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261 views4 pagesSpeculations On Middle Kingdom Marriage
Speculations_on_Middle_Kingdom_Marriage
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Hossam Abd Ellah OmarCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honour of H. S. Smith
ed. by Anthony Leahy and John Tait
The Egypt Exploration Society, London, 1999
SPECULATIONS ON MIDDLE KINGDOM MARRIAGE
By JANET H. JOHNSON
Harry Smith isa fine scholar whose primary research and training of younger generations of scholars
have made significant contributions to the field of Egyptology. It is his willingness to speculate and try
to ‘flesh out’ the sometimes dry bones which form the basis of our knowledge of ancient Egypt which
lead me to hope that the following speculations will intrigue him and perhaps inspire further discus-
While reading P. Kahun 1, pair of Middle Kingdom imy.t-pr documents,’ with a beginning hieratic
class, I found myself interpreting the document which Wah made to his wife Teti as the functional
equivalent of the Late Period demotic annuity contracts. In such contracts, a man pledged all his prop-
erty as security for his promise to feed, clothe and house his wife. And in many cases the man also
designated that it was his children born (or to be born) of this wife who would be eligible to be his legal
heirs. If the very hypothetical scenario presented here is anywhere near the ‘truth’, then much of the
social, I -m underlying the demotic annuity contracts may have been in place
1500 years earlier, by the Middle Kingdom at the latest. This would further suggest that the dichotomy
between the strong legal position of women in ancient Egypt and their much weaker social and eco-
nomic position had led at least some men to provide for their wives and children in the same way that
‘we see institutionalized more formally in the Late Period contracts.
‘The text itself was originally published by F. Ll. Griffith: *
W/L *Copy of the émy.t-pr which the Sealbearer and Trusted One of the Controller of Works ‘Ankh-ren
‘made:
1/2 “Year 44 of King Amenemhet II], 2nd month of Summer, day 13.
1/3 The imy:t-pr which the Sealbearer and Trusted One of the Controller of Works of the Northen
District Shepset's son Thi-seneb, who is called “Ankh-ren, made:
1/4 “All my possessions in field or in town belong to my brother, the w‘b-priest and overseer of the
phyle of Sopdu, Lord of the East, Shepset’s son Ihi-seneb, who is called Wah.
1/5 All my dependents belong to this brother of mine.”
‘This was put as a copy in the office of the Second Reporter of the South in Year 44, 2nd month of
Summer, day 13.
1/6 “Year 2, 2nd month of Inundation, day 18.
1/7 The imy.t-pr which the w'b-priest and overseer of the phyle of Sopdu, Lord of the East, Wah
made:
“Lam making an imy.t-pr for my wife, (1/8) the woman of ‘Left-Side’,* Sopdu’s daughter Shefet,
who is called Teti, consisting of all the possessions which my brother, (1/9) the Sealbearer and Trusted
One of the Controller of Works “Ankh-ren, gave to me together with all his moveable property, being
everything which he gave to me. She will give (1/10) to any one she desires among her
children whom she will bear to me, Iam giving to her the three Asiatics (1/11) whom my brother, the
"Lic, ‘that which isin the house’, Despite the common identification of such documents as “wills, these documents do not
ways relate to transfers of propery ator in conjunction with death, For example, in the Old Kingdom tomb of 77ry
recorded an exchange between im and Hnmty in which Hrmty decorated a door of 'Tity’s tomb in exchange for (iw) a
Smal cloth and appointment as ki-prest, all recorded as an impr. Thus, I prefer {0 use to use the term (Vand-)ransfer
document’. Fr discussion and bibliography of fmy.-pr documents, see K. B. Gédecken, “Imetper', LA ll, 141-5,
2 See the classi studies by E. Liddeckens, Agyptische Ehevertrage (Wiesbaden, 1960), and P. W. Pestmsn, Marriage and
“Matrimonial Propertyin Ancient Egypt: A Contribution wo Establishing the Legal Postion ofthe Woman (Leiden, 1961).
