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If you're going to be a woman in ancient times, be Egyptian.
http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/
There are lots of pages on the web, but this one is by a professor at the U of Chicago. Women were legal equals, who could own property, serve on juries, defend themselves in court, initiate no-fault divorce...
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html
has a summary of the Code of Hammurabi, and then the Code itself. Women don't seem as free as Egyptian ones but could still have debts of their own, and had Code rights to support after divorce. (An Egyptian woman would have those such rights as part of the -- economic -- marriage contract between herself and her husband.) Behind the assumption of support is the ex-wife having custody of the children. By contrast, the Assyrian code gave no protection to the wife, explictly saying she could be cut loose, and killing via impaling a wife who committed abortion.
No link, but Etruscan women are said to have had it good as well.
Unrelatedly, I found a Coptic spell for a man to get a male lover.
http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/
There are lots of pages on the web, but this one is by a professor at the U of Chicago. Women were legal equals, who could own property, serve on juries, defend themselves in court, initiate no-fault divorce...
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html
has a summary of the Code of Hammurabi, and then the Code itself. Women don't seem as free as Egyptian ones but could still have debts of their own, and had Code rights to support after divorce. (An Egyptian woman would have those such rights as part of the -- economic -- marriage contract between herself and her husband.) Behind the assumption of support is the ex-wife having custody of the children. By contrast, the Assyrian code gave no protection to the wife, explictly saying she could be cut loose, and killing via impaling a wife who committed abortion.
No link, but Etruscan women are said to have had it good as well.
Unrelatedly, I found a Coptic spell for a man to get a male lover.