Property Contracts between Husbands and Wives Recorded on “s_??_-documents”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20442920 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ikuyo ONO (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 28-48 |
| Publication date | 2001-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0030-5219 • E-ISSN: 1884-1406 |
| Publisher | The Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5356/jorient.44.2_28 |
| OpenAlex | W2576908225 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
In Egypt, from the Third Intermediate Period to the Roman Period, hieratic or demotic documents concerning property contracts were made between husbands and wives. In this paper, I will examine one group of these documents, “s_??_-documents”, written in demotic.S_??_-documents have generally been interpreted as “documents of maintenance” or “annuity contracts” from the meaning of the word “s_??_” (lit., “to make live”) or the clause referring to the annual subsistence which husbands were to provide for their wives. Furthermore, the property called “s_??_” which wives entrusted to their husbands also has been looked at as “maintenance” or “annuity” for wives. However, I do not agree with these interpretations for the following three reasons: (1) the word “s_??_” has not been sufficiently examined, (2) these interpretations conflict with the social custom of the time in which it was obligatory for husbands to support their wives, and (3) the clause referring to the annual subsistence for wives is also used in other documents made by couples without the word “s_??_”, but nonetheless, these have not been looked at as “documents of maintenance” or “annuity contracts”.The aim of this paper is to reexamine the meaning of “s_??_” and to offer an alternative interpretation for the property contracts recorded on the “s_??_-documents”. First of all, through a comparison of the s_??_-documents and the other documents made by couples, I will show that the meaning of s_??_ is not related to the contents of the property contracts recorded on the s_??_-documents but to features of the property itself. Second, through the examination of the features of the s_??_ as property found in other sources, I will show that wives' s_??_s meant the property which wives were allowed to possess on the basis of some specified qualifications. Therefore, we can look at the s_??_-documents as documents which were made to confirm that the wives' s_??_s had been entrusted to their husbands and to show wives' rights and husbands' duties. According to these interpretations, I will also offer an interpretation for the clause referring to the annual subsistence for wives, through a comparison of the s_??_-documents and the other documents made by couples or the documents concerning the loans; the subsistence was the fine which husbands had to pay when they failed to return s_??_ on the due date. This clause guaranteed wives against arrears of the return of s
Aesthetics · Annuity · Archaeology · Business · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Life annuity · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Period (music) · Political science · Property (philosophy) · Sociology · Subsistence agriculture · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |