But how does the queen amuse herself? for long indeed must the hours often have seemed as she lived out her life a comparative prisoner. G. Maspero, the noted French assyriologist, has thus described the occupation of the queens, as they try to fill the idle hours: "Dress, embroidery, needlework, and housekeeping, long conversation with their slaves, the exchange of visits, and the festivals, with dancing and singing with which they entertained each other, serve for occupation and amusement. From time to time the king passes some hours amongst them, or invites them to dine with him and amuse themselves in the hanging gardens of the palace. The wives of the princes and great nobles are sometimes admitted to pay homage to them, but very rarely, for fear they should serve as intermediaries between the recluses and the outer world."
The kings of both Assyria and Babylonia were, as a rule, kings of insatiable conquest. Hence, much of the year was spent with the army in some distant territory, or, it may be, in lion hunting, a sport which had great attractiveness to a number of the kings. It will be thus seen how little the wives of the monarch enjoyed his real companionship. There was ample time for monotony, broken now and again by jealousies, followed by bitter hatred and deadly plottings. One wife would almost inevitably share more of the attention of the king than the rest. Those who had reason to believe themselves neglected would certainly be incensed against the more favored rival. The servants of the palace would often be drawn into the disputes, which sometimes had a tragic end. The whole harem, combining against a favorite, might, through the use of poison or by some other clandestine means, end the life of her who was so unfortunate as to be loved by the king beyond the measure thought by her rivals to be her due.
One happy effort tended to relieve at least a little the dull seclusion of the ladies of the harem. This was the planting of a garden in a court adjacent to the house of the women. Often these gardens would be most elaborate and beautiful. The hanging gardens of Babylon, accounted as among the Seven Wonders of the World, were built in honor of a favorite queen. The garden of the harem consisted of trees, such as the sycamore, the poplar, or the cypress, and other plants selected to please the eye of those whose seclusion must have made this suggestion of the country most grateful.
Feasting played an important rôle in the heyday of Nineveh's grandeur, as also in the Babylon of later days. The king has just returned from a great triumph in the Westland. The whole city is agog. For days the round of drinking and carousing has proceeded, till the whole city is drunken. The queen wishes to have a part in the expressions of victory and rejoicing. She, with some trepidation, invites the king to dine with her in her apartments in the harem. At the appointed hour all is arranged. The gorgeous couch the queen has prepared for the king to recline upon while he sips his wine scented with aromatic spices, the rich drapery of the couch, the small table near by, laden with golden and silver vessels of costliness and elegance, the slaves who attend upon the lord's wishes, the poet-laureate to sing the conqueror's praises in elaborate lines of flattery--all conspire to make the occasion one of great magnificence. Thus, from king and queen to the lowliest of the great city, the spirit of revelry, the love of carousal, and the habit of intoxication, took hold of the luxuriant capital. We recognize the appropriateness of the familiar words of Nahum, the Hebrew prophet of Elkosh, who had been an eyewitness of the growing effeminacy of the great Assyrian capital, Nineveh, when he foretold the fall of the once glorious city: "Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women, the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thy enemies; the fire shall devour thy bars."
How did the ordinary housewife spend her time? M. Maspero attempts to reproduce the daily life of the Assyrian woman of about the eighth century before the Christian era in these graphic words:
"The Assyrian women spend a great deal of time upon the roofs. They remain there all the morning till driven away by the noonday heat, and they go back as soon as the sun declines in the evening. There they perform all their household duties, chatting from one terrace to the other. They knead the bread, prepare the cooking, wash the linen and hang it out to dry, or if they have slaves to relieve them from these menial labors, they install themselves upon cushions, and chat or embroider in the open air. During the hottest hours of the day they descend and take refuge indoors. The coolest room in the house is often below the level of the courtyard and receives very little light." Thus the Assyrian lady adapts herself as well as she may to her surroundings, which were usually very simple as to furnishings and such things as a modern inhabitant of the West would classify under the head of "comforts." An Assyrian housewife was usually satisfied with a few chairs and stools of various heights and sizes. There were few beds, except among the rich. The people generally slept upon mats, which could be folded and put away during the daytime. Taking care of the house was woman's work, unless the family was rich enough to own slaves to attend to the menial work of domestic life. The women had the care of the oven, which was usually built in one corner of the court, and the meats were cooked by them at the open fireplace. Care of the culinary work of an Assyrian home was no small task, for the Assyrians were good feeders,--and as for drinking, here they surpassed even their powers at eating. So the woman of the house would find it necessary to care for the wine skins and water jars that might be seen hanging about the porches to keep them cool.
The people along the waterways lived largely upon fish. These were caught in great numbers and dried. The industrious housewife would take these dried fish, pound them in a crude mortar, and then make them into cakes, which Herodotus tells us were almost the sole diet of those who lived in the lower or marshy regions of the Mesopotamian valley. Ordinarily, men and women partook together their daily repast from a common dish, into which all dipped, but on the occasion of great banquets it was customary for the women to be served separately.
"Concerning the virtues of women, O Cleanthes, I am not of the same mind with Thucydides, for he would prove that she is the best woman concerning whom there is least discourse made by people abroad, either to her praise or her dispraise; judging that, as the person, so the very name of a good woman ought to be retired and not gad abroad. But to us Gorgias seems more accurate, who requires that not only the face, but the fame of a woman should be known to many. For the Roman law seems exceedingly good, which permits due praise to be given publicly both to men and to women after death." These words of Plutarch find application in the life of the women of the land of the Nile. There is no lack of praise for the Egyptian women both while living and after they had passed away, as the testimony of the monuments amply prove.
It should be remembered that the history of Egypt extends over a very wide stretch of time, and that changes are to be reckoned with even in a region where everything moves slowly. For this reason it is not always possible to say that this or that was true of the Egyptian women. For there were the ancient, middle and later kingdoms, with each of which came new influences, and these differed in many respects from the period of Greek or Macedonian power; and the Egypt of to-day is a very different Egypt from that of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies.
There are many widely differing people in the land of the Nile to-day. The traveller finds great diversity of scenery and of social conditions, and one has said of this marvellous land as the great dramatist wrote of one of her most notable daughters:
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety."
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety."
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety."
