She's been everybody else's girl.

--The members are monogamous and marry for life. This system doesn’t make much practical sense considering the importance of obtaining a male heir, but neither does staying married to the same woman for 9+ years before getting a son out of the bargain if “have baby boy” is the only objective to the relationship (as happens in canon).

--The women of the family are permitted to go to the surface on occasion to do things like obtain food/other supplies/etc. but are inducted into fewer family secrets than the men.

--On a related note, women are indeed brought in from the outside world to marry the heir and continue the lineage. Incest...does happen on occasion, but if the idea of bringing someone down from above wasn’t already in circulation Rishid would have been an even bigger canonical anomaly.

--There are servants who live in the tombs too. They go to the surface with the women and answer to said women, and are responsible for the cooking/preparation/obtaining of food. (They grow what they can but yeah. Desert.) Said servants do have children, so Mali isn't totally unused to people younger than she is. All servants except those reporting directly to the heir are discouraged from making contact with him.

--They get outside funding from....somewhere. I'm tempted to say some very traditional branch of the Egyptian government, actually, or some even more long-established funding source who support the old ways of life and believe in the Pharaoh's eventual return. (It'd help to explain how Isis could get that government position in canon, too.)

Discussion of any or all of this is welcome. I <3 nerdy canon theory discussion liek mad.