The Truth About Woman Part 13

CHAPTER VII

WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY

I.--_In Egypt_

"If we consider the status of woman in the great empires of antiquity, we find on the whole that in their early stage, the stage of growth, as well as in their final stage, the stage of fruition, women tend to occupy a favourable position, while in their middle stage, usually the stage of predominating military organisation on a patriarchal basis, women usually occupy a less favourable position. This cyclic movement seems to be almost a natural law of development of great social groups."--HAVELOCK ELLIS.

The civilisations through which I am now going to follow the history of woman, in so far as they offer any special features of interest to our inquiry into woman's character and her true place in the social order, belong to the great civilisations of the ancient world, civilisations, moreover, that have deeply influenced human culture. It forms the second part of our historical investigation. There can be no doubt of its interest to us, for if we can prove that women have exercised unquestioned and direct authority in the family and in the State, not only among primitive peoples, but in stable civilisations of vital culture, we shall be in a position to answer those who wish to set limits to women's present activities.

It is necessary to enter into this inquiry with caution: the difficulties before me are very great. Again, it is not in any scarcity of evidence, but in its superabundance that the trouble rests. It is hard to condense the social habits of peoples into a few dozen pages. Nothing would be easier than from the ma.s.s of material available to pile up facts in furnishing a picture of the high status of woman that would unnerve any upholders of female subordination. It is just possible, on the other hand, to interpret these facts from a fixed point of thought, and then to argue that, in spite of her power, woman was still regarded as the inferior of man.[199] I wish to do neither. It is my purpose to outline the domestic relationships and the family law and customs as they existed in Egypt and in Babylon, in Greece and in Rome; to touch the features of social life only in so far as they ill.u.s.trate this, and so to discover to what extent the mother was still regarded as the natural transmitter of property and head of the household. The subject is an immensely complicated and seductive one, so that I must keep strictly to the path set by this inquiry.

Let us turn first to Egypt.

We have so rich a collection of the remains of the ancient Egyptian civilisation, and so careful and industrious a scholarship has been given to interpret them, that we can with confidence reconstruct in outline the legal status and proprietary rights enjoyed by women, which gave them a position more free and more honoured than they have in any country of the world to-day. This is not an overestimate of the facts. The security of her proprietary rights made the Egyptian woman the legal head of the household, she inherited equally with her brothers, and had full control of her own property. She was juridically the equal of man, having the same rights, with the same freedom of action, and being honoured in the same way.

The position of woman in Egypt is, indeed, full of surprises to the modern believer in woman's subjection. Herodotus, who was a keen observer, was the first to record his astonishment. He writes--

"They have established laws and customs opposite for the most part to those of the rest of mankind. With them the women go to market and traffic; the men stay at home and weave.... The men carry burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders....

The boys are never forced to maintain their parents unless they wish to do so, the girls are obliged to, even if they do not wish it."[200]

There is probably some exaggeration in this account, but it is certain that the wide activities of the free Egyptian women were never confined to the home. An important part was taken by her in industrial and commercial life. In these relations and in social intercourse it is allowed on all hands woman's position was remarkably free.[201] The records of the monuments show her to have been as actively concerned in all the affairs of her day, war alone excepted, as her father, her husband, or her sons.[202] No restraint was placed upon her actions, she appears eating and also drinking freely, and taking her part in equal enjoyment with men in social scenes and religious ceremonies.

She was able to enter into commerce in her own right and to make contracts for her own benefit. She could bring actions, and even plead in the courts. She practised the art of medicine. As priestess she had authority in the temples. Frequently as queen she was the highest in the land. One of the greatest monarchs of Egypt was Hatschepsut,[203]

B.C. 1550. "The mighty one!" "Conqueror of all Lands!" Queen in her own right by the will of her father, Thothmes I.

The material in proof of this high status of Egyptian women is abundant. It consists partly of the descriptions of Greek travellers, partly of the numerous and interesting marriage contracts, and partly of inscriptions and pa.s.sages in the writings of the moralists, all of which testify to the beautiful and happy family relationships and usual honour in which women were held, which is further ill.u.s.trated by incidents in the ancient stories. Of these the marriage contracts are the most important for our purpose.

