Crystal Spear HIS 336 Paper One 10.01.

12 Code of Hammurabi: Womens Rights In the writing found in the First Civilization there is much evidence that women had little rights (if any at all). The Code of Hammurabi has laws for men and women. However, most of these laws are more like punishments for women. On a large pillar made of stone one can find The Code of Hammurabi which are a set of laws, judgments, or decrees, which was ordered by King Hammurabi. Hammurabi said the laws were meant: To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak . . ., to further the well-being of mankind. Hammurabi was the ruler of the Babylonian Empire, he reigned from 1792 1750 B.C.E. and was able to show what a part of the First Civilizations social and economic life was like through The Code of Hammurabi. When the First civilization started to rise, so did patriarchy. In Mesopotamia one saw a male dominance following the First Civilization. In Egypt it was quite the opposite, women were legally equal to men. These laws were to enforce a patriarchal family while offering women paternalistic protection and still making them listen to the authority of men, unquestioned. There is a regulation to female sexuality in these laws. One law states that a womans husband can drowned his wife, at his discretion, if the wife was caught sleeping with another man. However, men were allowed to have sexual

relations with female servants, except with another mans wife.1 The women who are under protection and sexual control of a man are considered to be a respectable woman. Women who are slaves and prostitutes were nonrespectable.2 Respectable women were required to wear a veil covering their heads when going outside, nonrespectable women were forbidden to wear a veil. They would suffer from severe punishment if caught wearing a veil. One would not find this in Egypt. In Egypt the men and women are legally equal. The art even shows that women are equal to men; statues and paintings show affection poses among the men and women suggesting they are equal partners. Women in Egypt are allowed to sell and administer land, own their own slaves and property, write their own wills, sign their marriage contracts, and they can initiate divorce.3 Unlike Mesopotamia, Egypt did not require their women to wear veils out in public to show who is respectable and who is not. There is much difference between men and women in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These laws are meant for a womans protection, however one may disagree that the laws are a way to control instead of protect. The wife is supposed to love, respect, and obey her husband. Law 128 from The Code of Hammurabi states If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him. This is just one way for a man to control his wife. On the other hand, there

This law shows the male dominance in the First Civilizations. Makes men look like pigs, since they are allowed to have sex with more than their wife but they must be respected so their wife cannot have sexual relations with anyone but their husbands. 2 Even though the husband was the one having the sexual relations with the slave, the slave is considered nonrespectable. Isnt that twisted? 3 Divorce in other First Civilizations was easier for men than for women.

are a few laws that do protect women, but its only because the man wants his way. One law that protects the wife is law 137, which states: If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct [the right to use] of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children . . . she may then marry the man of her heart . .. During the First Civilization there was a male dominance that took presence over women in certain places like Mesopotamia. In these areas the husband controlled the wife, and there were punishments for those who disobeyed. There were also laws to protect women, so if the husband wanted to leave his wife he couldnt just leave her stranded. One didnt see the male dominance in Egypt like you did in Mesopotamia. In Egypt the men and women were equal, the men didnt try to control the women. Women had more rights in Egypt than they did in any other First Civilization. Therefore not all women were treated unfairly, and not all women were punished unruly.