mulgated by the State. Wives could possess
private property in their own right, as did the Babylonian Sarah, wife
of Abraham, who owned the Egyptian slave Hagar.[26] A woman received
from her parents a marriage dowry, and in the event of separation from
her husband she could claim its full value. Some spinsters, or wives,
were accustomed to enter into business partnerships with men or
members of their own sex, and could sue and be sued in courts of law.
Brothers and sisters were joint heirs of the family estate. Daughters
might possess property over which their fathers exercised no control:
they could also enter into legal agreements with their parents in
business matters, when they had attained to years of discretion. Young
women who took vows of celibacy and lived in religious institutions
could yet make business investments, as surviving records show. There
is only one instance of a Sumerian woman ascending the throne, like
Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. Women, therefore, were not rigidly excluded
from official life. Dungi II, an early Sumerian king, appointed two of
his daughters as rulers of conquered cities in Syria and Elam.
Similarly Shishak, the Egyptian Pharaoh, handed over the city of
Gezer, which he had subdued, to his daughter, Solomon's wife.[27] In
the religious life of ancient Sumeria the female population exercised
an undoubted influence, and in certain temples there were priestesses.
The oldest hymns give indication of the respect shown to women by
making reference to mixed assemblies as "females and males", just as
present-day orators address themselves to "ladies and gentlemen". In
the later Semitic adaptations of these productions, it is significant
to note, this conventional reference was altered to "male and female".
If influences, however, were at work to restrict the position of women
they did not meet with much success, because when Hammurabi codified
existing laws, the ancient rights of women received marked
recognition.

There were two dialects in ancient Sumeria, and the invocatory hymns
were composed in what was known as "the women's language". It must not
be inferred, however, that the ladies of Sumeria had established a
speech which differed from that used by men. The reference would
appear to be to a softer and homelier dialect, perhaps the oldest of
the two, in which poetic emotion found fullest and most beautiful
expression. In these ancient days, as in our own, the ideal of
womanhood was