How did they choose the Pharaoh?
The function of the pharaoh was fundamentally religious. He was a priest-king. The pharaoh was a representative of the people in a far more profound sense than that implied by the modern use of the phrase. He was very much like a popular Catholic Pope. Despite the repeated charges of vanity against the Pharaohs, it is worth remembering that their abodes while on earth were never made of stone, but of mud-brick, the same material used by the humblest peasants. These absolute monarchs could have built stone palaces for themselves. But the impermanent body, formed of clay, called for an equally impermanent abode on this earth. The palaces of the kings have long since returned to the earth from which they were raised. The line of royal descent in Egypt was through the eldest daughter. Whoever married her became the pharaoh. It was not mere influence that the eldest daughter possessed, it was a right acknowledged by law, both in private and public life.
