I started wondering when I noticed that goddesses from different pantheons who had similar responsibilities were regarded in completely different ways. For instance, Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of beauty and sexuality, but seemed to lack other attributes and was said to be vain and unfaithful. In contrast Hathor, the Egyptian Godess of beauty and sexuality (amongst other things) was regarded as being a more rounded character, and had a more diverse portfolio, so to speak. I presumed this difference had to be a reflection of how the two cultures viewed women more generally.
So I started looking into it, and I've come across a bit of information about women's rights in ancient empires and cultures, and notice that Egypt seemed to be remarkably egalitarian, directly contrasting the brutal sexism in the likes of Assyria (which legislated that a man could smash his wife's teeth out if she spoke out of turn?!), Babylonia, and Greece. One friend supposed that whilst they had legal equality in Egypt, the reality was that they needed a male to legitimise their business?
I'd just like to know if women really did have equality in Egypt (circa 1200BC), and if possible, how this compares to Egypt's contemporaries? From this, (if true) I'm curious about any arguments for why Egypt had such respect for women, which was so lacking in its neighbours?
One of the sources I found: http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/
What do you mean for "Ancient Egypt"?
6000 BC? 2000 BC? Roman Egypt?
Same for the Ancient Romans: it is too difficult to say, because between King Romulus and Romulus Augustus there are more than 1100 years of history and unbelievable cultural and social transformations. The Romans went from the "domi mansit, lanam curavit" and the "ius vitae necisque" of the Republican Age (the woman's life was in the hands of her husband, and her duties were to stay at home caring for her family) to the almost excessive, Orient-imported, emancipation of the end of the I century AD, which allowed wealthy women to freely betray their husbands (as denounced by Juvenal in his Satires) or to have an intellectual life (something that would have been forbidden for many centuries to come).