Introduction
Ma'at is the goddess and personification of truth, balance, order, and cosmic justice — a concept as central to Egyptian religion and kingship as any single deity, embodying the correct functioning of the universe against the chaos represented by figures like Apophis and Set.
Family
The Feather of Judgment
In the underworld judgment scene recorded in the Book of the Dead, the deceased's heart is weighed on a scale against the feather of Ma'at; a heart found lighter than or equal to the feather passes into the afterlife, while a heart found heavier — weighed down by wrongdoing — is devoured by the composite demoness Ammit, denying the deceased eternal life. Every pharaoh was ideologically charged with upholding Ma'at against isfet (chaos/disorder), making her principle foundational to Egyptian concepts of legitimate rule.
Ancient Egyptian religion spanned three millennia and many regional cult centers, so parentage, roles and even gender pairings for a given deity often differ between the Heliopolitan, Hermopolitan, Memphite and Theban theological systems; the account above follows the most widely attested classical version.