PRIMARY SOURCE 3.1
Hammurabi’s Code (c. eighteenth century BCE)
From a Babylonian territorial state in Mesopotamia, Hammurabi’s Code, with its 282 laws covering everything from property ownership to marriage, is one of the earliest recorded law codes. Dating to the eighteenth century BCE, the code was produced in the context of the blending of Amorite herders and Mesopotamian urbanites. While the prologue to the law code describes how the gods have invested Hammurabi with the power to establish this code of laws and “to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and evil-doers, so that the strong should not harm the weak,” the laws themselves are focused primarily on humans’ relationships with one another.
- What are some of the crimes outlined in these laws? What are the punishments for those crimes?
- What evidence do you see in Hammurabi’s laws for the relationship between men and women? Between parents and children? Between different levels of society?
- What do these laws suggest about the eighteenth-century BCE Mesopotamian context from which they come? What sorts of issues seem to matter to this community (or its ruler)?
§1. If a man bring an accusation against a man, and charge him with a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, he, the accuser, shall be put to death.
§2. If a man charge a man with sorcery, and cannot prove it, he who is charged with sorcery shall go to the river, into the river he shall throw himself and if the river overcome him, his accuser shall take to himself his house (estate). If the river show that man to be innocent and he come forth unharmed, he who charged him with sorcery shall be put to death. He who threw himself into the river shall take to himself the house of his accuser.
§3. If a man, in a case (pending judgment), bear false (threatening) witness, or do not establish the testimony that he has given, if that case be a case involving life, that man shall be put to death.
§4. If a man (in a case) bear witness for grain or money (as a bribe), he shall himself bear the penalty imposed in that case.
§5. If a judge pronounce a judgment, render a decision, deliver a verdict duly signed and sealed and afterward alter his judgment, they shall call that judge to account for the alteration of the judgment which he had pronounced, and he shall pay twelve-fold the penalty which was in said judgment; and, in the assembly, they shall expel him from his seat of judgment, and he shall not return, and with the judges in a case he shall not take his seat.
§6. If a man steal the property of a god (temple) or palace, that man shall be put to death; and he who receives from his hand the stolen (property) shall also be put to death.
§7. If a man purchase silver or gold, manservant or maid servant, ox, sheep or ass, or anything else from a man’s son, or from a man’s servant without witnesses or contracts, or if he receive (the same) in trust, that man shall be put to death as a thief.
§8. If a man steal ox or sheep, ass or pig, or boat—if it be from a god (temple) or a palace, he shall restore thirtyfold; if it be from a freeman, he shall render tenfold. If the thief have nothing wherewith to pay he shall be put to death.
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§14. If a man steal a man’s son, who is a minor, he shall be put to death.
§15. If a man aid a male or female slave of the palace, or a male or female slave of a freeman to escape from the city gate, he shall be put to death.
§16. If a man harbor in his house a male or female slave who has fled from the palace or from a freeman, and do not bring him (the enslaved man) forth at the call of the commandant, the owner of that house shall be put to death.
§17. If a man seize a male or female slave, a fugitive, in the field and bring that (person) back to his owner, the owner of the slave shall pay him two shekels of silver.
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§38. An officer, constable or tax-gatherer shall not deed to his wife or daughter the field, garden or house, which is his business (i.e., which is his by virtue of his office), nor shall he assign them for debt.
§39. He may deed to his wife or daughter the field, garden or house which he has purchased and (hence) possesses, or he may assign them for debt.
§40. A woman, merchant or other property-holder may sell field, garden or house. The purchaser shall conduct the business of the field, garden or house which he has purchased.
§41. If a man have bargained for the field, garden or house of an officer, constable or tax-gatherer and given sureties, the officer, constable or tax-gatherer shall return to his field, garden, or house and he shall take to himself the sureties which were given to him.
§42. If a man rent a field for cultivation and do not produce any grain in the field, they shall call him to account, because he has not performed the work required on the field, and he shall give to the owner of the field grain on the basis of the adjacent (fields).
§43. If he do not cultivate the field and neglect it, he shall give to the owner of the field grain on the basis of the adjacent (fields); and the field which he has neglected, he shall break up with hoes, he shall harrow and he shall return to the owner of the field.
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§45. If a man rent his field to a tenant for crop-rent and receive the crop-rent of his field and later Adad (i.e., the Storm God) inundate the field and carry away the produce, the loss (falls on) the tenant.
§46. If he have not received the rent of his field and he have rented the field for either one-half or one-third (of the crop), the tenant and the owner of the field shall divide the grain which is in the field according to agreement.
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§128. If a man take a wife and do not arrange with her the (proper) contracts, that woman is not a (legal) wife.
§129. If the wife of a man be taken in lying with another man, they shall bind them and throw them into the water. If the husband of the woman would save his wife, or if the king would save his male servant (he may).
