Paleolithic Women Essay

Women in Paleolithic Period Women have come along way when it comes to equality. Women in the Paleolithic societies had the same skill set as men but often had dissimilar occupations. Women were often food gathers which was about seventy percent of their diets, whereas, men were often hunters which was about thirty percent of their diets. Women helped keep the family alive when men could not bring home meat. It would appear that women’s virginity was obscure, thus, leading to rape, wife beating, and sexual double standards. Women had very strong feelings when it came to sharing husbands, which led to numerous divorces. Divorces allowed women to leave easily. Once Europeans settled women saw an increase in husbands brutally beating their

Women were allowed to own property, could divorce a man if she pleases, and make there own wills. Women could become queens, however, they often wear fake beards and men clothing to show power. The earliest sculptures, Venus figures, showed characteristics of fertility of women. Normally they would not have a head but had very big breast, buttocks, genitalia, and broad shoulders. Women often wore them has necklaces or some sort of charm. They are either a carved from bone or some sort of clay mixture and often cloth skirts or other types of clothing. The clothing proved that women were very skilled at weaving, thus, gives evidence that they could have used plant fibers to make rope, cloth, or baskets. Babylon, 1750 BCE, started freeing women from slavery and sex trade along with their children, thus, inspiring women to keep their morality by protecting their virginity until marriage. By waiting for marriage women made it so their husband will and always will be their only sexual partner however, this did not occur everywhere. Indus River Valley image never declined and Egypt of course always had women equality from the beginning. Mesopotamia had a couple of disturbing laws against women. For an example, killing a women would receive a small fine but it you disagreed with your husband then he has every right to bash your teeth in with a brick. Women were not allowed to leave their marriage if they wanted to but men could easily divorce

Hammurabi’s code is a list of laws similar to “eye for an eye” except for a few. According to Hammurabi, if a man’s wife is caught with another male then both shall be tossed into the water but if a man attempts rape to a women in their fathers house then the man is kill and the women is free. You can see that women are starting to gain more respect during this time but still not perfect equality. If a women says she does not want to have a sexual relationship with her husband then it goes under investigation by authorities, from there, if they agree with the women then the women had to return to her fathers house but if they don’t agree then the women gets cast into the