One man's death is another woman’s gain
Women’s rights to inherit came to Egypt well before the western world decided to give women the right to manage their own property and finances. A phenomenon that points to some women having more rights in ancient Egypt than in some parts of the world today.
Textual sources from Ancient Egypt clearly show female inheritance rights. This is clearly shown in the papyrus document named “the Will of Wah'' belonging to an Egyptian man named Wah and was found in the Middle Kingdom city of Ilahun, located southeast of the Faiyum oasis. The document is an jmyt-pr, which is best translated as a will or testament, and the text is written in hieratic; a cursive and informal style of writing hieroglyphs which was common for literature, administrative documents and letters.
In this document, Wah is ordering all his property and fortune, most of which have been given to him by his brother Ankhren, to be handed down to his wife after his death. He further specifies that she is to do with it what she pleases without being questioned and give it to whichever child of theirs that she wants. He finishes the will with these two requests:
‘As for my tomb, let me be buried in it with my wife, without anyone interfering. Moreover, as for the house which my brother […] Ankhren built for me, my wife will live there without letting anyone force her out.’
- The Will of Wah translated by the author
Another document, the will of a woman named Naunakhte, shows the power women had over property in Ancient Egypt. In her will Naunakhte decides to hand over all her earthly belongings to only one of her children, leaving the others without any inheritance. The reason for this was because they had not taken care of her during her old age, and thus deserved nothing.
It was not only through inheritance women could gain property. In Ancient Egypt it seems to not have been uncommon for both women and men to ask for a divorce where both parties got part of the combined property. Women could for instance file for divorce if their husbands turned out to be sterile, and even though polyamory was very common amongst the royals, adultery was another legitimate reason for divorce amongst the general public. Some could even file for divorce simply because they hated each other - not an entirely uncommon reason.
Text and image: Josefin Percival. MENAM Archaeology. Copyright 2022.
Further reading:
Logan, T. 2000. The Jmyt-pr Document: Form, Function, and Significance. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 37, 49–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/40000522
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