nian woman had complete independence and equal rights with
her brothers and her husband; later (as shown by the code of Hamurabi) a
woman's rights, though not her duties, were more circumscribed; in the
still later Neo-Babylonian periods, she again acquired equal rights with
her husband.[281]

In Egypt the position of women stood highest at the end, but it seems to
have been high throughout the whole of the long course of Egyptian
history, and continuously improving, while the fact that little regard was
paid to prenuptial chastity and that marriage contracts placed no stress
on virginity indicate the absence of the conception of women as property.
More than three thousand five hundred years ago men and women were
recognized as equal in Egypt. The high position of the Egyptian woman is
significantly indicated by the fact that her child was never illegitimate;
illegitimacy was not recognized even in the case of a slave woman's
child.[282] "It is the glory of Egyptian morality," says Amelineau, "to
have been the first to express the Dignity of Woman."[283] The idea of
marital authority was altogether unknown in Egypt. There can be no doubt
that the high status of woman in two civilizations so stable, so vital, so
long-lived, and so influential on human culture as Babylonia and Egypt, is
a fact of much significance.

Among the Jews there seems to have been no intermediate stage of
subordination of women, but instead a gradual progress throughout
from complete subjection of the woman as wife to ever greater
freedom. At first the husband could repudiate his wife at will
without cause. (This was not an extension of patriarchal
authority, but a purely marital authority.) The restrictions on
this authority gradually increased, and begin to be observable
already in the Book of Deuteronomy. The Mishnah went further and
forbade divorce whenever the wife's condition inspired pity (as
in insanity, captivity, etc.). By A.D. 1025, divorce was no
longer possible except for legitimate reasons or by the wife's
consent. At the same time, the wife also began to acquire the
right of divorce in the form of compelling the husband to
repudiate her on penalty of punishment in case of refusal. On
divorce the wife became an independent woman in her own right,
and was permitted to carry off the dowry which her husband gave
her on marriage. Thus, notwithstanding Jewish respect for