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Hammurabi Code Dbq Essay

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Hammurabi’s Code: For Better or For Worse?
It has been said that history is bound to repeat itself, some might say it is because the human mind thinks alike in more ways than one. This is proven in many ways including the properties and function processes of a variety of communities. Take a look at today’s society, people are ranked on social class based upon their source of income and how they are presented. They are continuously told the rule book for life by those who hold high authority and we feed off of money. We are willing to throw away our principles we vowed to stand by to earn another dime to our salary. 4,000 years ago these same problems arose in some of the earliest civilizations known to man. In Mesopotamia civilians had to deal …show more content…

In Document A it states, “Below the Prologue, closer to the base are the 282 laws, organized by theme, including family life, agriculture, theft and professional standards. There are a total of 3,500 lines of writing…” These 282 laws are what the god in charge deemed what was right and wrong. An example of one of the unjust, government controlled laws is in Document D as Law 23: “If the robber is not caught, the man who has been robbed shall formally declare whatever he has lost before a god, and the city and the mayor in whose territory or district the robbery has been committed shall replace for him whatever he has lost.” If someone is robbed why should the people have to pay everything back? These people most likely could not provide for themselves as it was. The attention that could be used to catching the robber is turned to the city to restore what had been …show more content…

In Document B it is claimed “That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans…Let no destruction befall my monument… let my name ever repeated;let the oppressed, who has a case at law, come and stand before this my image as king of righteousness;...” Hammurabi is explaining that the laws were set up so that the weak were not hurt by the strong, but he contradicts himself because he is the strong one who is hurting the weak. The punishments that are executed do not match properly to the wrong deed that has been done. For example in Document C in Law 129: “If a married lady is caught ⦗in adultery⦘ with another man, they shall bind them and cast them into the water.” If a married lady cheats on her husband she is tied up and thrown in the water to drown. However in Law 148, “If a man has married a wife and a disease has seized her, if he is determined to marry a second wife, he shall marry her. He shall not divorce the wife whom the disease has seized. She shall dwell in the house they have built together and he shall maintain her as long as she lives.” A woman will be helplessly thrown in the river to drown if caught in adultery, but if a married man has decided that his first wife is not considered a deemable spouse anymore, he can move on to a second wife and still keep the first wife under his possession. This does not fit the criteria of making

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