5 The Petre Papyr, Hieratc Papyr from Kahun and Gurob principally ofthe Middle Kingdom (London, 1898). Fo a recent
translation and eopy of the hirati, see RB. Parkinson, Voices from Ancient Egypt, An Anthology of Mile Kingdom Writings
London, 1991; Norman, 1991), 108-10
# "The name of the town rom which the wife came. 170 JANET H. JOHNSON
Sealbearer and Trusted One of the Controller of Works ‘Ankh-ren, gave to me. She will give
to any one she desires among her children. (1/12) As for my tomb, let me be buried in it together with,
‘my wife, without letting any man at all interfere. (1/13) As for the structures which my brother, the
Sealbearer and Trusted One of the Controller of Works ‘Ankh-ren, built for me, my wife shall live®
therein without letting her be expelled therefrom (1/14) by anyone,
It is the Deputy Geb who will educate® my children." 7
List of the people in whose presence this was done:
Registration Docket (on the verso): ‘imy:t-pr which the w‘b-priest and overseer of the phyle Wah made.”
I suggested the following reconstruction of the social situation and the actions involved. In year 44 of
King Amenemhet III, “Ankh-ren realized that he was about to die without children. In such a case, his
wealth would revert to his parents or, if they were dead, to his siblings. He made a transfer document on
behalf of his brother Wah, giving to him all his real estate (‘everything in field or in town’) and all hi
personal property (‘all my dependents’). It is noteworthy that Wah did not acquire his brother's job and
litles. There are many possible explanations for this: the king/central administration may have stepped
in to assert their control by appointing someone outside the family to “Ankh-ren’s position; Wah may
have calculated that his own position offered as good or better chance of promotion and enrichment; or
there may have been a third brother, older than Wah, who was appointed to the “family” job. That
“Ankh-ren and Wah had one or more siblings is perhaps implied by the very existence of *Ankh-ren’s
transfer document, since if the two brothers were the only two children in the family, Wah would have
gotten his brother’s property even without the transfer document?
‘When Wah inherited his brother’s wealth, it made it possible for him to court and acquire a wife
proper to his station, Part of what convinced the woman, and her family, was his willingness to write a
document transferring to her legal ownership of all his private property, ic., the real and personal
property which he had inherited from his (older) brother ‘Ankh-ren. Thus, in year 2, presumably of
‘Amenemhet IV, the successor of Amenemhet IIT, Wah made a transfer document for his new wife,
identifying her very clearly not only by name and patronymic but by town of origin,
Just as the men who made demotic annuity contracts used all their private property (“all I possess and
all I shall acquire’) as security for the annuity contract they were providing their wife, so Wah backs
his proposal with all his private property. Men were normally the ‘public’ partner of a marriage and
handled business deals and property transactions, sometimes acting in their wife's name.” Thus, as long
as the couple remained married, Wah would have had control (and power of disposition) over the prop-
erty." But if Wah died, or if the couple divorced, Teti would retain possession of the property and
‘would have enough to take care of herself and any children the couple might have. Thus, as long as Wah
was alive and remained married to Teti, no effective transfer took place. But if they divorced (at her
instigation or his), she, as legal owner of the property, would take it with her. A similar situation is found
in the Late Period when a man making an annuity contract would claim to have made his wife a ‘bridal
SLit, “be
Or "serve as guardian (of (rtd ni.
1 This line was added, perhaps later, ina slightly different handwriting.
® Ie might be possible that he had children but he didn’t want them to inherit his property. However, sine in Egyptian
‘documents adults are given the legal right to inherit or disinhert among their children but not to exclude all their children from,
their inheritance, it seems much mote likely that this man had no children,
"Although if one or both parents were alive Wah would have had to wait until their deaths to be sole owner,
1© Parkinson, Voices from Ancient Egypt, 109, has previously suggested, but without any discussion, that Wah made his docu
‘ment ‘perhaps on the occasion of his mariage’
Including anything he had or might inherit upon the death of his parents
12 For a clear example, se P. W. Pestman, “Appearance and Reality in Written Contracts: Evidence from Bilingual Family
Archives’, in M.J. Geller, H. Machler and A. D. E. Lewis (eds.), Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World, Papers from a
Seminar arranged by the Institute of Classical Studies, the Institute of lewish Studies and the Warburg Institue, University of
London, February to May 1986 (London, 1996), 84-5.
