The brightness of woman's social position in Egypt must not, therefore, blind us to the fact that she was normally excluded from higher power, and rarely reached any share of it. However, as this power was confined to one man, with tributary power among a few other men, no one can draw any moral for our democratic age. Let us rather see how woman lost her position of equality in the people at large. Before the Egyptian woman sank to a position of inferiority she seems, for some centuries, to have risen higher than ever. At about the beginning of the sixteenth century B.C. the rigid frame of Egyptian civilisation began to relax. Amenhotep instituted private ownership of landed property and the use of legal contracts. One consequence was that the middle class began to amass wealth and win power from the priests and nobles; another consequence was that women also used their privileged position to acquire wealth. As time goes on the marriage-contracts show a painfully commercial spirit. The woman not only stipulates that there shall be no rival, but she fixes the fines for her husband's misdeeds and obtains more and more of his property. As the general character and power of the nation were now rapidly deteriorating--the rigidity of the old system proving incapable of adaptation to the changed conditions--we can easily see what this would lead to. The land was torn with political dissension; avarice, vice, and sensuality displaced the sobriety of the older people. The kings slunk in their harems, and for a century or more the priests ruled, even marrying the princesses. Woman was still in her privileged position, but the decay went on, with flashes of revival, until 650 B.C. Ethiopians and Assyrians had overrun the land, but a powerful ruler arose in 650. Among other improvements he developed the commerce of Egypt, and this led to the beginning of woman's downfall.