Iutenheb was a woman who lived sometime in the Middle Kingdom. She was married to Hekanakht, a small landholder who rented some fields to provide for their large family. The women of the household wove linen and sold it, a common task in ancient Egypt, and Hekanakht probably paid some of the rent of his fields with the income from this linen.

The women in their family were many; there was Iutenheb´s mother-in-law Ipi, a maidservant called Senen whom we shall return to shortly, three other women: Hetepet, Nefret and Satweret. These three might have been female relatives, maybe even daughters. Then there was a second woman also called Hetepet, all we know of her is that she was the daughter of someone named May. And Iutenheb´s mother-in-law had a maidservant of her own.

Besides these women, Hekanakht probably had five sons, one of them had his own family too. It´s not clear if they were the sons of Iutenheb though. And to top it all, the son of one person named Heti, Nakht, also lived there with his family. All these people were to some degree dependent on farmer Hekanakht. We know that he provided grain rations for them but it´s not clear if they all lived in the same house. That sounds a bit unlikely, doesn´t it? Probably these small farmers had a couple of houses on the premises and probably in close proximity to each other.

Iutenheb and Hekanakht had some problems, not only because of the number of his dependants. One time while he was away from home for some reason unknown to us, he worried about his wife who seems to have had a less than easy time. He wrote letters home reproaching the family members for treating her badly. He says:

He was clearly disapproving of some goings on. Alas that we are not told the whole story...

Denounced, he says. Someone had denounced Iutenheb apparently. Who? Her mother-in-law? The other women in the house? Her brothers-in-law? And what about that servant girl Senen, who is said to have treated her so impolitely that she had to leave her job?

And why? Was Iutenheb a second wife, replacing an earlier, well loved one who had died in childbirth or whom Hekanakht had divorced for some reason? Was that why Iutenheb was less accepted and the servant developed an attitude towards her? In everyone´s opinion but Hekanakhts, did she fail to fill the shoes of another?

We know that divorces was not that uncommon in ancient Egypt so that might well be the reason behind. Which makes you wonder what that reason was - infertility? Adultery? If so, Iutenheb must have had some expectations to meet.

Or was she hard to deal with? Was she a very young, immature woman who thought that being a hemet per meant ordering the other women about as she whished and made herself impossible at the loom or the grinding tray? Was she only someone who Hekanakht had married in hope of fulfilling that all-important blessing in the form of children which most Egyptians must have had? Or did the others see her as a witch who had made Hekanakht lose his senses and become a fool for love? Many possiblities to consider.

Rennefer was a widow living in the 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom. She and her husband Nebnefer had no children of their own, which must have been something of a tragedy in a society where children were an insurance against an old age in poverty. It was also awkward to be without heirs if there were properties and perhaps even a bit of wealth and one didn´t really like the prospect of one´s relatives taking over...

But there was something to be done for this: Nebnefer adopted his wife and thereby made her his heir. By doing this he put aside all other relatives. Did Rennefer and Nebnefer have some unusually greedy and speculative relatives, or didn´t wives normally inherit their husbands?

However there is more to the story. We read that Rennefer brought up three children whose mother was a servant girl which Nebnefer had purchased. Now, was he also the father of these three children? We don´t know but we can speculate.

Later, when she had become a widow, Rennefer tells that the stablemaster Padiu, who was her younger brother, married the eldest of these children, a girl named Taiemniut. She approved of this marriage. Further she had also adopted the three children and made them and Padiu her heirs.

By adopting the servant girls´children, Rennefer made sure they would take care of everything which sheand Nebnefer left behind. And what more, she had very likely insured that she herself would be given the rites after her death which conducted her over to the Beautiful West so that she could Live Eternally. For being adopted most likely also meant taking on the same responsibilities as biological children would have in a society in those days.

All this taken together sort of makes you wonder what really went on there. Did Nebnefer, with the consent of Rennefer, father those three children of the servant girl on purpose? But if he did this to secure an heir, then why wouldn´t only one child have sufficed? Or did that servant girl go to his head? ;) If so, what did Rennefer think about it? (poor woman...) And if on the other hand, the servant girl brought these children with her when she came to the house, then both she and the adoption might have happened because Nebnefer and Rennefer saw the chance of preparing for their old age as well as their next life. Even if we don´t know that much about the legalities involved with adoption, this wants to tell us that issues with childlessness were probably very often a serious matter to be seen to with the means which came in handy.