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by rrr001 on October 17th, 2005

rrr001

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Who is the queen who got married to her brother?

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  • by Archaeologist on March 12th, 2006

    Archaeologist

    The truth is that many Egyptian "queens" married their "brothers". In Egypt, there was no system of Primogeniture - that is, inheritance by the eldest son. Instead, there were complex webs of interrelationship between husband and wife, brother and sister, etc. As a result, rulers of Egypt were generally succeeded by the individuals that they designated as heirs, regardless of actual relationship.

    Heirs were almost always sons of the Pharoah's "Great Wife" (there is no Egyptian word for Queen), his most favored wife, and usually the first that he married. Not all Pharoah's had harems, but most did, and in any event, the title was used. At any rate, this selected son of the Great Wife was typically designated as heir via marriage to the "First Daughter" , Pharoah's "most royal" female child - the eldest eligible female daughter of his most favored ',minor wife'. Thus, in many cases a "queen" married her half-brother!

    One should not think of Egyptian society as incestuous, as not all of these marriages were consumated - there is some debate as to whether they were purely ceremonial - and not all heirs were designated in this matter. Amenhotep III, for example, married a commoner, Tiye, after being publicly acclaimed as an heir by his father, Amenhotep II, and thus freed from the necessity of marrying the "First Daughter". There were other exceptions to this rule.

    To summarize my answer, then, the truth is that many "queens" married their "(half)brothers". As for "Queens" in the sense of assuming Pharonic authority, about six women ruled Egypt as Pharoah's in their own right - one (Cleopatra VII) during the Ptolemaic period. At least two of these - Hatshepsut and Cleopatra, did marry half-brothers.

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