Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Map 5
1 Her outward appearance 7
1.1 Phases of life 7
1.2 The girl 10
1.3 The virgin 13
1.4 Women's clothing 17
1.5 Cosmetics and beauty 47
1.6 The language of women 56
1.7 Women's names 58
2 Marriage 60
2.1 Preparations 62
2.2 Age for marrying 66
2.3 Regulations 67
2.4 The betrothal 72
2.5 The wedding 93
2.6 Marriage and magic 110
3 The marriage gifts 112
3.1 General remarks 112
3.2 The bride price 117
3.3 The dowry 134
3.4 Gifts from the man 145
4 The family 147
4.1 Impotence 148
4.2 Children 152
4.3 The mother 155
4.4 Bereavement 159
4.5 Childlessness 160
4.6 Repudiation of a childless wife 163
5 A second wife 165
5.1 A slave girl 168
5.2 Initiating the transaction 170
5.3 The second wife in the Old Assyrian period 182
5.4 The second wife in later periods 188
5.5 The position of the second wife when the first wife is ill 191
6 Concubines 193
7 Marriage between equals 200
8 Marriage to a slave 205
9 Divorce 209
9.1 In Babylonia 210
9.2 In Assyria 216
9.3 In the Neo-Babylonian period 220
9.4 In Syria 223
9.5 Motives for divorce 223
9.6 Predictions 230
9.7 Reconciliation 232
10 Adultery 234
10.1 Women who initiate adultery 235
10.2 Were both lovers treated equally? 239
10.3 Caught in the act 243
10.4 Punishment 244
10.5 Accusations of adultery 245
10.6 The Mother of Sin 250
10.7 An adulterous princess? 250
11 Rape 254
11.1 Slave-girl 255
11.2 Unmarried girl 258
11.3 Married woman 261
11.4 The locations 263
11.5 In myths 264
11.6 The right of the first night 265
12 Incest 268
12.1 Promiscuity 268
12.2 Incest 270
13 The widow 275
13.1 Poor widows 278
13.2 Arrangements made for widows in wills 282
13.3 Powerful widows 284
13.4 Remarrying 288
13.5 Cohabiting 290
13.6 Widows with children 292
14 Levi rate marriage 296
15 Women's rights of inheritance 300
16 Women trafficking under the guise of adoption 304
16.1 The Old Babylonian period 304
16.2 Nuzi 306
17 Women robbed of their freedom 311
17.1 Security for a man's debts 311
17.2 The woman as guarantor 319
27.1 Imprisoned for murder 323
17.1 The sale of children in time of need 324
17.2 Dedicated to a temple 326
17.3 Prisoners of war 331
18 Women and work 339
18.1 Working outside the home 341
18.2 Weavers 344
18.3 Grinding flour 350
18.4 Women as musicians and singers 353
18.5 The female innkeeper 363
18.6 Scribes 367
18.7 The female doctor 371
18.8 Wailing women 372
18.9 Women involved in childbirth 375
18.10 Business women 381
18.11 Women's seals 387
18.12 Women as witnesses 389
19 The witch 391
20 Prostitution 399
20.1 Where she worked 399
20.2 Dressed for work 405
20.3 Slave girls 409
20.4 The risk of pregnancy 410
20.5 Forced into prostitution 413
20.6 Marriage 414
20.7 Social esteem 416
21 Temple prostitution 419
21.1 Internal evidence 419
21.2 The kezertu 422
21.3 Devaluing old titles 426
21.4 Income 426
21.5 Goddess and whore 427
21.6 A wild celebration 435
22 Her physical life 436
22.1 Physiology 436
22.2 Menstruation 438
22.3 Diseases 441
22.4 The old woman 451
22.5 Dead and buried 456
23 The court and the harem before 1500 BC 459
23.1 The Sumerians 461
23.2 Ebla 464
23.3 Funerals 471
23.4 The Old Akkadian period 475
23.5 The kingdom of Ur 111 476
23.6 The Old Babylonian period 487
24 The court and the harem after 1500 BC 512
24.1 Babylonia 512
24.2 Assyria 514
24.3 Nuzi 518
24.4 The Hittites and Egypt 519
24.5 Ugarit 526
24.6 The Neo-Assyrian period 529
24.7 The Neo-Babylonian period 548
24.8 The Persian period and later 552
24.9 Arab queens 554
25 Priestesses 555
25.1 The high priestesses 555
25.2 Priestesses in Marl 578
25.3 Priestesses in the Old Assyrian period 580
25.4 Priestesses after the Old Babylonian period 581
26 Old Babylonian convents 584
26.1 Words for a 'nun' 586
26.2 The nadîtu 587
26.3 Inauguration 590
26.4 High status 594
26.5 Duties 597
26.6 Care in old age 600
26.7 The demise of the convent 601
27 Married holy women 605
27.1 The nadîtu of Marduk the god of Babylon 605
27.2 The holy woman, the qadištu 608
27.3 The kulmašitu 615
28 Soothsaying 617
28.1 Dreams, prophecy and ecstasy in Mari 620
28.2 Prophecy in Assyria 623
29 Women and worship 627
29.1 Offerings for the dead 628
29.2 Making intercession 631
29.3 The woman and her goddess 638
29.4 The mourning for Tammuz 640
30 The Sacred Marriage 645
30.1 Poetry 647
30.2 The reality of the situation 650
30.3 The function of the ritual 652
30.4 The Assyrian period and later 655
30.5 The demise of goddesses 657
31 The Middle Assyrian law-book about women 662
32 The value placed on women 683
32.1 Positive views 683
32.2 Negative views 685
32.3 Women compared with men 690
Bibliography 692
Indexes 693