women ancient world

Josh Hunt said:

i want to find out about women in the ancient world--their rights, privileges and place in society. what do I search for?

I'm not sure how best to formulate a search for that, other than to search for the word "women" in proximity to "rights", "privileges", etc.

Articles, books and dictionary entries may be helpful to you, for example,

• Catherine C. Kroeger's entry “Women in Greco-Roman World and Judaism” in the IVP Dictionary of New Testament Background.
• M. J. Evans', “Women,” in the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch.
• Rivkah Harris' article “Women” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary is divided into three sections: Mesopotamia, Old Testament and New Testament.
• Christine Neal Thomas's entry “Women in the Ancient near East,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 

There are a couple of Mobile Education courses under the title of Women in the Biblical World:

• www.logos.com/product/130778/mobile-ed-bi304-women-in-the-biblical-world-old-testament
• www.logos.com/product/130779/mobile-ed-bi306-women-in-the-biblical-world-new-testament

Happy hunting.

There is also some eye opening stuff on gender roles, marriage practices, divorce, inheritance, dowry, bride price, etc in this:

https://www.logos.com/product/15711/palestine-in-the-time-of-jesus-social-structures-and-social-conflicts