1S'A man could dispose of his wife's property but, if he did and if they subsequently divorced, he had to provide her with
something of equal Vale; se my "Women, Wealth and Work in Egyptian Society of the Prolemsic Perio, in W. Clarysse, A.
Schoors and H. Willems (eds), Egyptian Religion: the Last Thousand Years: Sudies Dedicated 1o the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur
(Leuven, 1998), I, 1393-1421 with n.103,
11 1f Wal had died without making such a transfer document, Tti would, presumably, have had legal claim to her share
(sually one third) of the couple’ joint property, but she would have had no legal claim on his private property, which would
hhave gone to his children if he had any) or his parents or siblings. By means ofthis transfer document, Wah is making sue that
she retains his propery if he predeceases he. SPECULATIONS ON MIDDLE KINGDOM MARRIAGE, m1
gift’. But since the husband would normally have handled the family finances, he would have had to
pay over the gift only in case of divorce. This Late Period “bridal gift” has been analyzed as the Late
Period equivalent of the New Kingdom fine imposed on a man who divorced his wife and both have
been interpreted as strong economic, and social, deterrents to men’s divorcing their wives.
Before recording his own transfer document to his wife, Wah had the scribe copy or summarize the
transfer document which *“Ankh-ren had made to him by which he had come into legal possession of the
property with which he was endowing his new wife. Although the men writing Late Period annuity
contracts did not spell out specific parcels of real or personal property which they were using as security
for the contracts, frequently they did include clauses intended to establish their clear and legal title to
the property involved. Thus, the father of the man making the contract might sign the contract indicat-
ing his acceptance thereof." Since at least part of the wealth which the man Was using as security forhis
annuity contract was the property he would inherit from his father at his father’s death, it was important
to secure the father’s agreement to the contract." In a famous case of the contested second marriage of
rather well-to-do priest from Siut, in Middle Egypt, the man's oldest son by his first wife was the one
to sign his father’s annuity contract to the father’s second wife, establishing the older man’s legal ttle to
the property" used as security for the contract.
After having established his legal ownership of the property and writing the actual transfer docu-
‘ment, Wah goes one step further and states that Teti has the right to pass the property (real and personal)
to any whom she wishes among the children whom she will bear him. This wording accomplishes two
‘goals at once, one of great concer to the husband, the other of great concern to the wife. From Teti’s
point of view, this language guarantees that Teti’s children will be Wah’s legal heirs (not any children he
might, or might have, sired by any other woman); from Wah’ point of view he is entailing the property
for his own (future) offspring, so that Teti can not, after his death, transfer his property to her own
biological family or to children that she might bear to a (future) husband, thereby totally disinheriting
his children. This same entailing of (the husband’s) private property on behalf of a couple’s children is
found already in the Old Kingdom, is clearly attested in the New Kingdom," and becomes a standard
part of many Late Period annuity contracts.” Although in some cases the annuity contracts refer to
children who have already been born to the couple, much more frequently the contracts, just like Wah’s
transfer document, use a future tense construction and refer to children ‘who will be born’, implying
that the document was made relatively early in the marriage. In Wah’s transfer document itis spelled
out that, ifthe couple has children, Teti will be able to pick and choose among them as heirs, if she so
desires."
‘A further similarity between Wah’s transfer document and the Late Period annuity contracts is the
fact that the document was made directly between the husband and wife, not with the woman’s father or
any other man on her behalf. This is in sharp contrast with most other ancient Near Eastern ‘marriage
documents’, whether those documents were purely economic or also embedded social concerns. It
presumably reflects the fact that Egyptian women were full participants in the Egyptian legal system,
not chattel and not dependent on a man to handle their legal concerns for them.
‘Three further conditions were specified in Wah’s contract which do not find a parallel in the later
annuity contracts but which can also be explained in the context of a ‘transfer of property at marriage’
‘The first two would have been of greatest concem if Wah were to die without Teti’s having produced
15 And in te earliest par of annuity contacts of which we have record, both father and son actually wrote out contracts tothe
‘woman the son vas marrying: see my “"Annuity Contracts” and Marriage’, in D. P. Silverman (ed), For His Ka, Essays
Offered in Memory of Klaus Baer (Chicago, 1994). 123-4
"6 Since if the faterdisnherited the son forthe son's marriage, both husband and wife would be left out in the col.
