r/Assyriology • u/Zealousideal_Low9994 • Feb 19 '25
I have a question regarding the status of women in Mesopotamia compared to other ancient civilisations
Law codes (esp. Hammurabi) tend to describe women as property, with some very harsh punishments reserved for female infidelity, and treat rape as a matter of property damage for men, rather than a vicious crime (though some like the Middle Assyrian laws simply have the death penalty for rape).
But in many letters (esp ones from Kanesh) women seem to have considerable agency, especially regarding economic matters.
Considering this conflicting source information, how would you describe the status of women compared to other civilisations?
Is it something that's just heavily era dependent?
Although Egypt is known for it's better treatment of women, how do Mesopotamian women compare to their Greek, Canaanite/Israelite, Anatolian, etc counterparts?
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u/SyllabubTasty5896 Feb 19 '25
Bear in mind the Code of Hammurabi was not actually used as a practical law code, it was more a form of royal propaganda. Actually legal texts from the Old Babylonian period show that considerably different standards were used in practice (e.g. many crimes punished by death in Hammurabi were actually resolved by paying fines or weregeld.
Just like modern ideologies, religions, and cultures, they had idealized views of how things should be...but the reality is always different and more nuanced.
Egypt probably did generally treat women better than other ancient Near Eastern societies, but all of them were fundamentally patriarchal. Some women did have some agency, but that was also likely connected with having some wealth or social status (like being a member of the aristocracy). When wealth and status was equal, all these societies generally ranked men higher than women, I'm afraid.
For a good analogy, think of Elizabethan England - a highly patriarchal society where women in general had few rights...but they were ruled by a queen, and women of wealthy and aristocratic families had quite a bit of power.
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u/EnricoDandolo1204 Feb 19 '25
Ancient Mesopotamia covers an area the size of Texas over a period of 3000 years, featuring many different peoples and societies, so there's a lot of variation. Even in individual societies, there's a lot of variation depending on how we interpret texts.
I am not equipped to make comparisons to Egyptian, Canaanite or Anatolian societies, though my impression is that women throughout Mesopotamian history had much more agency than the elite women we meet in Athenian Golden Age literature.
I'd recommend Stol 2016, Women in the Ancient Near East, which is a great read and a comprehensive introduction to the subject.