The fullest information relates to the latest period of independent Egyptian history, when the position of women stood highest, but some of the contracts reach back to the time of King Bocchoris, and there are a few of an even earlier date. I wish that I had s.p.a.ce to quote some of these marriage contracts in full: they are very instructive, and open out many paths of new suggestion.[204] I would commend their study to all those who are questioning the inst.i.tution of marriage as it stands to-day on the rights of the patriarchal family system, by which the woman is considered the inferior, and submits herself and is subordinate to the man as the ruler of the family. The issue really rests at its root upon this--is the mother or the father to be regarded as the natural transmitter of property and head of the family. Our decision here will affect our outlook on the entire relation of the s.e.xes. The Egyptians decided on the right of the mother. Their marriage contracts seem to have been entirely in favour of women. There was no sale of the bride by her parents, but the bride-price went to her; her own property also remained in her own charge and was at her own disposal. The husband stipulates in the contracts how much he will give as a yearly allowance for her support, and the entire property of the husband is pledged as security for these payments, whilst the wife is further protected by a dowry[205]

or charge on the husband, to be paid to her in the event of his sending her away.

It will readily be seen how advantageous these proprietary rights must have been to the wife. She was able to claim either the fidelity of her husband or freedom for herself to leave him--and in some cases for both together, her property being secured to her and her children. In one contract by which the husband gives his wife one-third of all his property, present and to come, he values the movables she brought with her, and promises her the equivalent in silver. "If thou stayest, thou stayest with them, if thou goest away, thou goest away with them."[206] The importance of this right of free separation to women can hardly be over-estimated. Nietzold says the wife has absolutely nothing to lose, even when she is the guilty party.[207] Some of the marriage contracts are even more favourable to women; in these the husband literally endows his wife with all his worldly goods, "stipulating only that she is to maintain him while living, and provide for his burial when dead."[208] M. Paturet distinguishes two forms of marriage settlements, one which secures to the wife an annual pension of specified amount--usually one-third of the property of the husband--and the other, probably the older custom, which established a complete community of goods. The earlier contracts are much less detailed, due probably to the fact that the position of the established wife was then fixed by custom; but there seems no doubt that the equal lawful wife, she whose proper t.i.tle is "lady of the house," was also joint ruler and mistress of the family heritage.[209]

There is a very curious early contract of the time of Darius I, in which the usual stipulation of latter contracts are reversed, the wife speaking of the man being established as her husband, acknowledging the receipt of a sum of money as dowry, and undertaking that if she deserts or disposes of him, a third part of all her goods, present and to come, shall be forfeited to him.[210]

The high honour, freedom and proprietary rights enjoyed by the Egyptian wife can only be explained as being traceable to an early period of mother-right. Here the ancient privileges of women have persisted, not as an empty form, but would seem to have been adopted because of their advantage in the family relationship, and been incorporated with father-right. This would account for the last-named contract. Its very ancient date seems clearly to point to this. It is unlikely that, if it were an exceptional form, it should have chanced to be one of the very few early contracts that have been preserved.[211] It would rather seem that property was originally entirely in the hands of women, as is usual under the matriarchal system. The Egyptian marriage law was simply a development of this, enforcing by agreement what would occur naturally under the earlier custom. The interests of the children's inheritance was the chief object of the settlement of property on the wife. In the earlier stage, the daughter inheriting property from her parents, would marry--the husband would then become its joint administrator, but not its owner; it would pa.s.s by custom to the children with the eldest as administrator, but if the wife dismissed the husband, as under this system she could and often did, she would of right retain the family property in control for the children.[212] As society advanced this older custom would tend to break up in favour of individual ownership, property would come to belong to the husband and father, and it would then be necessary to ensure the position of the wife and children by contract. The Egyptian marriage may thus be regarded as a development of the individual relationship arising from father-right modified to conform with the mother-right custom of transmitting property through the woman. Under the earlier system the inheritance of the husband would pa.s.s to the children of his sister, and not to his own children.