17 One third or his private property. the other two thirds going tothe children ofthe first marriage. That the eldest son by the
first mariage had to confirm his father’s new annuity contrat reflect formal solution to an on-going problem, seen already
in New Kingdom documentation. For example, . Turin 2021 (published by J. Cem and T.E. Peet, ‘Marriage Seulement of
the Twentieth Dynasty, an Unpublished Document from Turin’, JEA 13 (1927), 30-9) record a court appearance by aman, his
second wife, and his children by his fist wife in which the children of the fst wife attest that they have, indeed, received their
to thirds of their father’s property and that they have no objection to their father’s endowing his second wife with the
remaining one tied of his proper:
18 See, for example, the inscription ofthe Fifth Dynasty noble Ny-ka-‘ankh, who specifically forbade transferring the inher-
ited property outside the family (Kurt Sethe, Urk I (Leipzig, 1903), 161-2).
1 See, for example, the imy:spr made by Senmose, in which property goes to his wife and then a son and three daughters (A,
Théodorides, “Le testament dans Egypte ancienne (essetillementd'aprés le Papyrus Kahoun VIL, 1, la Stele de Senimose
tle Papyrus Turin 2021)", RIDA 17 (1970), 117-216).
2 Lilddeckens, Agyptische Eheverrage, clause 6
21 In the New Kingdom, Naunakht (J. Cemy, ‘The Will of Naunakhte and the Related Documents’, JEA 31 (1945), 29-83) is
also clearly able to pass along her own private property (including property she acquired through or from her first busband) to
those of her children whom she so desires, although she notes that all will share in the division of thei father's property. 172 JANET H. JOHNSON
children: Tetiis explicitly given the right to live in the family home (‘As for the structures which my
brother, ... “Ankh-ren, built for me, my wife shall live therein without letting her be expelled therefrom
by anyone.’) and to be buried in Wah’s tomb with him.” Thus, any potential attempt by Wah’s relatives
to confiscate their “family” property is precluded before the fact.”
‘The third unusual element in this transfer document is the final statement that a man named Geb with
the ttle idnw ‘deputy’ is formally appointed to be tutor or guardian to Wah’s son. This sentence may
well be a later addition to the transfer document reflecting the birth of the couple's first son and
reminds me of the paragraph modern American couples with young children frequently add to their
wills, specifying what relative or family friend will raise the children if something happens to both
parents. But this sentence may have much more to tell us about relative roles of men and women in
Egyptian society. Although Wah could envisage his wife taking over legal ownership of his property,
with all the rights and responsibilities involved therein, and although he granted her the right to “inher
or ‘disinherit’ from among their children, he also realized that if anything were to happen to him, his
children®* would have a much better chance of succeeding in life if they had a male of appropriate rank
to intervene on their behalf in the public world of education and job opportunities. I would suggest that
it was for this social reason, and not any legal or economic reason, that, once a son was born to the
couple, Wah named a male advocate for his children.
If the above hypothetical reconstruction of the background of Wah's transfer document is at all cor-
rect, then P. Kahun 1 illustrates two very different uses® for transfer documents: asa ‘will’, written at or
near death to ensure inheritance of (specific) property by a chosen individual, and as a contract estab-
lishing the economic underpinnings of marriage, assuring the woman (and her family) that she (and her
children) will be taken care of financially during life and at death. Whatever the personal and social
‘background which led Wah to write this document to Teti, whether Wah’s love and concern for his new
wife or the power of the woman and her family to extract formal legal and economic commitments from
a prospective suitor, if the document was written early in the marriage, and if it reflects any kind of
Egyptian norm, it has serious implications for the relative economic positions of man and wife at the
time they marry.”
2 If the couple were to have children it would be the children’s responsibility 1 take care ofthe proper burial of their mother,
but without children, and, far from her biological family in “Left-Side', there might be an inclination to scrimp on the
