I was reading a textbook, and it quoted Adam Smith in the The Wealth of Nations where he said that in Ancient Egypt
"every man was bound by a principle of religion to follow the occupation of his father and was supposed to commit the most horrible sacrilege if he changed it for another."
Is this an accurate? Both how the jobs were assigned, and the fact that it was seen as "horrible sacrilege" to not take up your father's profession
Was this the norm for contemporaneous societies?
Or was this a societal expectation fairly unique to Ancient Egypt?
Thanks!
That doesn't really correspond with anything I've learned at least. It would be interesting to know which time period he is talking about though. What he is stating is sort of true in that occupations often went from father to son because of practicality. It was also considered to be very bad to be unemployed in ancient Egypt.^1 However, say a son of a peasant became a scribe (unlikely, but for the sake of argument, let's say so), then the son would have gone from the prospect of having a low status occupation to one of considerable status, which hardly would be considered a "horrible sacrilege".
[1] R.B. Parkinson (1991), Voices from Ancient Egypt, p. 70-71.