shment at this
freedom, and writes--

"They have established laws and customs opposite for the
most part to those of the rest of mankind.... With them
women go to market and traffic; men stay at home and
weave.... The men carry burdens on their heads; the women on
their shoulders.... The boys are never forced to maintain
their parents unless they wish to do so; the girls are
obliged to, even if they do not wish it."[180]

[180] Herodotus, Book II, p. 35.

From this last rule it is logical to infer that women inherited
property, as is to-day the case among the Beni-Amer of Africa,[181]
where daughters have to provide for their parents.

[181] Starcke, _The Primitive Family_, p. 67.

Diodorus goes further than Herodotus: he affirms that in the Egyptian
family it is the man who is subjected to the woman.

"All this explains why the queen receives more power and
respect than the king, and why, among private individuals,
the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated
between married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract,
that the man shall obey the woman."[182]

[182] Diodorus, Book I, p. 27.

There is probably some exaggeration in this account, nevertheless, the
demotic deeds, in a measure, confirm it. By the law of maternal
inheritance, an Egyptian wife was often richer than her husband, and
enjoyed the dignity and freedom always involved by the possession of
property. More than three thousand three hundred years ago men and
women were recognised as equal in this land.

Under such privileges the wife was entirely preserved from any
subjection; she was able to dictate the terms of the marriage. She
held the right of making contracts without authorisation; she remained
absolute mistress of her dowry. The marriage-contract also specified
the sums that the husband was to pay to his wife, either as a nuptial
gift or annual pension, or as compensation in case of divorce. In some
cases the whole property of the husband was made over to the wife, and
when this was done, it was stipulated that she should provide for him
during his life, and discharge the expenses of his burial and tomb.

These unusual proprietary rights of the Egyptian wife can be explained
only as being traceable to an early period of mother-right. Without
proof of any absolutely precise text, we have an accumulation of facts
that render it probable that, at one tim