CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
UR-MAA-NOFRU-RA.
The many wived Rameses II, if so he was, did not adopt Blue Beard’s plan of despatching one before he espoused another, but merely set up separate establishments for each, and so preserved the peace. The king could do no wrong in those days, his divine right never being questioned, and it may be doubted whether the first wife was surprised at, or even objected to, the arrangement. It was an early form of Mormonism and accepted without protest.
While Queen Nofritari-Minimut was, there is little question, first and chief wife, and probably had been so for many years, and also the mother of a number of children, the Keetan princess, and perhaps others, shared the honor of being legal consort.
We know little about the marriage ceremonials of the Egyptians, compared to our very full knowledge of their funeral rites, but a late writer thus describes a wedding which may in part resemble that used by the kings. “At the temple the people remained outside the walls, while the bride and groom, the pharaoh and dignitaries, entered the hall of columns. There Hebron (the bride) burned incense before the veiled statue of Amon, priestesses performed a sacred dance and Tutmosis (the groom) read the following act from a papyrus:
“‘I, Tutmosis, commander of the guard of his holiness Rameses XIII, take thee, Hebron, daughter of Antefa, the monarch of Thebes, to wife, as wife—I give thee now the sum of ten talents, because thou hast consented to marry me. For thy robes I designate to thee three talents yearly, and for household expenses one talent a month. Of the children which we may have the eldest son will be heir to the property, which I possess now, and which I may acquire hereafter, if I should not live with thee, but divorce myself and take another wife, I shall be obliged to pay thee forty talents, which sum I secure with my property. Our son on receiving his estate is to pay thee fifteen talents yearly. Children of another wife are to have no right to the property of our first-born son.’
“The chief judge appeared now and read an act in which the bride promised to give good food and raiment to her husband, to care for his house, family, servants, slaves and cattle, and to entrust to that husband the management of the property which she had received, or would receive, from her father.
“After the facts were read Herhor gave Tutmosis a goblet of wine. The bridegroom drank half, the bride moistened her lips with it, and then both burned incense before the purple curtain.