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Cleopatra VII. Social Structure. By: Keilah Alston, Robert Izydore , Ty Higginbotham. Social Structure Pyramid. Social Structure. The pharaoh stood at the top of society, along with the royal family.
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Cleopatra VII Social Structure By: Keilah Alston, Robert Izydore, Ty Higginbotham
Social Structure • The pharaoh stood at the top of society, along with the royal family. • Directly under the pharaoh were government officials and the high priests and priestesses, who served the gods and goddesses. • The bottom layer of society was the largest- made up of peasants who worked the land.
Social Structure • Most of the peasants were slaves. • During the New Kingdom, social classes became more fluid as trade and warfare increased. • Most Egyptians were peasant farmers, who were slaves. • Men and woman spent their days working the soil and repairing the dikes.
Women’s Rights • Egyptian women generally had a higher status and greater independence than other women elsewhere in the ancient world. • Ramses II declared, “The foot of an Egyptian woman may walk where it pleases her and no one may deny her”. • Under Egyptian law women could inherit property, enter business deals buy and sell goods go to court and obtain a divorce • Despite their rights and opportunities, few women knew how to read and write. Even if they could they couldn’t be a scribe or hold government jobs.
Women Rights • It’s uncertain why these rights existed for the women in Egypt but nowhere else in the ancient world. • Under Egyptian law women could inherit property, enter business deals buy and sell goods go to court and obtain a divorce • Women’s work was not confined to the home • Women manufactured perfume and textiles, managed farming estates, and served as doctors.
Women’s Rights • **Egyptians and Greeks systems of law and social traditions existed in Egypt at that time. Greeks functioned within their system and Egyptians within theirs. Mixed parties of Greeks and Egyptians making contractual agreements or who were forced into court over legal disputes, would choose which system to base their settlements on. Ironically, even the Egyptian women had more privileges than Greek women. • From the bulk of legal documents, we know that women could manage and dispose of private property, including: land, portable goods, servants, slaves, livestock, and money (when it existed), as well as financial instruments (i.e., annuities and endowments). An Egyptian woman could administer all her property independently and according to her free will. She could conclude any kind of legal settlement.
Women and Marriage • Marriage was a very important part af ancient Egyptian society. Some people say it was almost a duty to get married. Husbands could marry more than one wife, and people of close relations (first cousins, brothers and sisters, ect.) could also wed one another. • There was no age limit as to when people could be married • *But generally a girl did not get married until she had begun to menstruate at about the age of 14. • *Some documents state that girls may have been married at the age of eight or nine • *And a mummy of an eleven year-old wife has also been found. • Marriage required no religious or legal ceremony. There were no special bridal clothes, no exchange of rings, no change of names to indicate marriage, and no word meaning wedding. • A girl became universally acknowledged as a wife after she physically left the protection of her father's house and entered her new home. *The new husband in no way became the new wife's legal guardian. **The wife kept her independence, and still kept control her own assets.
