Ceremonies and Legalities

No matter where on the social ladder you lived, getting married was important business in ancient Egypt. Why? Apart from the obvious ones like love and attachment, the simplest reason was that having children meant chances for survival increased. Death rate for mother and child was high in those days. Despite this there were no marriage or bethrotal ceremonies as we know them today, but the decision to form a pair was most likely celebrated with all due festivites from both sides of the parties involved and probably encompassed as much colorfulness as the social level and economy would admit. Unfortunately not much information about the ins and outs of these plesantries has come down to our day, but some papyrii give us a glimpse of the legalities surrounding the affair.

From the 7th century and through the Late Period, a marriage contract about property and economics was often drawn up among the elite between a woman´s father and the husband. It stated the year of the ruling king, names of the husband and wife, names of their parents, the husband´s occupation or origin. Then the name of the scribe who drew up the contract and the names of the witnesses. Then came the details of the settlement.

Royal marriages were most likely celebrated with a great deal of pompous attention and ceremony. Kings often married several women, foreign princesses and the like, for political reasons. It was a reason to give lavish banquets and offerings to the gods to ensure their cooperation and blessing of the affair, and also the exchange of gifts with the bride´s father, who might be an important possible foreign ally in coming days.

The Shep-en-Sehemet

Among commoners, there was sometimes a gift to the bride mentioned in these marriage contracts, called 'shep-en-sehemet'. It is suggested that this gift was originally a payment to the bride´s father, as a compensation for taking his daughter away. They were often drawn up after several years of 'marriage' when the success and validity of the marriage had been proven by one or preferrably several children.

Confusing Wifely Titles

The word for wife was 'hemet' which is known from the Old Kingdom. In the New Kingdom, the middle of the 18th Dynasty, it was often substituted by 'senet', meaning sister or other female collateral. But 'hemet' was still used in hieratic writing, meaning wife, whereas 'senet' never seemed to have had that particular meaning.

From the Middle Kingdom there is the word 'hebsut'. Sometimes women are referred to as both 'hemet' and hebsut' which is cause to some confusion about the possible differences in role and function. There is also the word 'ankhet en niut' which seems to denote a married woman, along with 'nebet per'. These titles differ according to where they appeared; 'Hebsut' were seldom used in monumental contexts but could appear as 'hemet' in tombs, on stelae or statues. Likewize it could be substituted with 'ankhet-en-niut'(citizenness) from the New Kingdom period, which appeared in hieratic material, and 'nebet per' (mistress of the house) which was frequent on monumental contexts.

Pregnancy Tests

If children were produced, the marriage was considered as successful. Accordingly the foremost duty of a married woman was to have as many children as possible (the death rate was high) and to take care of them and of the home.

There are pregnancy tests described in several medical papyrii. Taking the pulse was one test, examine the condition and the color of the woman´s skin was another, and there was one in which the effect of urine on pots of barley and emmer weat would tell wether the child would be a boy or a girl. The woman was to urinate on these daily, and if the barley sprouted first, she would have a girl. But if the emmer wheat sprouted first, the child would be male. And if they did not sprout at all, then she was not pregnant.

Birth Bricks

Women gave birth squatting on two large bricks, so called Birth bricks, personified as the goddess Meshkhenet. From the New Kingdom onwards, there seems to have been built or erected a small room either on the roof of the regular house, or a sort of pavillion in the garden, a so called 'birth bower', where the woman giving birth were taken, and where she spent the first weeks together with the newborn infant while other women was waiting upon her and provided all that she needed. This can be seen on ostraca from Deir-el-Medina.

Purification Period

After a woman had given birth to a child, she was expected to go through a period of purification, probably for a couple of weeks, before she could join society again. This period she spent in the aforementioned birth bowers or birth rooms, where often the walls were decorated with Tawaret and Bes, protectors of mothers and their newborn child.

Sources: Women in Ancient Egypt - Gay Robins
Women in Ancient Egypt - Barbara Watterson
Daughters of Isis - Joyce Tyldesley