Marriage and Divorce
Law 138: A husband who divorced his wife who had not given him children could not send her away without compensation. He had to return this back to her beforehand
What is her dowry?
Hammurabi’s Code did not allow someone to make a serious accusation without consequences. Laws 1 and 3 say that an accuser who could not prove a charge involving a capital crime could face this punishment
What is death?
Law 196: If one man destroyed the eye of another man of the same status, the offender would lose the same.
What is “an eye for an eye”?
Law 55: A farmer who allowed irrigation water to flood his neighbor’s field had to repay the neighbor with this major Mesopotamian crop.
What is grain/corn?
Hammurabi is king of this famous Mesopotamian city.
What is Babylon?
Law 142: A woman could leave her husband and return to her father’s house with her dowry if judges determined that she was innocent and her husband had done this to her.
What is neglected or abandoned her?
Law 5: Powerful courtroom officials could be punished if their own error caused them to change a written judgment.
What are judges?
“An eye for an eye” did not apply equally to everyone. Law 198: Injuring the eye or bone of a freed man resulted in this type of punishment instead.
What is a fine?
Law 45: When a farmer rented land for a fixed payment and bad weather destroyed the harvest, this person absorbed the loss
What is the tenant farmer?
In the prologue, Hammurabi says these divine beings called him to rule.
Who are the gods?
Law 137: When a man divorced the mother of his children, he had to provide her with a form of alimony in order that she could do this before she was free to remarry.
What is raise their children?
Law 5: A judge responsible for an incorrect decision had to pay this many times the fine from the original case before being removed from their position.
What is twelve times the fine?
Law 206: If a man swore that he did not hurt the other person intentionally, he had to pay for this.
What are the injured person’s medical expenses
Law 46: Rent was based on a share of the harvest. In that situation, the crop was divided between these two people
Who are the landowner and the farmer?
Hammurabi says one purpose of his rule was to prevent this group from harming the weak.
Who are the strong?
Law 148: If a wife developed a disease and her husband married another woman, he was still required to do this for his sick wife for the rest of her life.
What is house and support her?
Laws 122–123: If valuable property is given for safekeeping without these two protections and the person denied receiving it, you had no valid legal claim
What are witnesses and a contract?
Laws 229–231: If a house collapsed killing the owner’s son, this person was put to death.
Who is the builder’s son?
Law 53: Someone who neglected this structure and caused it to break and flood surrounding fields could be held responsible for all the grain destroyed.
What is a dam?
In the epilogue, Hammurabi says his laws should help future kings make the right decisions, protect their subjects, establish order, and bring this condition to the land.
What is prosperity?
Laws 151 and 152: Spouses could protect themselves from debts the other person owed before marriage, but debts taken on during marriage were different in this way.
What is both spouses were responsible for paying them?
Law 12: This amount of time to produce missing witnesses before the court could rule against someone
What is six months?
Laws 196–205: Something often missed when people describe Hammurabi’s justice system as purely equal. Punishment for the same physical injury changed depending on this characteristic of the victim and offender
What is social class or status?
Laws 53–56: Shows that Hammurabi’s agricultural rules contained an ancient version of this legal idea: A person could be responsible not because he intentionally destroyed another person’s property, but because his carelessness caused the damage.
What is negligence?
Hammurabi warns future rulers not to alter his laws, corrupt his words, or damage this physical object on which his laws were inscribed.
What is his stele?