The oldest book in the world is an ancient Egyptian papyrus discovered by M. Prisse at Thebes. It goes back to a period probably not later than B.C. 3580, being a collection of didactic sayings, or precepts, of Phtahhotep, a prince of the fifth dynasty. What so early an Egyptian sage has to say concerning women should be of no little interest. In giving advice to husbands, he gives this counsel, which we might imagine a wise man of to-day might easily have written: "If thou be wise, guard thy house; honor thy wife, and love her exceedingly; feed her stomach and clothe her back, for this is the duty of a husband. Give her abundance of ointment, fail not each day to caress her, let the desire of her heart be fulfilled, for verily he that is kind to his wife and honoreth her, the same honoreth himself. Withhold thy hand from violence, and thy heart from cruelty, softly entreat her and win her to thy way, consider her desires and deny not the wish of her heart. Thus shalt thou keep her heart from wandering; but if thou harden thyself against her, she will turn from thee. Speak to her, yield her thy love, she will have respect unto thee; open thy arms, she will come unto thee."
Ancient Egyptian literature does not lack its reference to women. One of the most famous of the stories that have been presented to us from Egyptian sources isThe Tale of the Two Brothers. This goes back to the day of Moses, and has suggested to many the Hebrew account of Joseph. It reveals the charms of her whose beauty the sea leaped up to embrace, and the acacia flowers envied. This romance, written for the entertainment of Seti II. when he was yet crown prince, and considered, by Mr. Flinders Petrie, to be connected with the ancient Phrygian of Atys, gives us an early illustration of the fact that many ills and many pleasures have been born to the race through love of a woman.
The women of Babylonia and Assyria enjoyed a measure of freedom that was exceptional for the Orient, and yet the Egyptian woman was more independent still. Indeed, the respect that was paid to womankind by the Egyptians is one of the fairest elements in the civilization of the valley of the Nile. Motherhood also was highly respected. But one illustration, referred to by Lenormant, will suffice to prove this statement. A woman whileenceinte, condemned to death for murder or any other crime, could not be executed till after the birth of the child; for it was considered the height of injustice to make the innocent participate in the punishment of the guilty, and to visit the crime of one person upon two. And he adds: "The judges who put to death an innocent person were held as guilty as if they had acquitted a murderer."
Before the law woman's rights were respected. In the division of the paternal estate, the daughters shared equally with the sons, and were more responsible than the sons for the care of the parents. In worship, the queen is sometimes depicted as standing near her husband in the temple--behind him, to be sure, as the king was the head of the religion and indeed "son of the Sun," but with him, like Isis behind Osiris, lifting her hand in sympathetic protection and shaking the sistrum, or beating the tambourine to dispel all evil spirits, or holding the libation vase or bouquet.
The Egyptian woman, of the lower or middle classes at least, suffered no enforced seclusion. She came and went as her will led her, appearing in public without covered face, and chatting with acquaintances whom she met without having her conduct questioned or her modesty placed under suspicion. She might enjoy a banquet with the opposite sex, and at its close look upon the weird figure of a corpse carved in wood, placed in a coffin, which Herodotus says was carried around by a servant. As he shows the image to each guest in turn the servant says: "Gaze here and drink and be merry; for when you die such you will be." Thus was Epicurus anticipated in ancient Egypt.Dum vivimus, vivamus.The Egyptians generally, however, kept the next world always in view, and immortality played no small part in shaping the Egyptian life, both as to its men and its women. The Greek influence, which, after the days of Alexander, was destined to revolutionize Egyptian thought and custom, notwithstanding the efforts of the Ptolemies to win favor of the populace by revolutionizing the waning worship of Osiris, is illustrated in a poem written about one hundred years before Christ, aLament for the Dead Wife of Pasherenptah.In this poem, the ancient hope of immortality is overcast, and the weeping spouse is enjoined:
"Love woman while you mayMake life a holiday,Drive every care awayAnd earthly sadness."
"Love woman while you mayMake life a holiday,Drive every care awayAnd earthly sadness."
"Love woman while you may
Make life a holiday,
Drive every care away
And earthly sadness."
The first lady of the land was of course a queen. The queens of Egypt not unfrequently had a wide outlook upon the material progress of the people. This is well exemplified in the expedition of Queen Chuenemtamun of which we know from discovered monuments, which represent the ship being ladened with large and costly stores under her direction. Queen Hatshepsu fitted out a fleet of five ships and sent them to the land of Punt,--the southern coast of Arabia, or, as some suppose, the African coast south of Abyssinia,--that they might bring back scented fig trees which she would transplant in her gigantic orchard at Thebes. The tallest monolith in the world, of reddish granite and one hundred and eight feet high, said once to have been covered with a coating of gold, was the work of this famous queen.
In a few cases queens ruled in Egypt, wives of kings governed jointly with their husbands, and there are instances in which pretenders to the throne married women of royal lineage that their claims might have at least the show of being legitimate. This was the case with Piankhi, one of the Ethiopian dynasty of kings, whose wife Ameniritis is described as a woman of rare intelligence and of superior merit; one who, because of her rare strength of character and wisdom, exerted a powerful influence in the government and won for herself great popularity in Thebes and the entire region around.
A modern traveller may easily be reminded of the honor paid to women in ancient Egypt by visiting the sites where temples and tombs were erected in honor of some beloved wife and queen. The temple of Hathor at the modern Aboo Simbel, which was erected by the famous builder Rameses II. in honor at once of Hathor the goddess of love, and of his wife Nofreari. Six statues adorn the entrance to the temple. They are thirty feet high, and represent Rameses and his beloved queen, who appears under the favor of the goddess Hathor. On the brow of the goddess is the crown--the moon resting within the horns of a cow; she wears also the ostrich feathers, which are the sign of royalty. Their children, as often portrayed upon Egyptian monuments, have their places beside their parents: the daughters stand close to the queen; the sons, near to the father. About the sculptured forms is recorded in hieroglyphic characters the love which the king felt for his fair queen, whose name meant "beautiful and good." The temple and statues are hewn out of the living rock, and, on entering, there is the shrine of Hathor, "the supreme type of divine maternity."
There is a touch of romance here, for on the outer wall the inscriptions tell us that this temple was reared "by Rameses the Strong in Faith, the Beloved of Ammon, for his royal wife Nofreari, whom he loves"; while within the doorway of this same temple may be read the legend, it was for Rameses that "his royal wife who loves him, Nofreari the Beloved of Maat, constructed for him this abode in the mountain of the Pure Waters." Thus beautiful was the enduring love between this royal husband and his wife.
No period of ancient Egyptian history is entirely wanting in the names of conspicuous women. There is a legend that comes down from the days of the Ptolemies, to the effect that when King Ptolemy Euergetes started out upon his expeditions against Syria, the strong rival of Egypt for the supremacy over the East, his queen, the beautiful Berenice (a favorite name for princesses for two centuries), made a vow that if her husband should be permitted to return from his expedition in safety, she would dedicate her hair to the gods. Her prayer was answered; and, faithful to her solemn vow, she cut off her hair and hung "the beautiful golden tresses that had adorned her head in the temple, whose ruins still stand on the promontory of Zephyrium." But, alas! they were not long allowed to adorn the walls of the holy place, for some sacrilegious thief carried them away from the shrine. The priests were bewildered, the king was wroth, no one knew what to do. At length the astronomers came to the relief of all concerned by announcing that it could have been no ordinary thief who plundered the temple for the beautiful tresses, but that the gods themselves had taken them, and that the keen eye had only to be turned heavenward to discover a new constellation which they now separated from Leo. The king and all concerned were now reconciled and happy. The constellation shines on.
