Patriarchy In Mesopotamian Culture

This led to justifying male domination over females in the Mesopotamian society. Men were in control and held the power, allowing them to abuse their wives, sell them into slavery to pay off debts, and partake in consensual sexual relations even if married, while women were drowned to death as punishment for committing adultery. In Mesopotamia, women were mostly responsible for tending to the children and household. Women did not have the power to make life decisions for themselves and instead, relied on the men in their family to make those decisions for them.

For this week we read two texts: Emmanuelle Saada’s, Empire’s Children: Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French Colonies and Margaret D. Jacobs’, “Maternal Colonialism: White Women and Indigenous Child Removal in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940.” Both texts explore racial mixing in terms of a superior (in their own eyes) white race imposing itself onto an indigenous race.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, gender plays a very significant role, because while women were not the most powerful gods nor the strongest or wisest of all humans, they still had tremendous influence over others around them, and even today, over those who study and learn about the women of the time of Mesopotamia. Though the main characters of the story, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, are male, women did not necessarily play a minor role. One particular issue that is demonstrated among several others in the Epic of Gilgamesh is the status of women. Since this is a story of women's status many years ago, it is indeed an interesting issue to discuss,

Gender roles in ancient Mesopotamia were clearly defined (teachmiddleeast.edu). Generally, men worked outside of the home and women stayed inside of the home while focusing on raising their children and keeping up with work that took place in the home. However, there were exceptions; we know of women who were “bartenders” and even women who were priestesses, but with limited responsibility. Due to the fact that some were from socially higher families and owned large amounts of property, those women were not allowed to marry. Women at the time were given much less freedom than men, however, women were more protected than men, which is seen in Hammurabi’s Code of Law, specifically in his 130th law:

The Mesopotamian culture had three group of people live in that area. Each group kept marriage, social class, and religion important. The three groups are Sumerians than Akkadians and next Babylonians.The sumerians build ziggurats which are religious and they also wrote a prayer for every god. The Akkadians had a ruler Sargon and wrote a law code Ur-nammu. A father in the time periods between Akkadians and Babylonians, a father wrote advice to his son about had to live and rules. The babylonians wrote a different law code called hammurabi code. Each of these things show that marriage, social class, and religion is important.

Although ….Order out of chaos is a phrase that perfectly describes why religion developed in Egypt. The Egyptians believed in appeasing gods in order to maintain order. They also believed that multiple deities were present and in control of the elements of nature. One deity in that was very important was Sekhmet, the sun goddess of war. Sekhmet is one of the oldest and most powerful goddesses. In Egypt she was known to cause flames to devour the egyptian enemies. Her sun disk is represented with the Uraeus rearing cobra, which symbolizes power over the gods and Egypt. Sekhmet was greatly feared by some, because she was the warrior god of destruction, but also because she could deliver plague and sickness to the enemies of Egypt. The Egyptians

THESIS STATEMENT In Ancient Greece, women were viewed as inferior to men; however, this did not stop women in literature from seeking power and breaking the confined societal roles. PURPOSE STATEMENT Through research of women in ancient Greece and analysis of The Agamemnon and The Medea in literary and critical works, the role restrictions of women and how and why two commanding women breached those restrictions are made clear. INTRODUCTION

Thus, included those of the scribe, the healer, artisan, weaver, potter, shoemaker, fisherman, teacher, and priest or priestess. (Mark, Joshua J.) During this time is when woman where finally able to enjoy their equal rights. Where as previously, woman where considered much like slaves. (Fiero, Gloria) Women enjoyed nearly equal rights and could own land, file for divorce, own their own businesses, and make contracts in trade. (Mark, Joshua J.) What a great innovation for woman during this time. The growth within Mesopotamia was expanding. This was our structure in history, as deemed in today’s society.

“I / Will bury them with my own hand, to ensure that none / Of my enemies shall violate or insult their graves” (Euripides 1375-7).

Regardless of the discrepancies and inconsistencies, Mesopotamian women had an unprecedented sovereignty and great potential for dominance, they were assigned a number of central political roles that influenced politics and social life. Mesopotamian pantheon, temple of Ishtar and Ziggurat at Ur, that many respected divinities including Ishtar, the goddess of war and love, who was believed to be the goddess of Uruk and the bordering territories, goddess Ninsun, Gilgamesh’s mother who served as his consultant as a mother would consult with her son in our modern day, Aruru goddess of birth, Nisaba goddess of grain, Ereshkigal the queen, Belit-Seri the underworld goddess and others. The presence of these goddesses and priestesses indicates the large scale in diversification of functions and duties and illustrates women’s dominance over the hierarchical system. The social, political, and religious order that existed in ancient Mesopotamia is deeply rooted in the power invested in the temple under women’s leadership and their great capacity to influence the city-state’s affairs and its fiscal responsibility.

The Epic of Gilgamesh reveals an essential perceptive of how Mesopotamian society viewed sex and women as a mean to become civilize the men of the story. Gilgamesh struggles with the concept of his own desires of man as he lusted after women to arrogantly proved his power, Enkidu becoming corrupted by the harlot and Gilgamesh denied of the goddess Ishtar can all be tied together to how women are view in the Epic as a stepping stone to further the narrates of the men in the epic. Gilgamesh journey’s started when the Uruk’s community viewed Gilgamesh personality as arrogance and grew impatience with him as he had an ongoing rampage of sexual exploitation of the women’s of Uruk, such as stated in the passage of the Epic “his lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble” (p. 4). It can be view that as his story could not advance without the women of Uruk, the goddess that made Gilgamesh and Enkidu can be regard as to the start to Gilgamesh story throughout the Epic that by Gilgamesh was guilty of abusing his power in Uruk and the women’s of Uruk lament to the Gods of the horrors of Gilgamesh,

Situated in the Tigris Euphrates valley was the property of Mesopotamia. It was here that the first cities in the world were founded between 4000 - 3500 BC from the Sumerian people. They developed their very own belief system, using various goddesses and gods. They developed rites and spiritual practices for worshiping these strong deities. Their daily lives were also much different than those of the last hunter gatherer groups that roamed over the world in a continuous hunt for resources. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014)

It was interesting to me that many religions have some of the same things in them for example the great flood with Utnapishtum; this story resembles Noah and the Ark which comes from the Christian bible. As I continue to learn about religions I find that most religions explain the same thing, for example how the earth was created, why we have sin, and why certain things are the way they are. I also thought it was interesting seeing how the religions would mention each other in their teachings for example, the bible quoting that Babylon was a wicked city that came up in the article. The Mesopotamian religion has many gods, it seemed like gods for everything from the sea to the underworld it reminded me of Greek gods/ religion. I found that

Government:The government of Mesopotamia was a strange one. There were kings and nobles who decided the laws and declared how their subjects should worship the gods, Then there was a group of people who could overrule the king and say which law was good or not, and get rid of it if it was not.

Gossiping during the Ancient Mediterranean was a form of social control, which enforced social norms such as ethical sexual behaviors. Gossip is usually established from witnessing an action that is considered a deviation from the standard behaviors within a given society. Set restraints and values produce a power dynamic and allow individuals to claim their subjecthood; this socially constructed definition of subjecthood allows people to categorize themselves within the social and political hierarchy in order to make sense of who they are, such as their sexuality. The interdictions built and created an understanding of one’s subjecthood and were controlled by gossip. As a result, gossip defines what is acceptable within that society, the creation