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Gender: Women in the legal documents from Lahun

Household listings: two sets survive, both with man as head of household
(1) a small kinship unit led by a soldier:
Hori with wife and newborn son in 1st document,
Hori with wife and son, and with mother and two sisters in a 2nd document
Hori's son with his mother, his father's mother and three father's sisters in 3rd

(2) a large unit of kinship and staff led by a lector-priest, numbered 947
Sneferu with son and daughter (and note that his wife had died)
Servants marked as (but not organised by categories of) man, woman, child

Deeds of conveyance
(1) transfer deed of Mery for his son Intef
Transfers office to son in return for support ('staff of old age' - age in social relations)
Cancels previous transfer deed in favour of his son's mother
Gives his property to children born to him by Nebethennesut

(2) transfer deed of Wah for his wife Sheftu
transfers to her everything his brother had given him
transfers to her four Asiatics his brother had given him
ensures that she can be buried with him in one tomb (social aspect of multiple burial)
ensures that she can live unopposed in the rooms built for him by his brother
Final clause added in different handwriting, to appoint a man Gebu as tutor for his son

There is also the deed of transfer of the four Asiatics (two women, two children) and a statement of claim by a man for his father's office.
All transfer deeds were witnessed by men.

See Johnson 1999, for possible kinship groups behind the nuclear families: she compares the Wah-Sheftu transfer deed to annuity contracts in Late Period marriage settelements (after 700 BC).


 

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