Among the most beautiful of ancient buildings is the temple of Denderah. While magnificent in itself, much of its interest to us here is due to the fact that it was erected and dedicated to the Egyptian goddess of love and beauty, Hathor, nurse of Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis; and further, that it was begun by that fascinator of kings, the notorious Cleopatra. On the outside walls of the temple are figures of this famous queen, and of Cæsarion, her son by Julius Cæsar. One would judge from these representations that Cleopatra's beauty was of the most voluptuous and sensual type, the features being not only full but fat, though regular. On her head is placed the horned disc,--in honor of Hathor,--the sacred vulture, and the horns of Isis. Thus have been perpetuated the personal and religious features of the most remarkable woman Egypt ever produced. Pascal's oft-quoted comment upon the beauty of this Egyptian character doubtless contains a modicum of truth: "If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed." Cleopatra, however, whose charms subdued victors, was more a Greek than an Egyptian beauty. The women of the Nile country, however, were not lacking in personal grace and physical charm. Their complexions were dark, their features generally regular, and their bodies athletic, though not large.
One might judge from the paintings that have come down to us, which depict the form and vesture of the Egyptian woman, that she was greatly lacking both in grace of figure and in taste for arraying herself attractively. But we are not to be misled by the elongated, wiry-looking figures that the monuments portray for us. Some of the blame must, without doubt, be laid upon the Egyptian artist, who had little idea either of proportion or perspective.
Egyptian women spent much time upon their toilettes. Great attention was given to the care of the complexion. For this beautifying process a powder was used consisting of antimony and charcoal, powdered fine and applied with so much skill that the skin by contrast is made to stand out in soft whiteness. For this cosmetic regimen a mirror of highly polished metal was found to be of indispensable value. The finger nails came in for a full share of attention, henna being used to stain them. As for the feet, scarcely less care was given them, and anklets and toe rings frequently adorned them. Shoes, or sandals, seem never to have been in high favor in Egypt, and, even when clothed in the most costly apparel, women preferred to go with bare feet.
It would seem very difficult, to modern taste, to attain to real beauty by means of tattooing. But we have grounds for asserting that the Egyptian beauties, at least at a certain period of their national history, covered their forehead, chin, and breasts, and sometimes the arms, with indelible painting in color. They were fond of rouging their faces, especially the lips, and the eye was a feature to which much time and art were given. Large eyes were the fashion, as may be readily judged from the many pictures of ox-eyed maids which have been preserved. A band of black pigment almost entirely surrounded the eyes, and extended across the temples to the roots of the hair. By painting the eyebrows and eyelids, the eyes were made to appear not only larger but more brilliant.
The Egyptian woman was fond of the use of oil, which was rubbed generously upon the body. Perfumes also played an important part in her life. Women made and sold perfumes and used them profusely. They were exceedingly fond of flowers, especially if they were new varieties. Extracts and essences from sweet-scented plants were much sought after. Favorite shrubs and flowers were transported from distant lands and transplanted in the land of the Nile. This was often done upon a large scale. Even the liquors drunk at banquets were scented with sweet perfumes.
The women usually dressed in a long, close-fitting smock-frock, clinging closely to the body and reaching quite to the ankles. The shoulders and upper part of the breast were left uncovered, the frock being held in place by two straps running across the shoulders. But it is not to be supposed that the women of Egypt knew nothing of fashion; though it must be confessed that fashions changed slowly. And in this matter the men were as fond of fashion as the women; for they wore linen skirts usually reaching to the knees, although their length was regulated by the prevailing style.
Under the New Empire woman's dress did not leave both shoulders bare, as formerly, but covered the left shoulder; the right shoulder and arm being left free. At length drapery began to be more common, and instead of the heavy, straight garment of earlier days, graceful folds appeared. With the drapery came a lengthening of the skirt. When this change occurred only the priests retained the simple skirt of former days. Most men wore a double skirt, consisting of an inner short garment, and an outer. Indeed, the men seemed quite as fond of their costume as the women, and were more varied in their tastes, loving finery, and leaving it to the women to be more conservative in matters of dress.
From the paintings and the other representations that have come down to us, both the peasant maid and the princess wore the same kind of garments, so far as the cut of them is concerned. Mother, daughter, and maid were dressed much alike and without much variety of color. The rich often wore a profusion of beads.
There was no part of the Egyptian woman's toilet upon which so much care was bestowed as upon the hair. Indeed, the Egyptians prided themselves upon their coiffure. Herodotus is authority for the statement that there were fewer bald-headed people in Egypt than in any other country. Civilization, in the valley of the Nile, at least, did not seem greatly to increase the tendency to baldness. There were cases, but they were of the nature of a calamity. Woe to the physician whose skill did not succeed in checking the falling hair. Pomades of various ingredients were common remedies for this ill. Oil, dog's feet, and date kernels were considered of great virtue, as was also a donkey's tooth pulverized and mixed with honey. And there was no more direful or more frequent imprecation pronounced by an Egyptian lady upon her rival than that the hair of her whom she hated might fall out!
GHAWAZIAfter the painting by C. L. Muller
The "dancing girls" known asghawazi,are often in evidence. They clothe themselves in gay garments of various colors. Sometimes they are pretty and attractive specimens of female grace, but, as might be expected from their character and profession, they soon become coarse and repulsive. They may be seen at the public places, and their dances are indecorous and immodest. They play a leading rôle in those wild orgies known asFantasia.
Wigs were commonly used by women as well as by men of the Ancient Empire. There was a coiffure of straight hair down to the shoulders or to the breasts. Examples have been found, however, in which the wigs reached not so far, as is the case in the statuette of the Lady Takusit, which is now among the ancient ornaments in the Museum of Athens. She wears a wig of stiff curly locks in rigidly regular lines plastered closely to the head, reaching almost from the eyes in front to the nape of the neck, and hiding the ears. The plaiting of the hair became common in later times, the hair hanging stiffly over the shoulders.
This piece of statuary, that of Lady Takusit, or Takoushet, as it is sometimes spelled, one of the most perfect of its kind, shows a woman of good form and regular features, standing erect with one foot in advance, her right arm hanging gracefully by her side, her left pressed naturally against her bosom. She is dressed in the closely fitting skirt already described, supported by straps over the shoulders and reaching to a point just above the ankles. Her robe is richly embroidered with scenes of a religious character, and her wrists are adorned with bracelets.
