09

Feb

ARCE-NC: Women’s Rights in Marriage and Divorce in Ancient Egypt

Presented by Alison Wilkinson, Johns Hopkins University

This is an in-person lecture and is not virtual. No registration is required.
The lecture will be recorded.

  • 3 PM  Pacific Standard TimeNorthern California
  • In-PersonSocial Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
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Lecture Information

P. BM EA 10074, a Demotic divorce contract from Ptolemaic Thebes (Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum).

This talk presents a deep dive into the textual evidence for marriage and marital separation with a focus on the question: What rights did women have in these processes? New Kingdom and Demotic legal records together with New Kingdom letter correspondences are examined for the answers. The talk incorporates a recently reanalyzed Ostracon Deir el-Medina 439 for insights on a woman’s rights in divorce during the New Kingdom. The focus on textual sources aims to extrapolate the contemporary perspectives of marriage and divorce. The lexical and grammatical analysis presents insights into the process, social implications, and consequences of these social acts. Subtle differences arise in the role of men versus women, most especially within the context of divorce. This “marriage” of gender studies and linguistic analyses uncovers subtle nuances concerning marital unions and separations within the culture of ancient Egypt.

Speaker Bio

 

 


About ARCE-NC:

For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaArcehttps://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCEhttp://khentiamentiu.org or https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostingsTo join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/#tab2 and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.