The contract was, therefore, made to prevent this. The husband's property was pa.s.sed over to the wife (at first entirely and later in part) to secure its inheritance by the children of the marriage. Hence the formula common to these contracts by which the husband declares to the wife, "My eldest son, thy eldest son, shall be the heir to all my property present and to come." The only difference to the earlier custom was the prominence given to the eldest child (a son) in the contract.

This gift by the husband of his property to the wife, which made her a joint partner with him in all the family transactions, while at the same time she retained complete control over her own property, clearly placed the woman and her children in the same position of security as she had held during the mother-age; and added to this she gained the individual protection and support of the father in the family relationship. Doubtless it was this freedom and right over property, which explains the frequent cases in which the Egyptian women conducted business transactions, and also their active partic.i.p.ation in the administration of the social organisation. Equal partners with their husbands in the administration of the home, they became partners with men in the wider administration of the State. It was in such wise way that the Egyptians arranged the difficult problem of the fusion of mother-right with father-right.

One result of these marriage contracts, giving apparently great power to the wife, arose out of the mortgage on the husband's property as security for the wife's settlement; her consent became necessary to all his acts. Thus it is usual for the husband's deeds to be endorsed by the wife, while he did not endorse hers. In some cases the wife's consent seems to have been necessary even in the case of the initial mortgage, when the only possible explanation is that the wife was regarded as co-proprietor with the husband, and therefore had to be party to any act disposing of the joint estate.[213]

Such a custom was apparently so wholly in favour of the wife, reversing the customary position of the man and the woman in the marriage partnership, that in the light of these contracts we understand the statement of Diodorus, when he says that "among the Egyptians the woman rules over the man"; though plainly he has not understood their true significance, when he goes on to say that "it is stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman."[214]

If the view is accepted, as I think it must be, that these contracts were made to add the advantages of father-right to the natural privileges of mother-right, and thus to secure the enjoyment of the family property to all its members, it will become evident that, however surprising such an agreement might seem from the one-sided patriarchal view (which always accepts the subjection of the woman), it was entirely a wise and just arrangement. It was certainly one that was entered into voluntarily by both partners of the marriage; there was no compulsion of law. All the evidence that has come down to us is witness to the success in practice of these marriage contracts. No other nation has yet developed a family relationship so perfect in its working as the Egyptians. The reason is not far to seek. It was based on the equal freedom and responsibility of the mother with the father.

There was no question, it seems to me, of one s.e.x ruling or obeying the other, rather it was the co-operation of the two for the welfare of both and of the children.

So far we have dealt only with the position of the established wife.

All the written marriage contracts refer to the "taking" and "establishing" a wife as two distinct steps, and in some cases the second stage, which seems to have conveyed the proprietary rights, was not taken until after the birth of children. There would thus be wives not necessarily holding the position of "lady of the house," but capable of being raised to such rank by later contract.[215] It is probable, as M. Revillout suggests,[216] that "the taking to wife" was a comparatively informal matter, but needing ratification by contract for any lasting establishment, which commonly would be done after the birth of a child to ensure the rights of the father's inheritance, pa.s.sing through the mother to the children. All the evidence is in favour of this wise arrangement. There are many examples of contracts being entered into by the husband for the benefit of a woman, who had been "with him as a wife to him." Relations between the s.e.xes of an even less binding character than this were not ignored.[217] It seems clear that little regard was paid to pre-nuptial chast.i.ty for women, and in no marriage contract is any stress laid on virginity, which, as Havelock Ellis[218] says, clearly indicates the absence of any idea of women as property. "It is the glory of Egyptian morality to have been the first to express the dignity of woman."[219]

