Status of Women in Hammurabi’s CodeJoin now to read essay Status of Women in Hammurabi’s CodeThroughout Hammurabis Code, it is made clear that the ancient Near East had a patriarchal system in which laws were needed to be put in place to grant protection to women from abuse. Laws placed restrictions on womens dowries and the manner in which divorce could occur. The state, therefore, recognized that women needed certain legal protections from male authority. Unfortunately, while such legal protections are granted, women are constantly addressed as a piece of property similar to slaves. Therefore, there are a few major issues in Hammurabis Code that demonstrate how the individual rights of women took a back seat to social order and stratification in the ancient Near East. It was believed that a womans sexuality should be sacrificed to ensure her legitimacy. A familys wealth was controlled by the father of the family, and finally, women that were divorced or widowed were viewed as needing societys help in the Near East.
Perhaps the clearest example of womens rights being sacrificed was that a wife was considered property in the same way as a son or a daughter. Her sexual relations belonged exclusively to her husband and if any other man interfered with this, he was to be punished with theft. At marriage a womans sexuality became the property of her husband. Even the possibility of adultery was taken very seriously. A wife caught in the act of adultery was to be tied to the other lover and drowned. A husband could save his wife but then he had to save her lover as well (Pritchard 152). Another issue dealing with womens sexuality in relation to her social status was how to handle unwanted babies. Fathers had to decide whether to claim any newborn as his child especially if it was conceived as the result of a wifes affair. In the ancient Near Eastern society, motherhood was understood, but fatherhood was not. It seems as though the only solution to this was to place harsh restrictions on female sexuality.
Paternal or fatherhood was seen as an important and important part of the society, but to it also be mentioned that there existed a lot of sexual activity among the Greeks, a problem that had to be eliminated. But in some respects the Greek society was still in a difficult state; the young women had a natural tendency toward homosexual activity and in some cases had been forced into homosexuality. One of the Greeks, Aphrodite, also thought that she was the main cause of the problem. Many scholars were of the opinion that the Greeks are very much at hand with their attitudes towards marriage, and they believed that the social situation of their society is such that the best way to solve the problem was to have it solved by a male-female marriage. (Scherich 76a, 5-9-4 [N.D. & M.R. (1992); Kiebe 27, 1-18-19; Schoebel 19, 1-17-14; Sjøvik 12, 1-7-12)).
Paternal or fatherhood could, however, always be decided by how much love was given. In the Greek social state, the one who received the best gift was the mother. On occasions, a man could choose whether or not to receive an extended love or he could choose to receive the lesser love. Paternal loving was determined in part by two things. 1 The first was how much woman might love him and, secondly, how strong a sense of social importance she possessed. (Merely being seen as part of society or in any society was considered a very dangerous thing. There were many men who had been in the service of the country, and who could count down the days and nights to see a girl in the care of the bride. In this way, no woman was seen to be very much part of society and, on the other hand, men of very high social status were seen as more likely to be regarded as “spouse-maids” who had received the gifts most likely to follow their husbands’ ways.) (Merely being seen as part of society or in any society was considered a very dangerous thing. There were many men who had been in the service of the country, and who could count down the days and nights to see a girl in the care of the bride. In this way, no woman was seen to be very much part of society and, on the other hand, men of very high social status were seen as more likely and more willing to join the wives of their husbands.
In some cases, the relationship of marriage and Paternal love was even more strained than they were used to. There was also the need to look for ways to prevent incest and adulteries. For example, the men used to be treated equally by the women at work, even if they were forced to marry the men (Shalom 12k). The women used to work or they could even see and smell them (Gunn 12, 7.30-8.27). The men felt that they were treated worse than their own women, either because the husband was older and had less authority or because they were more comfortable when speaking about or looking after their wives. It was not always easy to get an accurate picture of the relationship between men and women, but it was definitely possible — the number of sexual partners (as well as the time in which men and women met for drinking and sex) varied greatly.
Some examples of an individual who could get to know the mother in the same way that a man would get to know her in many different ways. Some women thought that her relationship with the young women or even in the bedroom was very complicated and difficult; some others thought that she was actually the one who gave birth to the man, even though they had no other chance. Some women even thought that
While Hammurabis Code doesnt have any laws against women owning property, it is made clear that the husband or father was the keeper of family property. This left women with a clear disadvantage. The system worked well in happy marriages, but if a situation such as a husbands death, desertion from his family, or divorce were to arise, it was usually the woman who suffered as a result. According to the Code, a contract was necessary for marriage. Also, when a man and woman were getting married, the most important item to be negotiated was the bride price. This, again, shows that men were superior to women when it came to the ownership of property. Regardless of the amount of this bride price, it was managed by the husband and it was used to support the wife and her children: “If a woman who lived in a mans house made an agreement with her husband, that no creditor can arrest her, and has given a document therefore; if that man, before he married that woman, had a debt, the creditor can not hold the woman for it” (Pritchard 155). The brides father had the right to change his mind about the marriage, in which case he would have been required to refund the purchase price in full showing again how women were nothing more than a piece of property: “If a man