* For the long garment of the women, see the statue represented on p. 263 of the present work; for the loin- cloth, which left the shoulders and bust exposed, see the bronze figure on p. 262.  The latter was no doubt the garment worn at home by respectable women; we see by the punishment inflicted on adulteresses that it was an outdoor garment for courtesans, and also, doubtless, for slaves and women of the lower classes.

** Women’s occupations are mentioned in several texts and on several ancient monuments.  On the seal, an impress of which is given on p. 233 of this volume, we see above, on the left, a woman kneeling and crushing the corn, and before her a row of little disks, representing, no doubt, the loaves prepared for baking.  The length of time for suckling a child is fixed at three years by the Sumero-Assyrian tablet relating the history of the foundling; protracted suckling was customary also in Egypt.

There was no lack of children in these houses when the man had several mistresses, either simultaneously or successively.  Maternity was before all things a woman’s first duty:  should she delay in bearing children, or should anything happen to them, she was considered as accursed or possessed, and she was banished from the family lest her presence should be a source of danger to it.* In spite of this many households remained childless, either because a clause inserted in the contract prevented the dismissal of the wife if barren, or because the children had died when the father was stricken in years, and there was little hope of further offspring.  In such places adoption filled the gaps left by nature, and furnished the family with desired heirs.  For this purpose some chance orphan might be brought into the household—­one of those poor little creatures consigned by their mothers to the river, as in the case of Shargani, according to the ancient legend; or who had been exposed at the cross-roads to excite the pity of passers-by,** like the foundling whose story is given us in an old ballad.  “He who had neither father nor mother,—­he who knew not his father or mother, but whose earliest memory is of a well—­whose entry into the world was in the street,” his benefactor “snatched him from the jaws of dogs—­and took him from the beaks of ravens.—­He seized the seal before witnesses—­and he marked him on the sole of the foot with the seal of the witness,—­then he entrusted him to a nurse,—­and for three years he provided the nurse with flour, oil, and clothing.”  When the weaning was accomplished, “he appointed him to be his child,—­he brought him up to be his child,—­he inscribed him as his child,—­and he gave him the education of a scribe.”  The rites of adoption in these cases did not differ from those attendant upon birth.  On both occasions the newly born infant was shown to witnesses, and it was marked on the soles of its feet to establish its identity; its registration in the family archives did not take place until these precautions had been observed, and children adopted in this manner were regarded thenceforward in the eyes of the world as the legitimate heirs of the family.