The upper class women oversaw the domestic affairs while the elite men enjoyed positions as scribes or government officials. Both were able to accumulate property, slaves and pass wealth to their children. Men were the governors of the household and a bigger part of society as a whole. Women had a stronger influence in Egypt than in Mesopotamia. Many royal women served as regents to the young rulers.
The Maya and Shang relied on similar agricultural methods and political structures with small kingdoms and one ruler; however, they differed culturally since the Shang had no religion and the Mayans did. Both civilizations organized into hierarchies of power, although the Mayan small city-kingdom system worked better than the Shang decentralized states. Unlike the Mayans, the Shang had many governors and trusted them to carry out the orders. However, the governors were not hundred percent loyal to their king and rebelled a lot. The only reason they stayed in power for a certain time was that they could monopolize their bronze.
People of high social class would were special clothing to set them apart from the other Maya. farmers were in the lowest Mayan social classes. Slaves, who were usually prisoners of war, were the bottom of Mayan society. Many Mayan cities had pyramids with temples on top that were used for religious ceremonies. The priests were powerful because the Mayans believed that only the priests could perform the religious ceremonies that were needed to please the Mayan gods.
This helped strengthen the relationship between merchants and the empire [6]. The tribute and trade systems incorporation with the empire had both positive and negative impacts on the civilization. On the positive side, the empire promoted commerce and trade throughout their land, and exotic goods from obsidian to bronze managed to reach the households of both commoners and nobles. On the negative side, the tribute imposed a huge burden on commoner households. Therefore, commoners had to increase their work to pay off their share of the tribute.
They also controlled labour, trade, land and resources. The Pharaoh was in charge of national security, ensuring the happiness of his people and maintaining an ordered and peaceful society. The nobles and the priests were the only ones that could hold government posts where they profited from tributes paid to the
The Romans were especially successful in building an economically sound empire. As one would think, production is the first step in the process of making a profit. The Romans had a large variety of items that they produced. Examples include iron, lead, leather, marble, olive oil, perfumes, purple dye, silk, silver, spices, timber, tin and wine. They were able to produce most of these items due to their large range of labor, from slave farmers to wealthy merchants.
Asante society was composed of several social classes: un-free, alien slaves; peasant commoners living in outlying villages; urban specialists offering their services to the elite; government officials of various classes and positions; and the Asantehene (The Asante king) himself, with his royal family, at the top of the hierarchy. 4. How did the Asante state establish its control over wealth? A key factor in the state’s ability to maintain itself was the government’s regulation of social hierarchy and its success in promoting a core Asante value: that wealth and power went hand in hand, and that the accumulation of wealth by an individual was of benefit to the whole society. This Asante ideology legitimized the state, which maintained its power by redistributing wealth; regulating the wealth any individual could accumulate through discretionary use of law and custom; and controlling and managing the rituals in which wealth was displayed.
• • The Incas and Aztecs, empires that both peaked in the 16th century, shared many differences and similarities socially and politically. The Incas were the more powerful empire because the Aztecs were more focused on their religion and had a better social system. • • The Incas were at first a little tribe that was a chiefdom, or form of political organization with rule by a hereditary leader. They used Andean social and economic customs. Incas were pastoralists meaning their military strength and success based on how many llamas and alpacas you had.
A People’s History of the United States: Reflection Chapter 5 A Kind of Revolution To summarize, this chapter serves to explain about how the common people were wooed into serving in the Revolutionary War. While the rich could control and influence (and even get out of) the drafting, the poor had no such power. However, seeing as slaves and Indians would not want to participate, the white colonists had to be persuaded. This brings to light the immense distinction between the poor and the rich, and as Zinn states, “It seemed that the majority of white colonists, who had a bit of land, or no property at all, were still better off than slaves or indentured servants or Indians, and could be wooed into the coalition of the Revolution,” (Zinn 80). He also says that 10% of the white population owned nearly half of the wealth of the country and held slaves as 1/7th of the country’s people.
Also, some of their people were talented mathematicians that made extremely accurate astronomical observations. Due to many of these factors, the Aztecs created a complex, large-scale, centralized nation-state. The capital of Tenochtitlan rivaled any city in contemporary Europe, and was surrounded by beautiful gardens. A more morbid component of the Aztec society was the way they offered sacrifices to their gods. They sought the regard of their gods by offering up human sacrifices.