Women in ancient Egypt had more rights than some women today. In general, ancient Egyptian women were honored and respected and had a similar legal status to men.
Women could own and sell property, sue and be sued, serve on juries, disinherit children, initiate divorces while retaining property rights, and sign documents—a drastic difference from women in ancient Greece, where most of these things were generally possible for women without the support of male family members. Many European women would not gain similar rights for thousands of years. Evidence also indicates that abortions and premarital sex were permissible and not stigmatized in ancient Egypt.
One area where women did often differ somewhat from men in ancient Egyptian society was employment. Many ancient Egyptian women were housewives, responsible for household and childcare duties. Overall, women held far fewer positions of power and had access to fewer jobs than men. However, women were certainly allowed to work, own businesses and property, and take on various roles in society.
Class played a larger role in determining a woman’s opportunities and livelihood than gender, with the majority of the Egyptian population consisting of an illiterate class who worked in the fields. Upper-class women, meanwhile, had much greater access to education, literacy, and even political power.
Women could and did serve as pharaohs and rulers. The first female king in ancient Egypt is believed to have been Neithikret, who ruled from 2148-44 BCE. The most famous female pharaoh was Hapshepsut, who reigned from around 1479 to 1458 BCE, famously often wore male pharaoh regalia, and is widely considered one of the greatest of the Egyptian leaders.
Women of lower classes, meanwhile, often balanced work in the fields with responsibilities at home. In between, women could worked as weavers, crafters, bakers, and more—and some, depending on their class and stature, would also have had the opportunity to take on the following seven roles.
- Housewife
- Professional Mourner
- Beer Brewer
- Household Manager
- Physician
- Entertainers and Temple Singers
- Priestess / God’s Wife
Housewife
The most common role for women in ancient Egypt was caring for the home. Women were responsible for waking their families, keeping the home clean, preparing meals, tending to the garden, weaving, sewing, putting children to bed, and all the other tasks that went into maintaining a hearth and home. Cleanliness was extremely valued in ancient Egypt, so maintaining a household was an exhaustive and detailed task.
Women were also often responsible for maintaining their home’s altars, which involved giving offerings and daily prayers to a patron god or goddess. Some women also worked at home, making sandals, weaving baskets, or crafting jewelry to bring in some extra income.
In poor families, women would typically have assisted with agricultural work. In elite families, meanwhile, women would often be cared for by servants, given lavish hairstyles, and dressed them in fine linen and jewelry each day. Women of this status could enjoy leisure and relaxation throughout the day while servants tended to children.
Professional Mourner
The ancient Egyptians took death and the afterlife very seriously, and believed that specific steps needed to be taken if a soul was to be reborn into the afterlife. Funerals for the wealthy and noble were extremely elaborate.
In some ancient Egyptian depictions of funerals, women appear to be working as hired mourners, some of whom would seemingly accompany the deceased’s family during the funeral procession. Some also show a duo of these so-called “professional mourners” wearing crowns that marked them as representations of Isis and Nephthys, the goddesses who mourned the god Osiris in the traditional myth. In this story, the goddesses worked to reanimate him by traveling the world and collecting his limbs. Through their efforts, they are said to have reanimated him and restored balance to the world.
Egyptian funerals paid tribute to this tale by hiring mourners to represent these goddesses. They would have been tasked with protecting the body and, supposedly, aiding the soul’s journey into its next iteration.
Beer Brewer
The ancient Egyptians placed great value on beer and even had an origin story claiming that beer was gifted to humanity by the god Osiris. Beer was also extremely common, seen as nutritious, and sometimes given out as payment. There is evidence that women, who were typically tasked with cooking, also took on the role of making beer in ancient Egyptian society and sometimes even owned and ran breweries and taverns.
Household Manager
Many women in ancient Egypt oversaw the running of their own homes, keeping track of daily expenses and overseeing the maintenance and harvesting of agricultural products grown on their lands.
Some women made this into a career, joining wealthy and noble homes as household managers who were charged with organizing servants, planning events and dinners, and making sure every detail flowed perfectly. This was a role that maids and servants from the lower classes could also occasionally work their way up to over time.
Physician
Evidence of female physicians in ancient Egypt dates back to 3,000 BCE, when an unnamed female doctor is believed to have run a medical school at the Temple of Neith in Lower Egypt. While it is likely that a majority of physicians were men, ancient Egyptian history also contains numerous references to female doctors who saw both male and female patients alike. Like all physicians of the day, these doctors would have used a mix of magic, ceremony, and medicine to treat various ailments. Women often also served important roles as nurses and midwives.
Entertainers and Temple Singers
Women in ancient Egypt were often musicians, dancers, and entertainers. Some were hired to accompany palace functions. Others were connected to temples and played music at religious events and funerals.
Another common role for women was that of a sacred singers or temple chantresses. These women often assisted priestesses, and their voices and performances during festivals and rituals were thought to soothe and appease the gods. They could sometimes become priestesses themselves.
Priestess / God’s Wife
Women of elite families in ancient Egypt had the opportunity to become priestesses, who presided over temples and were sometimes seen as voices of the gods. They were tasked with honoring various deities, from Hathor and Isis to Amun, a major deity said to be the chief god of Thebes.
The most powerful priestess during Egypt’s New Kingdom period was the God’s Wife of Amun, who was seen to be the representative of Amun on the earthly plane. This position was sometimes held by queens, and it involved managing the cult and temples of Amun and could entail significant influence over the Egyptian state as well.
Priestesses of ancient Egypt would generally be responsible for maintaining temple spaces by day and conducting ceremonies and rituals to the gods. They were also expected to keep themselves and their spaces immaculately ordered and clean. Priests and priestesses would also generally serve temples one month out of four, returning to other jobs during their off months.
“Other than housewife and mother, the most common ‘career’ for women was the priesthood, serving male and female deities,” Dr. Joann Fletcher of the University of York wrote, per the BBC. “The title, ‘God’s Wife,’ held by royal women, also brought with it tremendous political power second only to the king, for whom they could even deputize. The royal cult also had its female priestesses, with women acting alongside men in jubilee ceremonies and, as well as earning their livings as professional mourners, they occasionally functioned as funerary priests.”