Hammurabi Women

The Code of Hammurabi: The Status of Women

Devarsh Shah

This paper is about the difficulties of women to survive in Babylonian society. The basis is that women were not treated equally or given the same opportunities as men. Men had way more leverage when it came to making the decisions in Babylonian society. One of the biggest reasons of this is because of a man named Hammurabi. Hammurabi was a first dynasty king of the city-state of Babylon who had inherited the power of his father, Sin-Muballit. The reason why Hammurabi was a key factor in the superiority of men in Babylonian society is because of his code of laws. The code of laws, by us, was named The Code of Hammurabi and was one of the first written laws in the world. The…show more content…
The men decided whether the marriage happened or not. The amount of the dowry the husband pays is decided by the husband and the father of the bride. However, if the husband changed his mind about the marriage during the honeymoon period, which is the period when the bride remained at her father’s house after the marriage contract was signed, the dowry would be returned to the bride’s father. Also, during this period, the bride’s father may choose to opt his daughter out of the marriage which in turn, will lead to him getting his dowry back. This predicament is stated in Laws 159, 163, and 164 in The Code of Hammurabi. This is clearly not fair to the women in the relationship because they have no say in the relationship. Women were not allowed to make a decision on their husband while males grooms were allowed to not only choose who they get married to but to change their minds as…show more content…
The opinions of females were not taken into account when making major decisions. Alongside that, men were never put at risk but women were thrown into the water within the blink of an eye. Most of the time, there was nothing they can do to prevent this from happening except convince their husband not to. Hammurabi’s code of laws was unfair towards women but very important because it was one of the first set of written laws humanity has known.

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