Besides the ordinary hair dress of the women, the queen enjoyed the exceptional privilege of wearing a diadem or headdress, representing a vulture, which was the sacred bird of Egypt and was accounted the special protector of the king in battle. This royal bird is represented as stretching out its strong wings over the head of the first lady of the land.
The women were great lovers of trinkets and jewelry of all kinds, and the men were not far behind them in this. They put an ornament wherever it could be appropriately worn. And this ruling passion was even strong in death, for the dead were often literally loaded with jewels upon their arms, fingers, ears, brow, neck, and ankles. Favorite jewels, specially, were entombed with the dead. In the Boulak Museum has been preserved probably the most complete collection of funeral jewelry, that of Queen Aahhotep, mother of Ahmes, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty. The following are some of the womanly belongings buried with Queen Aahhotep: a fan handle plated with gold, a bronze-gilt mirror mounted upon an ebony handle, on which was a lotus of chased gold, bracelets of various designs, anklets, armlets, gold rings, ornaments for the wrist made of small beads in "gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian and green feldspar, strung on gold wire in a chequer pattern," and many other ornaments of fine gold, of chased and repoussé work of great value.
The women of Egypt to-day are dark in complexion and generally slender. The women of the poorer classes are ill kept and poorly clothed. They generally wear long, and frequently tattered, garments of blue and black cotton. Their feet are bare, but the love of decoration is manifest still; for, though they be dirty and begrimed through lack of care and suitable clothing, the silver anklets, the rings for their fingers and even for their toes, and the bracelets for their arms, tell the tale of their fondness for adornment. Mohammedanism has caused the universal use of the veil. A narrow strip of black is caught by a brass or silver spiral directly between the eyes. The falling veil, therefore, covers all the face below the eyes. Ladies of the higher classes wear transparent Turkish veils of costly material, and their costly silk garments are loaded with embroideries.
Mothers in Egypt carry their babes on their backs or shoulders. The mother holds fast to the feet or the legs of her offspring, while the child throws his hands about her head and seems well satisfied with his position. The tattooing, which we have noted as existent in early Egypt, is no longer general; it, however, may be seen to-day among the women of Nubia. Some of the Berber women not only are tattooed, but place blue lines on their under lip and on the cheeks and arms. The men, women, and children of that region are very dark. The women plait their hair into numerous tiny curls, which stay well in place, for the hair has first been soaked in castor oil, partly because of the æsthetic effect, and partly as a protection against the hot rays of the tropical sun. The dress of the younger women is very scant; the older females are generally clothed in long blue garments, which they gather about them in folds. The younger girls, however, with much unadorned innocence, wear simply a leathern girdle and a complacent smile, for the Berber women appear good-humored and happy. This costume, a girdle of leather, soaked well in castor oil and adorned with shells, worn by the younger belles of Nubia, is known as "Madam Nubia."
The "dancing girls," known asghawazi, are often in evidence in the towns of modern Egypt. They clothe themselves in gay garments of various colors. Sometimes they are pretty and attractive specimens of female grace, but, as might be expected from their character and profession, they soon become coarse and repulsive. They may be seen at the public cafés, and their dances are indecorous and immodest. They play a leading rôle in those wild orgies known asfantasia.
The modern Egyptian water girl is often an interesting bit of humanity. Canon Bell thus describes her in hisWinter on the Nile: "You may be accompanied, if you like it, by a little girl clad in blue, adorned with a necklace of beads, earrings and bracelets, and sometimes a nose-ring, carrying a water jar on her head, from which she will supply you at luncheon among the temples and tombs, for a small backsheesh. She will run beside your donkey for miles, and never seem tired, and if you will drink from her jar, of the same shape which you will see sculptured on the temple walls, will reward you with a sweet smile from her coral lips. And what teeth she and all the people have! I never saw teeth so regular and so white. They are like a string of orient pearls; and it is a pleasure when the lips part, and you see them gleaming white as driven snow."
In ancient Egypt the woman was queen of her own house, the real mistress of domestic life. When the husband was at home, he was looked upon rather in the light of a "privileged guest," and the housewife was the respected hostess, holding everything beneath her undisputed sway. In short, she was the very soul and centre of the domestic activity, rising early and stirring the household into life and movement.
Let us take a peep into an Egyptian home. Excavation has revealed that the palaces of the kings of Babylonia were built in a much more substantial and enduring fashion than were the temples of the gods. The reverse is true of Egypt. Egyptian temples were built not for time, but for eternity. The palaces, however, were of far lighter character, being erected of brick or undressed freestone, but rarely of granite or the more enduring materials. Eternity played an important part in the religious thinking of the Egyptians. This will account in a measure for the more enduring character of the houses of the gods. The dwellings of members of the richer classes were made up of an aggregation of houses, suggesting a miniature village. There were separate houses for the various members of the family: the master, the chief wife, the harem women, the visitors, and the several classes of servants. Storehouses were separate from buildings designed for habitation, and the several domestic offices had their individual buildings. The court, which every villa had, was planted with trees and flowers, and frequently was provided with a fountain and a pool. The women of the harem found opportunity for amusement in these beautiful courts. During the day these secluded beauties whiled away their time in gossiping, playing upon instruments, and indulging in the games in vogue. When night came they lay down to rest with their heads upon pillows consisting of a piece of curved wood, upon which was usually carved an image of the god Bisou, who guarded the sleeper. This little dwarf, a divinity with short legs and rotund stomach, drives away the demons who infest the night and are liable to injure the sleeping one, unless protected by this well-disposed and well-armed deity.
The wife in the average Egyptian home was the companion of her husband, assisting him to manage his affairs. She encouraged him in his own daily work, and there are pictures of wife and children, seemingly in a most interested mood, standing by while the husband and father is busily engaged in some engrossing occupation. Often the king will take his wife fully into his life. The queen is frequently pictured by the king's side in some public function. The wife of Amenophis IV., with the rest of the royal family, is represented, probably on some important state occasion, as standing upon the gallery of the royal residence and tossing golden collars to the people. Indeed, Amenophis IV. is discovered to have been most domestic in his tastes, giving his wife and daughters a place of respect and honor in his kingdom. Some of his monuments represent him riding in his chariot, followed by his seven daughters, who were his companions even in battle. Sometimes the queen of the Pharaohs is found riding in state processions in her own chariot behind that of her husband.