M. Paturet takes the view that it was not so much as the mother, but as woman, and being the equal of man, that the Egyptians honoured their women. Perhaps the truth rather is that there was no separation between the woman and the mother. This is the view that I would take; to me it is the right and natural one. But be this as it may, Egyptian morality placed first the rights of the mother. No religious or moral superiority seems to have attached to the established wife. Even when there had been no betrothal, and no intention of marriage, law or custom recognises the claim of any mother of children to some kind of provision at their father's expense. "Nothing proves the high status of woman so clearly as this: her child was never illegitimate; illegitimacy was not recognised even in the case of a slave woman's child."[220]

There is a curious deed of the Ptolemaic period by which a man cedes to a woman a number of slaves; and--in the same breath--recognises her as his lawful wife, and declares her free _not_ to consider him as her husband.[221] A byssus worker at the factory of Amon promises to the wife he is about to establish, one-third of all his acquisitions thenceforward: "my eldest son, thy eldest son, _among the children born to thee previously_ and those thou shalt bear to me in future shall be master of all I possess now or shall hereafter acquire." Even when such arrangements were not entered into voluntarily, public opinion seems always to have been in favour of the woman. A case is recorded where four villagers of the town of Arsinoe pledged themselves to the priest, scribe, and mayor that a fellow villager of theirs will become the friend of the woman who has been as his wife, and will love her as a woman ought to be loved.[222]

Most significant of all is the well-known precept of Petah Hotep, which refers to the expected conduct of a man to a prost.i.tute or outcast--

"If thou makest a woman ashamed, wanton of heart, whom her fellow townspeople know to be under two laws" (_i.e._ in an ambiguous position), "be kind to her for a season, send her not away, let her have food to eat. The wantonness of her heart appreciateth guidance."

I know of nothing finer than this wide understanding of the ties of s.e.x. It is an essential part of morality, as I understand it, that it accepts responsibility, not alone in the regular and permanent relationships between one man and one woman, but also in those that are temporary and are even considered base. Only in this way can the human pa.s.sions be unified with love.

The freedom of the Egyptian marriage made this possible. Law, at least as we understand it, did not interfere with the domestic relationships; there was no one fixed rule that must be followed.

Marriage was a matter of mutual agreement by contract. All that was required (and this was enforced by custom and by public opinion) was that the position of the woman and the children was made secure. Each party entered on the marriage without any constraint, and each party could cancel the contract and thereby the marriage. No legal judgment was required for divorce. It is a significant fact that in all the doc.u.ments cancelling the marriage contracts that have come down to us, no mention is made of the reason which led to the annulling of the contract, only in one case it is suggested that "some evil daimon" may be at the bottom of it.[223]

Polygamy was allowed in Egypt, though, as in all polygamous countries, its practice was confined to the rich. This has been thought by some to exclude the idea of the woman's power in the family.[224] But such an opinion seems to me to arise from a want of understanding of the Egyptian conception of the s.e.xual tie. Under polygamy each wife had a house, her proprietary rights and those of her children were established, the husband visiting her there as a privileged guest on equal footing.[225] This is very different from polygamy in a patriarchal society, and would carry with it no social dishonour to the woman. It would seem, too, in later Egyptian history that polygamy, though legal in theory, in practice died out, the fidelity of the husband, as we have seen, being claimed by the wife in the conditions of the marriage contract.[226]

That the Egyptians had a high ideal of the domestic relations--and had this, let it be remembered, more than four thousand years ago--is abundantly ill.u.s.trated by their inscriptions. In one epitaph of the Hykos period, the speaker, who boasts a family of sixty children, says of himself, "I loved my father, I honoured my mother, my brothers and my sisters loved me."[227] The commonest formula, which continued in use as long as Egyptian civilisation survived, was one describing the deceased as "loving his father, reverencing his mother, and being beloved by his brothers," and there can be no doubt that this sentiment represented the maturest convictions of the Egyptians as to the sentiments necessary for the felicitous working of the family relationships.[228] It is, indeed, significant to find this reversal of the usual sentiments towards the father and the mother--the former to be loved and the latter to be reverenced. It would seem as if "they a.s.sumed that fathers would be sufficiently reverenced if they were loved, and mothers loved if they were honoured." How true here is the understanding of affection and of the s.e.xes!

