Editing Inca Empire (section)

=== Gender roles ===
[[File:The Shapa Inka and his wife traveling the Qhapaq Ñan, 1615.jpg|thumb|The Inka and his wife, the [[Qoya|Quya]], traveling the Qhapaq Ñan.]]

According to some historians, such as Terence N. D'Altroy, male and female roles were considered equal in Inca society. The "indigenous cultures saw the two genders as complementary parts of a whole".<ref name=":3" /> In other words, there was not a hierarchical structure in the domestic sphere for the Incas. Within the domestic sphere, women came to be known as weavers, although there is significant evidence to suggest that this gender role did not appear until colonizing Spaniards realized women's productive talents in this sphere and used it to their economic advantage. There is evidence to suggest that both men and women contributed equally to the weaving tasks in pre-Hispanic Andean culture.<ref name=":4" /> Women's everyday tasks included: spinning, watching the children, weaving cloth, cooking, brewing chichi, preparing fields for cultivation, planting seeds, bearing children, harvesting, weeding, hoeing, herding, and carrying water.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |title=Moon, sun, and witches: gender ideologies and class in Inca and colonial Peru |first=Irene |last=Silverblatt |date=1987 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=0-691-07726-6 |oclc=14165734}}</ref> Men on the other hand, "weeded, plowed, participated in combat, helped in the harvest, carried firewood, built houses, herded llama and alpaca, and spun and wove when necessary".<ref name=":2" /> This relationship between the genders may have been complementary. Onlooking Spaniards believed women were treated like slaves, because women did not work in Spanish society to the same extent, and certainly did not work in fields.<ref>{{Cite book |title=History of the Inca Empire: an account of the Indians' customs and their origin, together with a treatise on Inca legends, history, and social institutions |last=Cobo |first=Bernabé |date=1979 |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |isbn=0-292-73008-X |oclc=4933087 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofincaemp0000cobo}}</ref>  Women were sometimes allowed to own land and herds because inheritance was passed down from both the mother's and father's side of the family.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Daily life in the Inca empire |first=Michael Andrew |last=Malpass |date=1996 |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group|Greenwood Press]] |isbn=0-313-29390-2 |oclc=33405288}}</ref> Kinship within the Inca society followed a parallel line of descent. In other words, women descended from women and men descended from men. Due to the parallel descent, a woman had access to land and other assets through her mother.<ref name=":2" />