How did the average women of the Nile busy themselves during the long days? While they were not the hewers of wood, women were usually the drawers of water, as in Palestine and Syria. They were not idlers, though men did the spinning, weaving, and laundry work. In truth, as we have before stated, it was the daughter, or daughters, and not the sons who were expected to provide for their parents in times of want and old age. This did not permit women to be in any sense a dependent class.
The relation of the Egyptian woman to the practical affairs of life is significant and of great interest. It is in the matter of buying and selling that we perhaps have most frequent representations upon the monuments. And women as well as men are portrayed driving their bargains with the venders of all sorts of wares. Women both buy and sell in the public places. One has perfume of her own manufacture, upon the merits of which she glibly descants, even in terms poetic, as she thrusts the jars under the nostrils of the hoped-for purchaser. Women jewelers are discovered attempting to dispose of their rings, bracelets, and necklaces, while other women are trying to obtain goods at the lowest possible prices. "Cheapening" was fashionable even among the women of Egypt. Sometimes groups of women are represented as bargaining in the shops. Herodotus in his travels observed what to him was a striking contrast between the industrial and commercial customs of the Greeks and those of the Egyptians in that the men of Egypt worked at the looms and carried on the handicraft, while the women frequently transacted business. But it should not be thought that women did not weave. They often worked at the loom, and men as well as women bought and sold the ordinary commodities of life.
In the house Egyptian women not only engaged in weaving, spinning, and the making of fabrics generally, but they assisted in the curing of fowls, birds, and fish. Of this kind of food the Egyptians were very fond. When the husband, who was very partial to hunting, returned with the game he had killed or trapped, it was at once preserved for later use upon the table. Strangely enough, the cooks are usually represented as men, though the women were not strangers to the preparation of food for family use. The Egyptians laid much stress upon their dietary. They believe, Herodotus tells us, that the diseases men are heir to are all caused by the materials upon which they feed. Swine's flesh was, as with the Israelites, forbidden flesh, except upon certain extraordinary occasions. Their staff of life was bread made of spelt. Their drink was chiefly a beer made from barley. Salt fish, and dried fowls, such as ducks, geese, and quail, were eaten with great relish. Some birds, as well as some fish, were tabooed because of religious scruples.
The recreations that were allowable to the Egyptian women were quite numerous and varied. But dancing, singing, and performing upon musical instruments were their favorite amusements. The kettle drum and the castanet were in common use among them, and pictures of girls playing on the lute are not infrequent. A wall painting in a Theban tomb discloses the fact that dancing girls were often employed to afford merriment at the feasts. It was not against Egyptian etiquette for women to attend banquets, and they are often represented as drinking freely, even to drunkenness, lying about with forms exposed, and vomiting from overindulgence.
In this connection it is curious to note the relation of the women of Egypt to gymnastic feats. In the Turin Museum there is an example of a female acrobat, who is in the very act of performing with wonderful agility a very difficult feat. The young woman is nude, with the exception of a double belt, one thong of which encircles the waist, the other confines the hips. She is willowy in form and with great ease and grace she throws herself backward, apparently about to turn a somersault, but she keeps her feet upon the ground, and her hands almost touch her heels. Her hair flows out loosely as she seems about to whirl her lithe body through the air.
That the Egyptian women were pleasure-loving may be learned by many a monument. Portrayals of elaborate festivals have been unearthed, others are recorded by early historians. Herodotus gives a description of one of these in honor of the Egyptian Diana in the city of Bubastis. "They hold public festival not only once in a year but several times.... Now when they are being conveyed to the city of Bubastis they act as follows; for men and women embark together, and great numbers of both sexes in every barge; some of the women have castanets on which they play, and the men play on the lute during the whole voyage, the rest of the women sing and clap their hands together at the same time. When in course of their passage they come to any town, they lay their barge near to land, and do as follows: Some of the women do as I have described, others shout and scoff at the women of the place; some dance, while others stand and pull up their clothes; this they do at every town at the river-side. When they arrive at Bubastis, they celebrate the feast, offering up great sacrifices and more wine is consumed at this festival than in all the rest of the year. What with men and women, besides children, they congregate, as the inhabitants say, to the number of seven hundred thousand."
The law of Egypt prescribed that there should be in each family but one legitimate wife. From numerous representations upon the monuments it would seem that great affection usually existed between spouses. Marriage was termed "founding for one's self a home." Temporary or tentative marriages were often made for one year. After the expiration of the trial period, by the payment of a certain sum, the man might annul the agreement.
The Tel-el-Amarna tablets brought to light in 1887, furnish some very interesting and informing materials concerning diplomatic marriages. Many letters passed between the kings of Egypt and the rulers of the land of Mitanni, and other Asiatic provinces concerning the marriage of royal daughters to the King of Egypt or to the king's son. Even bargaining concerning dowry finds a place in this correspondence. Inquiries respecting the treatment of a daughter who has been given in marriage to a prince, complaints of the breaking of the marriage contract, and all conceivable complications which might grow out of these marital relations, are discussed.
In the days of the Ptolemies and in the Roman period, it became very common for men to marry their own sisters, especially in the royal families. This was true of Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy Epiphanes and Cleopatra. She married first her brother Ptolemy Philometer, and later, a second brother Ptolemy Physcon. This was the Cleopatra who lived a century before the famous "witch of the Nile." She distinguished herself by her signal favoritism toward the Jews, who had then become very numerous in Egypt, giving great encouragement to Onias in his undertaking of the erection of a Jewish temple at Leontopolis in Egypt.
In modern Egypt, however, marriage with sisters has given way to marriage between cousins, which in current opinion is by far the best sort of wedding match. It is not strange that this custom of legalized incest, the marrying of sisters should have sprung up in a land where Osiris and Set were worshipped. For both of these gods were wedded to their sisters, Isis and Nephthys.
As among the Hebrews, it was a matter of congratulation and of great domestic happiness to possess children, and much rejoicing took place at the birth of a babe. The inscriptions of monuments and tombs would indicate, too, a very beautiful family life in Egypt. There was nothing that so tended to give domestic life this charm as the fact that the mother took complete charge of the child's upbringing. She was its nurse, feeding it from her own breast often till it reached the age of three years. In Eastern countries it is not uncommon to see children of considerable size thus taking nourishment. When the child was unable to walk, or when the journey was too great for the yet undeveloped limbs, the mothers carried their children upon their necks, as do the Egyptian mothers to-day.
