I've always liked history, and I've been reading some books lately about Ancient Egypt, and I think I'd really like to live in a society like that. Actually, I wonder if my parents were informed by Egypt, because the philosophy of our family regarding sex seems very similar.
For instance, incest was common. Not just sex either; incestuous marriage was common in all classes, and incestuous pregnancy too. Not to say that it's all they did, but even if all babies born were actually born to non-related concubines, there was still a fair amount of familial nookie going on.
And the Egyptians didn't make a big deal about sex. They thought it was fun, entertaining, and a good way to produce children, seemingly possibly in that order. I don't think we know enough about their sexual practices to say anything for certain, but they weren't shy about it. I think that's healthy; too much repressed sex in the world today.
The Egyptians also started having sex when they were kids by our standards. The age of manhood for boys seems to have been around 14, and girls came of age at puberty. There are records of marriages involving girls aged 8 or 9. And that's just marriage; it's possible that kids were playing sex games long before that. Certainly it was an everyday aspect of life, and kids (and adults) went around naked most of the time.
Sure, it's not perfect. Female rights weren't stellar (although they were better than in many other cultures) and they might have practiced female circumcision, or as people rightly call it, genital mutilation (I don't know what I'd do without my clitoris). Marriage was fairly binding for the woman, and life expectancy was low, and sure, life was hard. But still, their views on sex were liberated, enlightened, whatever you want to say.
So we could learn a thing or two from the Egyptians. People think of India as having the monopoly on sexual exploration, but Egypt was doing it too. Trust various religions to come along and fuck it up.
2 comments:
Can you cite some specific books that you read dealing with this? Thanks! :)
I've read a fair number of books about ancient Egypt, and many of them say things of this nature. There are some good collections of translations of Egyptian writings out there too, and some of the love poetry is quite moving. Oxford University Press published a rather dry but still interesting tome on Egyptian history a few years back which included many of the more recent discoveries about Egypt and ran from prehistory right through Cleopatra. Beyond that, consult your local library; they need the business and people should read more anyway.
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