If we pause for a moment to seek the reason why the Egyptians had, as Herodotus so strikingly states, established in their domestic relationships laws and customs different from the rest of mankind--the answer is easy to find. The Egyptians were an agricultural and a conservative people. They were also a pacific race. They would seem not to have believed in that illusion of younger races--the glory of warfare. I have seen it stated that in battle they were known for the habit of running away. This may, of course, be thought to count against them as a people. It depends entirely on the point of view that is taken. But if, as I believe, the fighting activities belong to an early and truly primitive stage of social development, then the view would be very different. Races begin with the building up of society, then there follows the period of warfare--the patriarchal period which leads on to a later stage, much nearer in its working to the first--a final period, as Havelock Ellis says, "the stage of fruition." Woman's place and opportunity for the true expression of the powers that are hers belong to the first and last of these stages; in the middle stage she must tend to fall into a position of more or less complete dependence on the fighting male. Here is, I think, the explanation of the power and privilege of the Egyptian women. The Egyptians, due to their pacific and conservative temperament, seem to have escaped the patriarchal stage, and pa.s.sed on from the first to final stage. Through the long centuries of their civilisation they devoted their energies to the building up and preserving of their social organisation. Thus, it may be, came about that solving of the problem of the s.e.xes, which they among all races seem to have accomplished. The relationships of their family life and domestic administration were entirely civilised and humane.

Nowhere, except in Egypt, is so much stress laid upon the truth, that authority is sustained by affection. Their monuments and the inscriptions that have come down to us abundantly testify the value set upon affection: it is always the love of the husband for the wife, the wife for the husband, or the parent for the child, that is recorded. The frequency and detail with which such affections are described, prove the high estimation in which the purely domestic virtues were held, as forming the best and chief t.i.tle of the dead to remembrance and honour. It is clear, moreover, that these affectionate relations between the members of a family are counted among the pleasures and joy of life. The inscriptions urge and warn the survivors to miss none of the joys of life, since the disembodied dead sleep in darkness, and this is the worst of their grief, "they know neither father nor mother, they do not awake to behold their brethren, their heart yearns no longer after wife and child."[229] There is a delightful inscription on the sepulchral tablet of the wife of a high priest of Memphis,[230] in which she urges the duty of happiness for her husband. It says--

"Hail, my brother, husband, friend, ... let not thy heart cease to drink water, to eat bread, to drink wine, to love women, to make a happy day, and to suit thy heart's desire by day and by night. And set no care whatsoever in thy heart: are the years which (we pa.s.s) upon the earth so many (that we need do this)?"

Such a conception, with its clear idea of the right of happiness, stands as witness to the high ideal of love which regulated the Egyptian family relationships.

It is necessary to remember, in this connection, that the domestic ties of the Egyptians were firmly based on proprietary considerations.

No surprise need be felt that this was so, when we recall the wise arrangements of the marriage contracts, whereby both parties of the union secured equal freedom and an equal share in the family property.

The antagonism between ownership and affection which so frequently destroys domestic happiness must thus have been unknown. "There was no marriage without money or money's worth, but to marry _for_ money, in the modern sense, was impossible where individual ownership was abolished by the act of marriage itself."[231]

This in itself explains the fact, proved by these inscriptions, that the Egyptian woman remained to the end of life, "the beloved of her husband and the mistress of the house." "Make glad her heart during the time that thou hast," was the traditional advice given to the husband. To this effect runs the precept of Petah Hotep[232]--

"If thou wouldst be a wise man, rule thy house and love thy wife wholly and constantly. Feed her and clothe her, love her tenderly and fulfil her desires as long as thou livest, for she is an estate which conferreth great reward upon her lord.[233]

Be not hard to her, for she will be more easily moved by persuasion than by force. Observe what she wisheth, and that on which her mind runneth, thereby shalt thou make her to stay in thy house. If thou resisteth her will it is ruin."

