Inanna and Isis( goddesses of sumeria and egypt) - comparative mythology

Introduction

Throughout written history, women have experienced status subservient to the men they lived with. Generally, most cultures known to modern historians followed a standard pattern of males assigned the role of protector and provider while women were assigned roles of domestic servitude. Scholars speculate endlessly at the cause: biology, religion, social custom. Nevertheless, the women were always subordinated to the men in their culture. Through their artwork, tomb inscriptions, and papyrus and leather scrolls, preserved in the dry, desert air, Ancient Egyptians left evidence for scholars suggesting that Egypt was once a peculiar exception to this pattern. Anthropological evidence suggests that unusual circumstances in Ancient Egyptian culture provided for women to be given equal status to their male counterparts: notably, matrilineal inheritance and emphasis on the joy of family life over maintaining ethnic purity.

Traveled And Changed

According to many conservatives, society has been degenerating for many centuries now. Some go so far as to assert the impending fall of Western Civilization. Quite often this belief also has a religious cast, with predictions of the world ending in an Apocalypse or a Time of Trouble. Is there any evidence to support such pessimism? Yes, but it's always anecdotal, such as particularly horrifying news stories about human behavior at the extremes. Conservatives go on to blame this deterioration on society's growing liberalism, collectivism and secularism.

Fortunately, this belief is sheer nonsense. The last 400 years have been ones of astonishing scientific and moral progress, and no one can seriously argue otherwise. The key to it all has been the Scientific Revolution, which Galileo started in the early 1600s. Human knowledge has exploded since then, resulting in all manner of scientific, economic and social miracles. Consider all the advances that have occurred in the West during the last four centuries:

The West abolished slavery, serfdom, feudalism, the Inquisition, witch hunts, theocracy, dueling, pogroms, polygamy, state-sanctioned torture, censorship of the press, infanticide, child labor, and capital punishment for misdemeanors.

The West also greatly reduced infant mortality, bastardy, religious persecution, racism, misogyny, discrimination, superstition, and war. What few wars do occur tend to be tremendously more violent, but it is also a long-term trend that they are getting rarer. There has also been a sharp drop in institutionalized anti-Semitism -- apparently, the Holocaust shocked Europe out of this 1,500-year tradition.

The West has seen a clear rise in individual rights, civil rights, human rights, sexual rights, global trade, travel and telecommunications, computerization, sanitation, hygiene, free markets, private property and increasingly sophisticated economic institutions and banking practices.

Democracy has replaced monarchy and aristocracy.

Illiteracy once afflicted the vast majority of society, but today has been almost completely wiped out, thanks to the rise of mass education.

Economic depressions used to visit the West once every generation or two. But ever since World War II, depressions have been completely eliminated in all nations practicing Keynesian monetary policies.

Poverty and income inequality have both been considerably reduced. Prior to the 18th century, peasants and serfs were ...