Campagno, M. 2009 Kinship and Family Relations in the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology

Campagno, M. 2009 “Kinship and Family Relations” in the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology Response Paper: Jessica Tomkins

Campagno begins his essay by stating that kinship is not just biological link between people but a cultural one, too. I found this to be an interesting point; kinship is not just the result of a biological connection between people (or a relationship which imitates biological kinship, such as calling a close friend ‘brother’, for example), but extends further into the realm of cultural congruencies between groups of people. Unfortunately, Campagno does not explore this further in his essay, despite opening his article with this point.

It is quite difficult to realise what Campagno’s main aim and conclusion of the article is. He presents a general overview of some aspects of kinship and family relations in ancient Egypt, but he does not present a comprehensive view of all that we know on the subject, or work systematically through all periods of ancient Egyptian history. Instead, he chooses to make certain points and pick and choose from the available sources to find one or two examples which best suit his argument. I found it unsettling to see secondary sources cited so incredibly frequently and the ancient sources being hardly utilised at all by Campagno, with the exception of the collection of Egyptian terms.

This article demonstrated, by listing all the ancient terms that describe these relationships, that kinship and family relations existed in ancient Egypt. I’m afraid I didn’t get much more out of the article than this very basic point. For laymen this would be an acceptable introduction to kinship and family relations, but for the educated Egyptological audience that the UCLA Egyptological I found it lacking. There was little analysis of the data and little diachronic study of the evidence.

There were, however, admirable parts to the article. Campagno’s demonstration of the family unit and kinship ties through a diagram centred around a central figure, Ego clearly illustrated the relationship of both people in ancient Egypt, but also the myriad Egyptian terms used by Egyptians to describe their relationship to someone else, biological or non-biologically related (which can sometimes be confusing to comprehend). One of the most interesting points of the article, for me, was the observation that ascent and descent were the most important kinship ties between people, as ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘son’, and ‘daughter’ are very easily recognisable, individual terms; any other family relation is expressed as a compound of these terms, for example, an uncle is described as ‘brother of my mother’, and a grandmother is a ‘mother of my mother’.

It is observed that Egyptian society was based around the nuclear family unit; a new unit was created when a man and woman ‘married’ and began living together. Campagno states that the idea that nuclear family unites dominated Egypt comes mostly from elite sources; rural families may have been much larger, incorporating more of the extended family into their social unit. A couple would at least support their children, elderly parents, and any other unmarried or widowed female relatives in their house. Campagno touches on the subject of marriage and partnership, observing that there are no known marriage laws in ancient Egypt. However, this does not mean there were not cultural rules regarding marriage; generally speaking, sibling marriage was not practised. Although it was common for the king to marry his sister, he was divine and thus outside those laws. In addition, it seems that monogamy dominated Egyptian culture.

Campagno makes the point that divorce could happen and in the 1st millennium BC, divorce would mean the woman’s dowry had to be returned, thus showing that divorce was regulated. It would have been interesting for Campagno to cite more evidence of divorce throughout Egyptian history, and the known circumstances under which it occurred.

Although the article states that Egypt lacked formal marriage laws, Campagno still uses terms such as ‘married’ and ‘divorced’ with little analysis of how appropriate these terms are when discussing Egyptian relationships. It is also taken for granted in this article that couples were always heterosexual. Perhaps my qualms with this article would be better explored in a separate UCLA Egyptology Encyclopaedia entry under ‘marriage’ (which I have just noticed appeared this year, written by Toivari). As this work concentrated mostly on the terminology of kinship ties rather than the status of these ties between people, and we are reading it in the week that we are discussing marriage and partnership in ancient Egypt, I found it to be an unsatisfactory read, given our personal aims for the seminar this week.