The maxims of Ani,[234] written six dynasties later, give the same advice with fuller detail--

"Do not treat rudely a woman in her house when you know her perfectly; do not say to her, 'Where is that? bring it to me!'

when she has set it in its place where your eye sees it, and when you are silent you know her qualities. It is a joy that your hand should be with her. The man who is fond of heart is quickly master in his house."

Honour to the mother was strongly insisted on. The sage Kneusu-Hetep[235] thus counsels his son--

"Thou shalt never forget thy mother and what she has done for thee. From the beginning she has borne a heavy burden with thee in which I have been unable to help her. Wert thou to forget her, then she might blame thee, lifting up her arms unto G.o.d, and he would hearken to her. For she carried thee long beneath her heart as a heavy burden, and after thy months were accomplished she bore thee. Three long years she carried thee upon her shoulder and gave thee her breast to thy mouth, and as thy size increased her heart never once allowed her to say, 'Why should I do this?' And when thou didst go to school and wast instructed in the writings, daily she stood by thy master with bread and beer from the house."

I would note in pa.s.sing that in this pa.s.sage we have a conclusive testimony to health and character of the Egyptian mother. The importance of this is undoubted, when we remember the active part taken by women in business and in social life. It is, I am sure, an entirely mistaken view to hold that motherhood is a cause of weakness to women. In a wisely ordered society this is not so. It is the withdrawal of one cla.s.s of women from labour--the parasitic wives and daughters of the rich (which of these women could feed and carry her child for three years?), as the forcing of other women into work under intolerable conditions that injures motherhood. But on these questions I shall speak in the final part of my inquiry.

When I had written thus far in this chapter, I went from the reading-room of the British Museum, where all day I had been working, to spend a last quiet hour in the Egyptian Galleries. I knew one at least of these galleries well, but as a rule I had hurried through it, as so many of the reading-room students do, to reach the refreshment-room which is placed there. I found I had never really seen anything. This time it was different, for my thoughts were aflame with the life of this people, whose wonderful civilisation speaks in all these sculptured remains through the silence of the centuries.

Some fresh thought came to me as I waited to look at first one statue and then another. I sought for those which represented women. There is a small statue in green basalt of Isis holding a figure of Osiris Un-nefer, her son.[236] The G.o.ddess is represented as much larger than the young G.o.d, who stands at her feet. The marriage of Isis with her brother Osiris did not blot out her independent position, her importance as a deity remained to the end greater than his. Think for a moment what this placing of the G.o.ddess, rather than the G.o.d, in the forefront of Egyptian worship signifies; very clearly it reflects the honour in which the s.e.x to whom the supreme deity belongs was held. In the third Egyptian room is a seated statuette of Queen Teta-Khart, a wife of Aahmes I (1600 B.C.), whose t.i.tle was "Royal Mother," and another figure of Queen Amenartas of the XXVth Dynasty 700 B.C.; near by is a beautiful head of the stone figure of a priestess.[237] There is something enigmatic and strangely seductive in the Egyptian faces; a joy and calmness which are implicit in freedom. And the impression is helped by the fixed att.i.tudes, usually seated and always facing the spectator, and also by the great size of many of the figures; one seems to realise something of the simplicity and strength of the tireless enduring power of these women and men.

But I think what interested me most of all was the little difference manifested in the representations of the two s.e.xes. The dress which each wears is very much the same; the att.i.tudes are alike, and so often are the faces, even in the figures there seems no accentuation of the s.e.xual characters. Often I did not know whether it was at a man or a woman, a G.o.d or a G.o.ddess, I was looking, until the t.i.tle of the statue told me. How strange this seemed to me, and yet how significant of the beautiful equality of partnership between the woman and the man. It is in the statues which represent a husband and wife together, seated side by side, that this likeness is most evident. There are several of these domestic groups. One very interesting one is of early date, and belongs to the IVth Dynasty 3750 B.C.[238] It is in painted limestone, and shows the portrait figures of Ka-tep, "a royal kinsman"