African daily life: Mary and Jesus, from Ethiopia (ca. 1500 AD) (Now in the J. Paul Getty Museum) Inequality in African society Ancient African society didn't have the huge differences [...]
Grindstone from Syria, about 1500 BC (Louvre Museum) Where did they live? Most married women in West Asia lived with their husband's family, so young married women took orders from [...]
West Asian girls: An enslaved woman stands behind a free Elamite woman who is spinning (600s BC) Women were oppressed In West Asia, even more than in most other state societies all [...]
West Asian people: Ur-Nanshe, the king's chief musician in Mari, 2400s BC Oppression of women What we notice most about the way people lived in West Asia is the widespread [...]
Roman women: an old woman, about 50 AD. The sculptor has made her look silly on purpose to make fun of old women Were women oppressed in ancient Rome? Roman [...]
A barmaid brings a drink to two men sitting on chairs. The words show the men arguing about whose drink it is. (Caupona of Salvius, Pompeii, 79 AD) The Roman Empire was so [...]
Roman freedmen - A gravestone for a freedwoman, put up by her husband, who was also a freedman (ILS 1221, Rome, 80 BC) What are freedmen and freedwomen? Freedmen and [...]
A Roman family on a tombstone Roman definitions of family The Roman idea of family included not just a husband and wife and their children, but also the people they enslaved [...]
A Pueblo family with a donkey in 1885 (Detroit Publishing Company) Since 1500 AD North American people's relationships to one another have seen big changes. In the 1500s, most kids lived in [...]
Madonna and child (Donatello) Medieval families The way people thought about each other in the Middle Ages, everyone was involved in complicated systems of relationships with each other. The first relationships [...]
