Women's Role In Ancient Civilizations

Throughout written history, women have experienced status submissive to the men they lived with. Commonly, most cultures known to modern historians followed a typical pattern of men being given the role of the defender and breadwinner of the family, whereas women were given responsibilities of domestic servitude. The roles of females differed greatly among the ancient societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The most part, ancient women in Egypt enjoyed more rights and privileges than their Mesopotamian counterparts in matters of marriage and property ownership. Women in ancient Egyptian civilization were perceived as liberated citizens with the same potential to operate as part of a legal system as men, and they can even be priestess.

The understanding of gender roles in society has been very fluid in the evolution of mankind. In ancient civilizations, the roles that you were given within a society were centered primarily around gender. These gender roles did vary from civilization to civilization, but were generally comparable. In most ancient civilizations, the roles of women were confined to the household. This was evident in most societies, but a stand out among these was Ancient Egypt. In which, Egypt was one of the only civilizations where women were even remotely equal to men. When comparing to other societies during the ancient time period, women were most respected in Egypt.

Women have played important roles throughout history. They have been responsible for the rise and fall of nations, sustaining families, and have been the focal point of worship in ancient religions. Moving forward in history, women's roles have continually changed. Their status as matriarchs changed as the more advanced ancient civilizations rose. The patriarchal societies of ancient Greece and Rome viewed women differently from some societies of past eras. The study of the economic and political status of women, their rights, and their contributions to both these ancient societies reveals how views change throughout history.

Gender roles in ancient Mesopotamia were clearly defined (teachmiddleeast.edu). Generally, men worked outside of the home and women stayed inside of the home while focusing on raising their children and keeping up with work that took place in the home. However, there were exceptions; we know of women who were “bartenders” and even women who were priestesses, but with limited responsibility. Due to the fact that some were from socially higher families and owned large amounts of property, those women were not allowed to marry. Women at the time were given much less freedom than men, however, women were more protected than men, which is seen in Hammurabi’s Code of Law, specifically in his 130th law:

Ancient cultures treated women more as property than people. The cultures that I will proceed to talk about are Mesopotamia, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans and how differently yet how equally treated women. Women were more of a household decoration to the men of each culture, all they did was cook, clean, and be a mother to the children. When the men got home the women were expected to make him happy no matter what.

Respectable Athenian women seldom left their homes. Only men could purchase goods or engage in soldiering, lawmaking, and public speaking. The societies of ancient Egypt and of the Greek city-state of Sparta provided a rare contrast. Both Egyptian and Spartan women could own property and engage in business. According to Dr. Peter Picone, the author of “The Status of Women in Ancient Egyptian” states “the Egyptian women seem to have enjoyed the same legal and economic rights as the Egyptian man”. Also he states that legal rights were on a class boundary more than a gender boundary. The Women of Sparta on the other hand were quite different from the women of their neighbor, Athens. As you well know, the women of Sparta were bold, freer, and well educated. Also with the Sparta women, everything depended up money, which would determine your rank in society. While some of the Spartan citizens have quite small properties, others have very large ones; hence the land has passed into the hands of a few. And this is due also to faulty laws; for, although the legislator rightly holds up to shame the sale or purchase of an inheritance, he allows anybody who likes to give or bequeath it. Yet both practices lead to the same result. And nearly women held two-fifths of the whole countries; this is owing to the number of heiresses and to the large dowries that are customary. The Women of Sparta on the other hand were quite

Women's lives, roles, and statuses changed over various early world history eras and culture areas in many ways. Ancient Persia, Paleolithic, Athens, Mesopotamian and Roman eras were all different in very unique ways. The Paleolithic era treated women fairly and were treated equally. During the Neolithic era women were not treated fairly. She was the daughter of her father or the wife of her husband. Women rarely acted as individuals outside the context of their families. Those who did so were usually royalty or the wives of men who had power and status.” (oi.uchicago.edu, 2010) Athenian women were not treated fairly

To each society, there is its own set of rules. Many of these rules separate the women from the men or the children from the adults by creating certain duties for each individual. There are many comparisons between the women of Islamic and Roman societies. The roles that are given to these two groups of women show what is expected of them as a wife, the mother of the family, and where they stand politically.

In current times in America, the role of women and the role of men is about equal. When it comes to home life, it’s just as common for women to go out and work as it is for a man to do it. Women have even run for President. However, in the Harappan society in ancient India, and in Sumerian times in ancient Mesopotamia, the equality and respect of women weren’t as strong as it is today. Regardless, women were respected to a certain level. Overall, the respect of women in ancient India was similar to the respect of women in Mesopotamia because goddesses were seen as powerful, young women were admired, and women were highly regarded for being able to give birth.

The way women have been treated varies throughout time, in some time periods women were oppressed and fighting for rights, in others they were queens. In the ancient societies of Egypt and India, women were treated differently than men, although in different ways. In Egypt, women were still treated with respect and dignity, while in India the roles of women were to be submissive and compliant.

Greek Woman was considered to be submissive which means once you are married to a woman, then she is in your full control. The woman in ancient was not allowed to own the property, in one way we can also relate that the woman had fewer rights than the man because they could hardly express their feeling. The woman was not considered as the citizens.

Throughout history women have faced many struggles in gaining equality with men. Freedoms and boundaries have been dependent upon the time period, rulers, religions and civilization. Ancient Greek women and Ancient Egyptian women were both equal to men as far as the law was concerned in certain areas; however, their equalities were different in the sense that Greek women were married out of necessity and viewed as property while Egyptian women were respected and loved by their husbands. Ancient Greek women and Ancient Egyptian women also both lived with limitations such as being thought of as domestic servants, yet these views solely depended on the time and polis.

From prehistory to 600 BCE, gender roles have been influenced by religion in many civilizations. In ancient Mesopotamia, “The Mesopotamian woman's role was strictly defined. She was the daughter of her father or the wife of her husband. Women rarely acted as individuals outside the context of their families. Those who did so were usually royalty or the wives of men who had power and status” (University of Chicago). In Mesopotamia’s polytheistic religion, women were only known as the mother of a son, or the wife to a husband. This was influenced by the religion because the many gods influenced how men and women were treated in Mesopotamia. This is similar to how women were treated in another civilization at the time, Israel. In Israel, women would not own property or get a divorce, and, if involved with extramarital relations, would be put to death. According to the Oxford Research

Henrik Ibsen once said, “A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.”(Notable Quotes) Ibsen’s statement exemplifies what life was like for women during ancient times. In many of the organized ancient civilizations, it was very common to find a primarily patriarchal civilization in government as well as in society. The causing factors can be attributed to different reasons, the main being the Neolithic Revolution and the new found dependence on manpower it caused. As a result of this, a woman found herself to be placed into an entirely different view in the eye of

In the seventh and eighth centuries, Islam was similar to Sparta and the Persian Empire in that women were viewed as equal and got to choose who to marry; however, Athenian women did not get to decide whom to marry. A similarity between Islam and Sparta is that women were seen as equal. In Islam, women were seen as spiritually equal. Spartan women were responsible for raising their sons to be warriors and were allowed to go to school. Spartan women are seen as equal because they played a very big role in society. Women in the Persian Empire and women under Islam were given the right to choose whom to marry. Persian women were given the decision to marry and if a woman decided to, she got to choose whom her spouse would be. A difference between