Code of Hammurabi extracts

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University of Tennessee, Martin *

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1110

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Oct 30, 2023

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HIST 1110 World History Professor Doyle The Law in Old Babylon Remarkable for its clarity, the Code of Hammurabi may have introduced concepts like the presumption of innocence and the use of evidence. It informed legal systems in Mesopotamia for many centuries after Hammurabi’s death. The Code of Hammurabi promoted the principle that punishment should fit the crime, but penalties often depended on social class: 199. If [a man] put out the eye of a man’s slave, or break the bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay one-half of its value. 202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public. Many edicts concern marriage, adultery, children, and marriage property. 129. If a man’s wife be surprised with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves. 150. If a man give his wife a field, garden, and house and a deed therefor, if then after the death of her husband the sons raise no claim, then the mother may bequeath all to one of her sons whom she prefers, and need leave nothing to his brothers. A good number of the code’s edicts concern the settling of commercial disputes: 9. If anyone lose an article, and find it in the possession of another [who says] “A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses,” . . . The judge shall examine their testimony—both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant. 48. If anyone owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water and pays no rent for this year. —"Hammurabi’s Code of Laws,” c. 1780 BCE, translated by L.W. King

Questions to Consider: 1.What do these edicts suggest about the different social tiers in Babylonian society? How were they organized? 2. Was marriage similar to or different from marriage today? 3. Do the edicts for resolving economic disputes seem fair to you? Why or why not?

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