{"id":2370,"date":"2018-08-17T21:53:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T21:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2370"},"modified":"2026-02-26T09:56:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:56:49","slug":"roles-of-men-and-women-in-the-aztec-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/roles-of-men-and-women-in-the-aztec-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Roles of Men and Women in the Aztec Empire: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The roles of men and women in the Aztec Empire<\/a> were important to the overall culture and daily life of the Aztec<\/a> people. For instance, Aztec men were primarily warriors<\/a>, farmers, and craftsmen, responsible for defending the empire and providing for their families. On the otherhand, Aztec women generally managed the household, cooked, wove textiles, acted as midwives, or merchants. While men dominated political and military life, women played crucial roles in religion<\/a>, trade, and maintaining social structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

WHO WERE THE AZTEC?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Aztec Empire\u00a0was a civilization in central Mexico that thrived in the time before the arrival of European explorers during the\u00a0Age of Exploration<\/a>.\u00a0 Throughout its history as a civilization the Aztec Empire expanded<\/a> across much of central Mexico and other surrounding areas, to become the most dominant and powerful people in the region.\u00a0\u00a0Tenochtitlan<\/a>, the main Aztec city (or altepetl), was the center of this vast empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map
Map of the Aztec Empire and Aztec Triple Alliance by History Crunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

ROLES OF MEN AND WOMEN<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There were several different forms of work in the Aztec Empire.\u00a0 As such, Aztec men and women had very different roles.\u00a0 In general, men were expected to do more laborious work while women were expected to work in the household and care for the family.\u00a0 For example, women were tasked with caring for young children, preparing meals and repairing clothing.\u00a0 Some women worked as artisans or craftspeople and sold their creations in the many different markets that were so important to the\u00a0Aztec economy<\/a>.\u200b\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Aztec
Aztec farmers harvesting maize (corn).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

For their part, men worked in several different occupations, including: farmer, artisan, craftsman, merchant, warrior, priest or government official.\u00a0 For instance,\u00a0commoners or middle class citizens\u00a0in the Aztec Empire (who were referred to as macehualtin) mostly worked as farmers growing crops such as maize (corn), beans and squash.\u00a0 Some, who were skilled artists and creators, worked as artisans and sold their goods at market.\u00a0 The Aztec referred to skilled artisans as tolteca after the earlier\u00a0Toltec<\/a>\u00a0civilization that the Aztec admired.\u00a0 The commoners were also required to work, at different times, to build and maintain the temples and public buildings in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.\u00a0 Some macehualtin worked as merchants in the markets by selling and trading different types of goods.\u00a0 Furthermore, some men worked as long distance traders, which were referred to as pochteca.\u00a0 These men carried goods from vast distance across the Aztec Empire to different markets.\u00a0 As well, all Aztec men were expected to serve time in the Aztec military as a\u00a0warrior<\/a>.\u00a0 For instance, the boys trained from a very young age to use different types of\u00a0Aztec weapons\u00a0and the rules and conduct of battle.\u00a0 Men of the noble class (pipiltin) were trained from a very young age to serve as high priests or in top government positions.\u00a0 These people oversaw the many Aztec ceremonies and festivals, and carried out the functions of the\u00a0Aztec government<\/a>.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Flower
Aztec Warriors from the Florentine Codex.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The roles of men and women in the Aztec Empire varied based on tradition and the social structures of Aztec society. This article details the differences between men and women in Aztec daily life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":31,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,80],"tags":[77,15,79],"class_list":["post-2370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aztec-empire","category-mesoamerica","tag-aztec-empire","tag-history","tag-mesoamerica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2370"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5805,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions\/5805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}