Motherhood was much respected both by sons and daughters,--more than is true of the children of modern Egypt,--and the wise men and poets of the land wrote and spoke most tenderly and sympathetically of the maternal love. As one of them said: "Thou shalt never forget what thy mother hath done for thee. She has borne and nourished thee. If thou forgettest her, she might blame thee, she might lift up her arms to God, and he would surely hear her complaint." An utterance of an Egyptian sage, which bears the spirit of the words of the Hebrew wise man, who said: "Forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind it continually upon thy heart, and tie it about thy neck. When thou goest it shall lead thee, and when thou sleepest it shall keep thee. When thou awakest it shall talk with thee;" and again: "Despise not thy mother when she is old." Affection between mothers and their sons was very strong. Many of the inscriptions upon tombs, with the accompanying pictures, reveal the dead son and his mother, and not the son and his father. This is in accordance with the very common fact in Eastern lands, especially in this part, that brothers and sisters by the same mother were much closer to one another than brothers and sisters by the same father. It is quite evident that in early days in Egypt descent was always traced through the mother, and not through the father. When, in a remote period, marriage ties were loose or polyandry was practised, it was manifestly easier to trace the family lineage through the mother. In ancient Egypt, it is interesting to note that inheritance of property passed not from a father to his son, but to the son of his sister, or sometimes to the son of his eldest daughter.
When children were named they did not receive a family or surname. All names were individual, the gods coming in for their share of honor in the selection, as was very common among ancient people, among whom religion pervaded everything. The girls were frequently named, for poetic or imaginative reasons, after trees, animals, qualities of moral excellence, and the like. Such appellations as "Daughter-of-the-crocodile, Kitten," etc., were not infrequent; and even here we find a religious motive, for both the crocodile and the cat were worshipped in Egypt. Mummied sacred cats have been exhumed in great numbers in recent years, only to be ruthlessly turned into fertilizers by the unappreciative and practical Westerner. "Beautiful Sycamore" is also an example of a woman's name. "Darling" and "Beloved" were also favorite names, and "My Queen" is also found. From the number of instances discovered, it would seem--and not unnaturally--that women liked to be called after Hathor, the goddess of love.
How did the little girls amuse themselves in those far-off Egyptian days? The girl nature is the same the world over, and has not undergone any radical change since the very dawn of history. The girls, of course, played with dolls. These were made from cloth and were usually stuffed. Some of them had long hair. Figures resembling jumping-jacks, loosely jointed and manipulated with a string, were a means of merriment for the little ones. The nursery was also frequently brightened by the presence of flowers; and birds, some free and some caged, were common pets; cats, too, were everywhere, and the small donkey furnished much sport.
It may seem somewhat strange that in a land to which has often been attributed the invention of the art of writing, there should have come down to us no literature from the hand and brain of a woman. The secret of this is probably found in the fact that while women were respected and even esteemed as the equals of men, yet it was not considered worth while to educate them in a literary way. In some of the arts, however, such as music, women were skilled.
In modern Egypt the education of the women is sadly neglected. It does not compare with that given them in ancient times. Indeed, in Mohammedan countries, generally, woman is sternly thrust into a position of inferiority, even of degradation. The school provided for the instruction of the children in Egypt, as in all Mohammedan countries, is thekattub, which is to be found in most towns and even in some of the small villages. These schools are attached, when possible, to a mosque, and the instruction is religious rather than literary, for the teaching is limited to the Koran, and all instruction is in the Arabic language. The schoolmaster, who usually has an assistant, is himself very ignorant of all that the modern Western world would term "learning." Even the elements of a modern education are strangers to him. There are said to be about nine thousand five hundred of these kattubs in Egypt, and in them are enrolled one hundred and eighty thousand pupils. But the kattub is dark and unattractive. There are no seats or furniture of any kind. To an Occidental eye, the schoolroom is inconvenient in every respect, and withal quite unsanitary and forbidding. The teacher sits on a mat, cross-legged. In front of him are ranged two rows of children, both boys and girls, sitting sideways to the teacher. One would suppose, seated as the children are, that the dreary humdrum of the daily instruction was surely meant to go in at one ear and out at the other. But the pupils learn to repeat passage after passage from the sacred book of Mohammed. For the time is largely taken up recitingsuraaftersurafrom the Koran, and the most lengthy passages are well memorized, the master correcting the boy or girl whose tongue has slipped, or prompting one whose memory has failed him. As the singsong of recitation is rolled out in languid sweetness, the pupils sway their bodies back and forth, keeping time to the rhythm. There is no casting of eyes at the girls, no giggling, no crooked pins in use, in the kattubs. The pupils know the stern master is on serious business bent. Besides, he makes use of the principle of "the expulsive power" of preoccupation; for, while the memorizing and reciting of texts goes on, there are no idle hands for Satan to make busy. The teacher himself sets the example of industry, for his hands are engaged in weaving a mat, while his ear watches to detect the slightest lapse from correctness in the pupil's tongue. So, too, the boys and girls must be busied at some useful handiwork, such as plaiting straw. Thus, "technical training" goes hand in hand with the mental in modern Egypt. The number of girls in these schools, however, is comparatively small. There are hopeful signs in the matter of female education in the Egypt of to-day, for the government, seeing the need, has granted a double sum for every girl in attendance upon the kattubs.
Women of all lands have had an important place in the time of sickness and death. Egypt is no exception to the rule. There were doctors in this cultured land. Specialism was in vogue even in ancient Egypt. As the celebrated Greek historian again says: "Medicine is practised among them on the plan of separation; each physician treats a single disorder and no more." There were eye specialists, headache specialists, tooth specialists, intestine specialists, and so on to the end of the category of diseases. Some of their treatises, comments upon cases, diseases, formulæ, methods of physicians, both of Egypt and of other lands, have come down to us. And yet, it must be confessed that exorcism held an important place in the Egyptian practice of medicine; and the women were among the foremost believers in this magical method of effecting cures. The Egyptian lady is suffering from a most violent attack of headache. She sends for the physician. He presently arrives, with one or more servants or assistants, bringing with them his book of incantations, and a case containing hismateria medica, which consists of a goodly supply of clay, plants or dried roots of all sorts, cloths, models in wax or clay, black or red ink,et cætera. A diagnosis of the case is hurriedly made. Kneading some clay, with which various ingredients are mixed, this disciple of Æsculapius, or rather of Imhotep, repeats the appropriate incantation several times, places the ball of clay under the head of the sick, and leaves, feeling sure that the inimical spirit which torments her will not be able to gain possession against the powerful charm.
