Women in Ancient Egypt: Autonomy Through Adoption Highlighted in Lecture

Egyptologist Anaïs Montoto will explore the lives of women in ancient Egypt this evening at the Comú d'Escaldes meeting hall, as part of the second lecture in the "Del néixer al renéixer" series running until 21 February at the CAEE.

Montoto, born in Escaldes in 1997, uses the story of Rennefer, a woman from the 11th century BCE during the reign of Ramsès XI, to highlight women's roles in pharaonic society. Married to Nebnefer, Rennefer had no children. Before his death, her husband adopted her as his daughter and named her his primary heir, allowing her to inherit and manage his entire estate freely—rights typically reserved for male firstborn sons.

This legal maneuver, though unusual, underscores key aspects of women's status. While Egyptian women enjoyed more autonomy than their Greek or Roman counterparts—who rarely left home unaccompanied by a male relative—they generally lived under male guardianship. A woman was identified as her father's daughter, her husband's wife, or her eldest son's mother, especially after widowhood. Men, by contrast, needed no such qualifiers; an individual like Amenhotep stood alone in records.

Preserved texts, mostly from a middle-class minority such as royal workers in Deir el-Medina, focus predominantly on men, with far fewer references to women. This documentation comes from census records and inscriptions, as the 95% of the population—farmers and artisans in a barter economy—left no written traces.

Families were nuclear or extended, including parents, children, uncles, cousins, and household servants. Rare exceptions for women included a documented female scribe, temple priestesses alongside female administrators, and an all-women funeral institution.

Montoto's talk illustrates that while women could sometimes wield property rights like men, such opportunities often depended on male initiative rather than inherent legal equality. Life as a woman in ancient Egypt was not ideal—unless one was Nefertiti—but offered advantages over classical Greece or imperial Rome.