they are formalized or regulated in more complex social or institutional ways. It is the primal sexual impulse of males to fertilize or have sex with as many females as he can so his genes may dominate the gene pool. At the same time it is the primal sexual impulse of females to be fertilized by or have sex with different (though not necessarily many) males so her offspring are genetically diverse and better fitted to survive. In humans, the female impulse is easily tempered through social dynamics primarily in the form of long term attention and provision of a male or males. The male impulse, not so much tempered by anything, which is why males regardless of species tend to be more promiscuous than females. Again, sexual expression in human society tends to be regulated in certain institutions like marriage or religion, which are obviously not mutually exclusive of each other. I will address the religious aspects in another thread, but for now I am speaking of marriage. It was already discussed on this thread the issue of 'jealousy'. Again, sexual jealousy on the part of the male is to not have other males fertilize females he himself has access to sexually. In more male dominant societies this issue is solved simply through the enforcement of strict sexual codes to control women and ensure women or girls' virginity before marriage. We see this practice in the Greco-Roman world with laws reflecting male honor through female shame and these laws were also in place in ancient Southwest Asia as they are enforced today. Egyptian society though was not male dominated but more gender egalitarian since women were free in Egyptian society and to have sexual relations with anyone as long as they were single. And even though adultery was frowned upon there didn't seem to be as heavy punishments for it as it were in the 'Near East'. It should be known that even though a pharaoh had his harem of wives these wives were not viewed as his property but on the contrary were free women who [i]chose[/i] to marry the pharaoh and were equally free to leave him as well, though it was seen as an honor as well as a blessing to be married to him who was a living god. In the future I will even post evidence that women of the harem were not even sexually exclusive to the pharaoh but may even have relations with other men! As explained in this thread polygamy was quite rare in large part due to the financial stress of the husband to support more than one wife and was only practiced by the elite. Even most noblemen had one wife at a time though some were bigamists where a nobleman was married to two wives though in rarer cases three. It's interesting because in Egyptian mythology although most gods were monogamist, there were some who practiced bigamy like the god Min who was married to the goddesses Iabet and Repit or the god Montu who was married to Djenenyet and Iunit. The pharaoh on the other hand had the largest harem consisting of dozens even hundreds of wives including his chief wife who establishes his legitimacy to rule. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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