In case of death in any household, the mourning was pronounced and pitiable. The part which women played in Egyptian funerals was not unlike that among the Hebrews and other Oriental peoples. "They were," says Maspero, in hisStruggle of the Nations, "not like those to which we are accustomed--mute ceremonies in which sorrow is barely expressed by a fugitive tear. Noise, sobbings, and wild gestures were their necessary concomitants. Not only was it customary to hire weeping women, who tore their hair, filled the air with their lamentations, and simulated by skilful actions the depths of despair, but the relations and friends did not shrink from making an outward show of their grief nor from disturbing the equanimity of the passers-by by the immoderate expressions of their sorrow." "O my father!" "O my brother!" "O my master!" "O my beloved!" would be heard from the female voices standing around the dead. There was no superstition which prevented a fond embracing of the body of the loved one who had just passed away. Tears flow in great profusion, hair and garments are rent, and the women beat their breasts, and then depart from the house of death. "With nude bosoms, head sullied with dust, the hair dishevelled and feet bare, they rush from the house into the still, deserted streets." Friends and sympathizers join in their grief as they pass along, and follow the procession of mourning. Since the Egyptian believes that the spirit can survive only so long as the body lasts,--a sort of conditional immortality,--the corpse must be embalmed. The method is determined by the rank of the deceased. If it be a princess who has passed away, the most elaborate and costly methods and materials must be used. Each toe and finger must be carefully and separately wrapped and cared for. Next comes the solemn funeral procession, with the noisy, heartrending hired mourners, the libations and offerings, the catafalque drawn by oxen, and at length the dead is laid away in the tombs. An important part of the Egyptian funeral is the banquet, in which the dead, through his representative, partakes; during the feasting, thealmehsexecute their death dances and sing their songs appealing to the living concerning death and the dead.
It is Nut, the goddess of heaven, who, during the journey of the soul, after it leaves the tomb appears from the midst of a sycamore tree, offering the spirit a dish containing loaves and a cruse of water, and if the soul accepts the proffered gift, he becomes the guest of the goddess. Beyond are dangers of every sort which only amulets and the most powerful incantations can dispel. If the soul can pass these--though many fall by the way--he is transported by the divine ferryman to the presence of Osiris, the great god. Maat, the goddess of Truth, stands by and whispers the proper confession into the ear of him whom Osiris questions, and the soul is passed on to the "Field of Beans," the place of the blessed, where feasts, dances, songs, and conversation are thereafter enjoyed.
Probably no Egyptian woman was ever more influential, for a period at least, than Queen Tyi, the mother of King Chuen-Aten, who is better known as Amenophis IV. His father, Amenophis III., was born, as the story goes, under conditions most auspicious. Ra, the great Sun god, who was considered to have been the father of all the Pharaohs, and the first sovereign of Egypt, as well as the creator of the universe, favored King Thothmes by giving to him the son for whom he prayed. Queen Moutemouait, wife of Thothmes, as she lay sleeping in her palace was suddenly aroused by seeing her husband by her side, and then immediately afterward the form of the Theban Amen. In her alarm she heard a voice telling her of the birth of a son, who should come to the throne in Thebes, and then the apparition "vanished in a cloud of perfume sweeter and more penetrating than all the perfumes of Arabia." The child whose advent was predicted became King Amenophis III., one of the most brilliant and successful kings of the eighteenth dynasty.
King Amenophis III. was wedded to a foreign wife, more than one in fact. Among the wives of his harem was Gilukhipa, or Kirgipa, a daughter of the house of Mitanni, between which and the Pharaohs of this epoch the Tel-El-Amarna tablets reveal so voluminous a correspondence. There was also in his harem a Babylonian princess, and, most famous of all, a lady, probably of Semitic extraction, whose name was Tyi. This Queen Tyi became the mother of the successor to Amenophis III. Under the influence of the queen-mother, the young King Amenophis IV. resolved on extensive religious reforms. He determined to dethrone or degrade the former deities of Egypt and exalt the "Sun Disc." Asiatic influence was paramount. He changed his capital from Thebes to the site of Tel-El-Amarna, and erected there both palace and temple. He changed his name to Chuen-Aten (Glory of the Solar Disc). But during his activity as a religious reformer, his empire was falling away by the sad neglect of the foreign affairs to which his father gave so large and successful attention. At his death his work fell to pieces, and his reformation swung back. Even his sons who succeeded him undid his work, and his name comes down to us as "The Heretic King," being caricatured by artists of the period which followed his ephemeral undertakings.
A modern Egyptian woman, or perhaps more accurately an Arab woman, digging into a mound in Middle Egypt, not far from the Nile, for the purpose of getting some material with which to patch her hut, pulled out a piece of baked clay with some queer inscriptions upon it, which turned out to be the cuneiform characters of the Assyro-Babylonian writing. Further excavations revealed the record hall of Amenophis IV., long buried under the ruins of his short-lived city. This collection of documents and correspondence in the Assyrian language, which was the Lingua Franca of those early days, are the source of our most accurate knowledge of the marriages, domestic relations and diplomatic history of this period in Egyptian history; indeed, of the history of the surrounding peoples as far east as the Mesopotamian valley.
At least two Egyptian women emerge in the Hebrew records, one of whom would indicate a low degree of morals, if we may judge of Egyptian women of high standing of the period by this one. It is Potiphar's wife who fell so deeply in love with Joseph, the handsome young Hebrew slave whom Potiphar had bought and made a servant in his own household, that she sought to use her wiles to entice the youth from rectitude. At length failing in her purpose, she charged him with attempting to use violence upon her, and had him imprisoned, only to find that the young man was to come forth stronger at last and find an honored place in the annals of Hebrew life in the land of Egypt.
The other Egyptian woman of whom Hebrew history speaks is Pharaoh's daughter, who, bathing in the Nile, with her maidens, discovered the infant who was destined to lead Israel out of Egypt and become the chief power in moulding the Hebrew commonwealth. The young Egyptian woman who became a mother to the child Moses, gave him all the advantages of Egyptian culture, which for those days were by no means meagre, and so played no insignificant part in the making of a lawgiver, and through him, in the making of a nation, whose moral and religious influence was to be second to none in the history of the past.
Late Judaism came in contact with a number of Egyptian princesses, especially in the age of the Ptolemies. Among these are the Cleopatras, three of whom lived a whole century before the days when Mark Antony was led astray by the most celebrated of all the women of this name. One of these was daughter of Antiochus the Great and wife of Ptolemy Epiphanes. She being attracted by the value of the balsam and other products of Palestine, asked that the taxes of the land of the Jews be given her as her dowry. A second Cleopatra, daughter of the last, greatly favored, as we have already noted, the Jews in Egypt, according to Josephus, and was in turn greatly beloved by the larger number of the Jews of the Diraspora, or Dispersion, who had sought refuge and a livelihood in the rich region of Egypt.
The third Cleopatra, daughter of the last-mentioned and of Ptolemy Philometer, was married in B.C. 150 to Alexander Bala. His checkered career is given us by Josephus and in the First Book of Maccabees. Two other women of this name also appear in the history of the Jews, one a mother of Ptolemy Lathyrus, a woman of great force and determination, who expelled her son from Egypt and caused him to take refuge in the island of Cyprus. The last was wife of Herod the Great, and mother of "Philip the Tetrarch." The story of Cleopatra, the beguiler of Mark Antony, is too well known to need repeating here. The women of Egypt of the Macedonian and Roman periods, let it suffice to say, were a power in the affairs of those marvellous days.