§130. If a man force the (betrothed) wife of another who has not known a male and is living in her father’s house, and he lie in her bosom and they take him, that man shall be put to death and that woman shall go free.
§131. If a man accuse his wife and she has not been taken in lying with another man, she shall take an oath in the name of god and she shall return to her house.
§132. If the finger have been pointed at the wife of a man because of another man, and she have not been taken in lying with another man, for her husband’s sake she shall throw herself into the river.
§133. If a man be captured and there be maintenance in his house and his wife go out of her house, she shall protect her body and she shall not enter into another house.
§133A. [If] that woman do not protect her body and enter into another house, they shall call that woman to account and they shall throw her into the water.
§134. If a man be captured and there be no maintenance in his house and his wife enter into another house, that woman has no blame.
§135. If a man be captured and there be no maintenance in his house, and his wife openly enter into another house and bear children; if later her husband return and arrive in his city, that woman shall return to her husband (and) the children shall go to their father.
§136. If a man desert his city and flee and afterwards his wife enter into another house; if that man return and would take his wife, the wife of the fugitive shall not return to her husband because he hated his city and fled.
§137. If a man set his face to put away a concubine who has borne him children or a wife who has presented him with children, he shall return to that woman her dowry and shall give to her the income of field, garden and goods and she shall bring up her children; from the time that her children are grown up, from whatever is given to her children they shall give to her a portion corresponding to that of a son and the man of her choice may marry her.
§138. If a man would put away his wife who has not borne him children, he shall give her money to the amount of her marriage settlement and he shall make good to her the dowry which she brought from her father’s house and then he may put her away.
§139. If there were no marriage settlement, he shall give to her one mana of silver for a divorce.
§140. If he be a freeman, he shall give her one-third mana of silver.
§141. If the wife of a man who is living in his house, set her face to go out and play the part of a fool, neglect her house, belittle her husband, they shall call her to account; if her husband say “I have put her away,” he shall let her go. On her departure nothing shall be given to her for her divorce. If her husband say: “I have not put her away,” her husband may take another woman. The first woman shall dwell in the house of her husband as a maid servant.
§142. If a woman hate her husband, and say: “Thou shalt not have me,” they shall inquire into her antecedents for her defects; and if she have been a careful mistress and be without reproach and her husband have been going about and greatly belittling her, that woman has no blame. She shall receive her dowry and shall go to her father’s house.
§143. If she have not been a careful mistress, have gadded about, have neglected her house and have belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water.
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§148. If a man take a wife and she become afflicted with disease, and if he set his face to take another, he may. His wife, who is afflicted with disease, he shall not put away. She shall remain in the house which he has built and he shall maintain her as long as she lives.
§149. If that woman do not elect to remain in her husband’s house, he shall make good to her the dowry which she brought from her father’s house and she may go.
§150. If a man give to his wife field, garden, house or goods and he deliver to her a sealed deed, after (the death of) her husband, her children cannot make claim against her. The mother after her (death) may will to her child whom she loves, but to a brother she may not.
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§162. If a man take a wife and she bear him children and that woman die, her father may not lay claim to her dowry. Her dowry belongs to her children.
§163. If a man take a wife and she do not present him with children and that woman die; if his father-in-law return to him the marriage settlement which that man brought to the house of his father-in-law, her husband may not lay claim to the dowry of that woman. Her dowry belongs to the house of her father.
§164. If his father-in-law do not return to him the marriage settlement, he may deduct from her dowry the amount of the marriage settlement and return (the rest) of her dowry to the house of her father.
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§194. If a man give his son to a nurse and that son die in the hands of the nurse, and the nurse substitute another son without the consent of his father or mother, they shall call her to account, and because she has substituted another son without the consent of his father or mother, they shall cut off her breast.
§195. If a son strike his father, they shall cut off his fingers.
§196. If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.
§197. If one break a man’s bone, they shall break his bone.
§198. If one destroy the eye of a freeman or break the bone of a freeman, he shall pay one mana of silver.
§199. If one destroy the eye of a man’s slave or break a bone of a man’s slave he shall pay one-half his price.
§200. If a man knock out a tooth of a man of his own rank, they shall knock out his tooth.
§201. If one knock out a tooth of a freeman, he shall pay one-third mana of silver.
§202. If a man strike the person of a man (i.e., commit an assault) who is his superior, he shall receive sixty strokes with an ox-tail whip in public.
§203. If a man strike another man of his own rank, he shall pay one mana of silver.
§204. If a freeman strike a freeman, he shall pay ten shekels of silver.
§205. If a man’s slave strike a man’s son, they shall cut off his ear.
Source: The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, about 2250 B.C., 2nd ed., translated by Robert Francis Harper (Union, New Jersey: University of Chicago Lawbook Exchange, 1999): pp. 11, 13, 17, 25, 27, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 57, 59, 73, 75.