Pros And Concubines Dbq

“Women equals slaves and concubines,” was the mentality of patriarchal societies long ago. In today’s society men and women are viewed as equals; no sex is subordinate of the other, but during the early complex societies, there was an obvious split in which gender was more superior. Back then, authoritative figures/gods said that men were more important than women. The superiority of man over woman is constantly revealed in many of the historical documents. For example, man could ‘own’ plenty of women whilst a woman could not own a man; this speaks of an unfair preponderance that men had over women. However heartless men may seem to sound at this point, they actually did try to show some effort in addressing the needs of women. Men tried to
Look closely at Document 1 we can tell there weren’t even any female gods. The Gilgamesh Epic reads, “… their father, Anu; Their counselor, the warrior Bel; Their leader, Nimurta; Their champion the god Enlil.” (doc. 1) All of the gods listed are male. Pleasing a god was an important objective when it came to everyday life; if you wanted your future to be prosperous, you would do everything you could to please the gods. The question is what would please a god, or what would a god find pleasing? The lord [nobleman] Ptah-hotep advises his son, “If you are a wise man, bring up a son who shall be pleasing to Ptah [a god].” (doc. 2) From this we can already tell that the gods favored male offspring rather than daughters. However it wasn’t only to gods did sons seem more cherished; even kings/rulers from all over the land seemed to fancy songs more than daughters. Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, once wrote about Persia in his book, The Histories, “Those who have the most sons receive an annual present from the king.” (doc. 3) Why was it not ‘those who have the most daughters?’ Sons were obviously much more valued than