5/18/2017 (3) Per Ankh House of Life

Ziad Nour
May 10 at 12:41pm

Mothers and Motherhood in Ancient Egypt

Ideally the ancient Egyptians expected marriage to be monogamous and lifelong, and produce children who
would care for them when they were old, and inherit their property. Mothers in ancient Egypt, just as in other
cultures, were recognized for the sacrifices they made for their offspring.
Numerous literary texts from ancient Egypt specifically mention the high regard in which mothers should be held.
Women who had given birth and nurtured their children were seen as individuals who should be respected and
cared for. In particular, sons seem to have been expected to love and honor their mothers. The Instructions of
Any, a didactic text composed in the early New Kingdom around 1500 BC, admonishes a young man to support
his mother with double the food she had given him, because, “she had a heavy load in you, but she did not
abandon you”. The text goes on in more detail:
When you were born after your months, she was yet yoked to you. Her breast in your mouth for three years, as
you grew and your excrement disgusted, but she was not disgusted, saying: “What shall I do?” When she sent
you to school, and you were taught to write, she kept watch over you daily.
There is also some evidence that children had to care for their parents, or else they would not inherit from them.
An elderly woman named Naunakhte, who lived in the New Kingdom village of Deir el-Medineh on the Theban
west bank, disinherits three of her eight children because they are not bothering to take care of her. She carefully
states in her will that although they may inherit property that comes from their father, they may not inherit any of
her own property. A document from the same village describes a situation in which only one sibling took care of
the burial of his parents, and therefore the inheritance belonged only to him.

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