The formation of states, empires, and trans-regional networks across Eurasia and northern Africa led to dramatic transformations in both social and political relations between men and women. This chapter analyzes the interactions and performances of individuals and communities whose traditional gendered identities and roles had become further complicated by the distinction between member and non-member of a political entity defined by law, sovereignty, and competition with other states as well as non-states. In China, family and the inheritance of property evolved along with the waxing and waning of the patriarchal system as well as the composition of the ruling class. Expanding states and empires required soldiers, administrators, and judges to wield and defend public authority. The formation and maintenance of states, empires, and trans-regional networks in the ancient world has traditionally been viewed as primarily a masculine enterprise, contrasted with the feminine world of the household and domestic economy.