The law on a pillar of stone
Normally, a man had only one
wife, but if she fell permanently sick her husband could remarry provided that
he continued to support the invalid. Yet, paradoxically, the man who fell into
debt could enslave his wife to a creditor for up to three years. Men could
divorce their wives but not without paying them in compensation an amount in
silver laid down for each class by law. This financial obligation did not apply
if the wife’s behavior towards her husband had been unsatisfactory.
At the death of a father all sons
inherited equally, and the eldest had no special rights. Babylon’s judicial
system included magistrates’ and judicial courts, a court of appeal, and the
right of final appeal to the king. If sentences tended to be severe, the courts
strove to be fair. For example, people charged with criminal offences were
allowed six months in which to produce witness. Hammurabi’s code incorporated
many of the old laws of the country together with new ones. The code was in the
first instance an attempt to make a universal system of justice available to
all his subjects equally, but a privileged status for class, wealth and age was
written into it. Also, by modern standards, the ode appears crude and lacking
in humanity.
Hammurabi’s justice, like that of
the Old Testament Jews, was basically that of’ an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth’. It was pedantic rather than reasonable, just to the point of
being grotesque. It made little distinction between the harm that men did accidentally
and that which they did willfully and maliciously.
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| this is boundary - stone given by Nebuchad nezzar, king of Babylon, to Ritti - Marduk, one of his district governors. Carved with divine embles, i was made twelfth centuary BC. |
The spirit behind Hammurabi’s
code was to deter men from harming one another – intentionally or
unintentionally by the threat of serve punishment. The prescribed punishment
often took the from of exact retaliation. The code was heavily biased in favour
of the nobles and more prosperous people, and in favour of men rather than
women. For example, if a doctor treated an aristocrat and caused him to lose an
eye, the doctor’s hands should be cut off. But if he caused the loss of a poor
man’s eye in similar circumstances he had only to pay 50 shekels of silver. If
the doctor brought about the loss of a slave’s eye he had merely to pay the
master half the value of the slaves – the wretched slave counting no more than
a chattel. If a man committed adultery with another’s wife he had to give his
own wife to the husband of the adulteress. Causing a man’s death was murder –
or at least a crime. There was little room for verdicts of manslaughter or
accidental death, and seldom was any allowance made for the sudden loss of
temper.
Nevertheless, the code of
Hammurabi marked an advance in ideas of justice. It recognized that wrong
should be punished by society rather than by the personal revenge of the victim
of his family.
The code was more than a system
of justice. It regulated much of daily life, including the payment that should
be made for every kind of work. In Babylon justice was man’s right rather than
a royal favour, even if it was undemocratic, irrational and meddlesome. The
Babylonians were served by a conscientious king and an efficient government.
But the idea of any kind of control by the people over their rulers was as
alien to Babylon as it was to Egypt.,