Tea at Trianon: Women in Ancient Egypt

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, November 18, 2019

Women in Ancient Egypt

From Grunge:

While women may have been equal to their husbands, the job of taking care of the house still fell to them. Rich women might have servants or slaves, and many women also had jobs outside the home, but how well their house was kept was still on their heads. According to Ancient History Encyclopedia, while men helped out with housework from time to time, women had a lot to do.

In a time before alarm clocks, a woman had to wake her whole family up so they could go to work or school. Then she had to take care of the family altar. Every house had one, and keeping the gods happy was the woman's job. Then she had to cook breakfast, do the dishes, haul the daily water from the well, do all the childcare, and take care of any elderly relatives. And of course, she had to feed, water, and generally take care of any animals the family owned. Plus, she had to make lunch, do some weaving and sewing, do laundry, bake bread, brew beer, make dinner, serve dinner, clean up dinner, put everyone to bed, and do it all again the next day. And this was before there were any appliances to make her life a tiny bit easier. (Read more.)