Today's political climate, where recent laws regarding women's right to govern their own bodies have been overturned, is threatening the very essence of what we as a species are striving for when it comes to equality between the genders. As a species, we have hundreds of thousands years of history, yet female anatomy and the very concept of equality seems hard for some people to grasp. The fact that we can, through written sources, see how women in various cultures had more rights to their autonomy than some women today, is frankly astonishing.
In this series about women's right to autonomy and understanding of anatomy in the ancient world we will highlight how even thousands of years back women’s legal rights, the right to abort and the medical knowledge of how to preform abortion, and the use of contraceptives existed. We will do a comparative study of ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and ancient Mesopotamia and conclude the series with a comparison between the different areas as well as draw analogies to the current political climate. In ancient Egypt, the earliest record from the Old Kingdom (ca 2575 - 2150 BCE), paints the picture that the legal status of men and women seem pretty similar. However, whilst men were distinguished by which job they held, women, who usually did not work, had more generic titles such as “citiseness” or “mistress of the house”, and they were often identified by their father’s or husband’s rank. Marriage and divorce seems to have been easy and common; the woman, or man, could demand a divorce on basically any grounds. In texts, the vocabulary surrounding divorce, and marriage, reflect how marriage and divorce was seen. Marriage was living together, and divorce was a man “left or abandoned” a woman, and a woman “went away from, or left and abandoned” a man. As such, we can conclude that, at least legally, women seem to have had a certain amount of autonomy.
There are two main ancient Egyptian texts that describes female anatomy, contraceptive methods and abortion; Papyrus Ebers and the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus. These records are the oldest surviving sources of female fertility.
Papyrus Ebers is one of the oldest surviving medical texts dating to ca 1550 BCE, and describes a number of diseases and how to treat them. It also contains information about contraceptive and abortion methods. The Kahun papyrus is the most complete gynaecological work from ancient Egypt, and mentions a number of different methods to treat illnesses. It seems like all illnesses mentioned in the Kahun papyrus were connected to other organs.
However, female anatomy has been poorly understood throughout history. In ancient Egypt it was believed that the womb was connected to the digestive system in such a way that if a clove of garlic was inserted into the vagina and she was fertile, the garlic could be detected on her breath. Although fertility and childbirth was of great importance to Egyptians, the decision not to have children and still have sex was equally normal. Whilst the anatomy might be wrong, the concept of autonomy and choice was there.
Like today, contraceptive methods were commonly executed by the woman, and the most common contraceptive in ancient Egypt included a concoction which was to be placed inside the vagina. One recipe included acacia, dates, and carob grounded with honey. The contraceptive properties of this mixture has not been proven and is doubtful to be effective. The same ingredients can also be found in recipes for aborting a pregnancy. However, the ingredients differ depending on how far along in the pregnancy the woman was. Although the sophistication of birth control in ancient Egypt was undoubtedly limited, the fact that medical texts include both contraceptive methods as well as abortion techniques show an acceptance and respect for the free will and choice of whether to continue a pregnancy or not. However, if there was a punishment for aborting a foetus, is unknown.
We at MENAM Archaeology stand with women's right to choose and have autonomy of their own bodies.
Text: Josefin Percival and Anna Sunneborn Gudnadottir. MENAM Archaeology. Copyright 2022.
Images:
Papyrus Ebers: © U. B. Leipzig
The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus: Wikimedia Commons, author: By Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934) - http://www.etana.org/coretexts/15146.pdf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6106505
Further reading:
Potts, M. & Campbell, M. 2002. "History of Contraception". Gynecology and Obstetrics. Vol. 6.
Ebers Papyrus., 1930. The Papyrus Ebers. London.
Links:
Womens legal rights in ancient Egypt, written by Janet H. Johnson. https://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/
Comments