ween the woman and the mother. This is the view that I would take;
to me it is the right and natural one. But be this as it may, Egyptian
morality placed first the rights of the mother. No religious or moral
superiority seems to have attached to the established wife. Even when
there had been no betrothal, and no intention of marriage, law or
custom recognises the claim of any mother of children to some kind of
provision at their father's expense. "Nothing proves the high status
of woman so clearly as this: her child was never illegitimate;
illegitimacy was not recognised even in the case of a slave woman's
child."[220]

There is a curious deed of the Ptolemaic period by which a man cedes
to a woman a number of slaves; and--in the same breath--recognises her
as his lawful wife, and declares her free _not_ to consider him as her
husband.[221] A byssus worker at the factory of Amon promises to the
wife he is about to establish, one-third of all his acquisitions
thenceforward: "my eldest son, thy eldest son, _among the children
born to thee previously_ and those thou shalt bear to me in future
shall be master of all I possess now or shall hereafter acquire." Even
when such arrangements were not entered into voluntarily, public
opinion seems always to have been in favour of the woman. A case is
recorded where four villagers of the town of Arsinoee pledged
themselves to the priest, scribe, and mayor that a fellow villager of
theirs will become the friend of the woman who has been as his wife,
and will love her as a woman ought to be loved.[222]

Most significant of all is the well-known precept of Petah Hotep,
which refers to the expected conduct of a man to a prostitute or
outcast--

"If thou makest a woman ashamed, wanton of heart, whom her
fellow townspeople know to be under two laws" (_i.e._ in an
ambiguous position), "be kind to her for a season, send her not
away, let her have food to eat. The wantonness of her heart
appreciateth guidance."

I know of nothing finer than this wide understanding of the ties of
sex. It is an essential part of morality, as I understand it, that it
accepts responsibility, not alone in the regular and permanent
relationships between one man and one woman, but also in those that
are temporary and are even considered base. Only in this way can the
human passions be unified with love.

The freedom of the Egyptian marriage made this possible. Law, at least
as we underst