of
the title express their condition. Each of them occupied, in fact, her
own house, _piru_, which she had from her parents or her husband, and of
which she was absolute mistress, _nibit_. She lived in it and performed
in it without constraint all a woman's duties; feeding the fire,
grinding the corn, occupying herself in cooking and weaving, making
clothing and perfumes, nursing and teaching her children. When her
husband visited her, he was a guest whom she received on an equal
footing. It appears that at the outset these various wives were placed
under the authority of an older woman, whom they looked on as their
mother, and who defended their rights and interests against the master;
but this custom gradually disappeared, and in historic times we read
of it as existing only in the families of the gods. The female singers
consecrated to Amon and other deities, owed obedience to several
superiors, of whom the principal (generally the widow of a king or high
priest) was called _chief-superior of the ladies of the harem of Amon_.
Besides these wives, there were concubines, slaves purchased or born in
the house, prisoners of war, Egyptians of inferior class, who were the
chattels of the man and of whom he could dispose as he wished. All the
children of one father were legitimate, whether their mother were a wife
or merely a concubine, but they did not all enjoy the same advantages;
those among them who were born of a brother or sister united in
legitimate marriage, took precedence of those whose mother was a wife of
inferior rank or a slave. In the family thus constituted, the woman,
to all appearances, played the principal part. Children recognized the
parental relationship in the mother alone. The husband appears to have
entered the house of his wives, rather than the wives to have entered
his, and this appearance of inferiority was so marked that the Greeks
were deceived by it. They affirmed that the woman was supreme in Egypt;
the man at the time of marriage promised obedience to her and entered
into a contract not to raise any objection to her commands.

We had, therefore, good grounds for supposing that the first Egyptians
were semi-savages, like those still living in Africa and America, having
an analogous organization, and similar weapons and tools. A few lived
in the desert, in the oasis of Libya, or in the deep valleys of the Red
Land--Doshirit, To Doshiru--between the Nile and the sea; the poverty
of the count