Sunday, March 22, 2015

(please cite evidences from the Code of Hammurabi to support thesis) Use evidence from the code of Hammurabi to analyze the socio-economic structure of early Babylonia. What sorts of economic activity and what social categories are attested in the code?

One aspect of early Babylonian society that emerges in Hammurabi's code is the way that it was characterized by class divisions. These divisions were enshrined in the legal systems established by Hammurabi's code. For example, law 202 stipulates that "...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." Additionally, the famous "eye for an eye" principle did not apply across classes. According to law 200, if "a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out." However, if he knocked out the teeth of a freed man, he was required only to pay a small fine.
Hammurabi's code also reveals a society that revolved around agriculture, and agricultural labor. Slaves were everywhere in the code, and there are many laws that governed the economic transactions upon which an agricultural society was based. There are laws governing renting oxen, for example, laws regulating dam and irrigation canal construction, and many other aspects of a river valley civilization.
Hammurabi's code also reveals gender distinctions. Women had, in short, fewer rights than men, and were to a large extent treated as property. Moreover, many laws governing inheritance indicate clearly that Hammurabi's society was a patriarchal one. That each household was meant to be governed by the father is established by law 195, which reads: "If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off." These are just a few things that Hammurabi's code of laws reveals about early Babylonian society, which is one reason why these laws continue to be studied.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp

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