The moral code of the Egyptians, theoretically speaking, was relatively high, though it cannot be said that the women well known in Egyptian history or presented in romance bore an exceptionally elevated character. But the best women of ancient days were not usually those whose names were furthest known or most widely heralded. According to the Greek legends, some of the queens were not slow to accomplish their purposes, regardless of the method or the cost. Queen Nitocris, of the fifth dynasty, the celebrated queen with the "rosy Cheeks," avenged the murder of her brother by inviting the conspirators against his life to a banquet hall lower than the Nile, and while they feasted turned in the waters of the river upon them.
The Egyptian religious life was shared in by priestesses. Their pantheon contained goddesses, who were highly honored. Women were considered to have souls as well as men, and as great honor was paid them in the rites accorded to the dead.
Sacred prostitution, which was so well known among the ancient Semites, was also practised in Egypt. Anthropomorphism was common there as elsewhere among early religionists. The gods were supposed to have their generation in the same manner as men. The male and female divinities therefore had their necessary part in the mysterious creations of nature. The female function in generation, however, was a purely passive one. Just as, according to the current ideas, the father was the sole parent of the child, the mother only furnishing carriage and nourishment for the infant, so the female principle in nature was receptive matter--"the lifeless mass in which generation took place."
"Women," says Frederick Shelden, "are compounds of plain sewing and deception, daughters of Sham and Hem." This morsel of wit is not true of the women of Egypt in ancient days. The women of the Nile were, as a rule, remarkably faithful to their obligations to their gods, as they conceived them, and often to their households and to society. They were limited, to be sure, in their outlook upon life and service, yet religious to a fault, and sometimes moral. It has not been long since there was exhumed in Egypt,--which has proved indeed the most fruitful of all fields for the archæologist,--a remarkable prayer engraved upon the funeral shell of an Egyptian lady who lived in the age of the Ptolemies. It is a prayer, the sentiments of which show how some of the essential elements of a commonwealth life have been recognized by good men and women of all lands and of all ages. The prayer is as follows: "All my life since childhood I have walked in the path of God. I have praised and adored Him, and ministered to the priests, His servants. My heart was true. I have not thrust myself forward. I gave bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked. My hand was open to all men. I honored my father, and loved my mother; and my heart was at one with my townsmen. I kept the hungry alive when the Nile was low." Here godliness, support of religious ideals and services, truthfulness, humility, charity for the distressed, honor to parents, and good citizenship, are recognized as the true conduct and held worthy of the consideration and reward of the gods.
Among the Christian women of western Egypt of to-day are the Coptic women. Christianity very early made wide conquests in Egypt, and while the Christian religion has revolutionized ideals and modified customs, it has never destroyed many of the social habits that have had racial sanction for centuries. The Christian church of Egypt is the Coptic Church, which has existed almost since the beginning of the Christian era. The women of this fellowship are of course very different in many respects from the other women of modern Egypt, notably the Mohammedans. Close to Heliopolis is pointed out a sycamore fig tree called theTree of the Virgin. It is here, according to the Coptic legend, that Mary and Joseph rested with their infant son when fleeing from Herod. Not far away is a miraculous fountain, in which, as the story goes, Mary bathed the feet of the child Jesus. Having once been salt, the spring now became wholesome and sweet.
The Copts have preserved their early traditions, and their customs are in many respects in contrast with those of other people around them. It is the mother of the young man, not the father who usually makes the arrangements for their son's marriage. "She goes among her friends to find a wife for her son, and when after inquiry she discovers a girl whom she thinks in every way suitable, she informs her son, who is influenced by her opinion and commits the arrangements to her judgment. Sometimes the choice of the bride is left to women whose profession it is to select a fitting bride for the man who employs them, and to open the preliminary negotiations. There is naturally a good deal of risk in this; but as women are so entirely secluded in the East, as they are shut out from their legitimate place in society, such an arrangement becomes necessary, and so husband and wife are married without having looked into one another's face." But when once a Copt has chosen a wife, she is his forever. No divorce is permissible. They are one till death.
When the influences that had early gone out from Egypt and made for art and learning in all the lands about the Mediterranean began to return with compound interest from the shores of Greece to the land of the Lotus, the women as well as the men were destined to feel their power. Many a woman had her life lifted from the drudgery of the purely physical life into the higher atmosphere of intellectual pursuits and attainments. Especially marked was this in Alexandria where the great library and university were exerting a powerful influence, and Christianity was making its teachings felt in favor of equality of opportunity. In that great university town, the first Christian theological seminary was established, where both men and women might study the teachings of the Nazarene. Theological discussions at length became so general in Alexandria that some one has said that "Every washer-woman in the city was arguing the merits ofhomoousianandhomoiousianin the streets."
It was in this later period of Egypt's history that there arose one of the most unique of all female figures. For, of all women who ever lived in Egypt probably none can be given so high a place for various attainments and virile powers as must be accorded to Hypatia. She was born of intellectual ancestry, her father being the mathematician and philosopher Theon, who lived in the fourth century of our era. She was a disciple of her father, and had probably been a student in the cultured city of Athens. Returning to her native city she became a lecturer on philosophical subjects, and was recognized as a leader in the neo-Platonic school of her day. She is said to have attracted students far and wide to her classroom, not by her rare intellectual gifts alone, but by her charm of manner, her beauty of person, her modesty combined with real eloquence. Not only in the classroom did she exhibit her power of persuasion and forceful speech, but in courts of law she proved a powerful advocate. Her very eloquence, however, was her undoing, for because of the strife that arose in Alexandria between Christian sects and aroused them to the white heat of controversy and hate, the gifted Hypatia lost her life in a manner most horrible. Torn from the chariot in which she was riding she was dragged to the Cæsareum--which had been converted into a Christian church--stripped naked in the presence of a howling, fanatical mob, and then cut to pieces with oyster shells. A horrible blot is this upon Alexandrian life and a fearful comment upon the wild extravagances that were sometimes enacted while Christianity was disentangling itself from paganism.
Truly wonderful has been the life history of this land of the lotus flower. Once the seat of the highest learning, by its fertilizing Nile the feeder of the bodies as well as the minds of men; later, the home of Greek philosophy and of Christian theology--it is to-day little reckoned with, except as a prize for stronger powers. Some day its natural wealth may redeem it, and its women put off their rags, or their veil, and exert new power in the march of progress.