Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/775

 THE LA WS OF HAMMURABI 745

settlement and no marriage was legal without a formal contract (128) the groom ordinarily gave a betrothal present a sur- vival of the purchase price (159), the father sent with his daughter a dowry (138), and sometimes the husband added a further gift or jointure (150). This property played an important part in the family life. Even before marriage, if the groom changed his mind, he forfeited his first gift, or if the father proved fickle, the latter was compelled to return a doubled amount to the disappointed suitor ( 159, 160). After marriage, injustice, cruelty, or whim on the part of the husband meant loss of wife and dowry to him ; faithlessness, extravagance, or shift - lessness on the wife's side led in extreme cases to death, or to divorce and forfeiture of dowry and betrothal present (129, 141-43, 153). The husband had large discretion as to divorcing a wife, but always under the check of these property rights. 1 The husband could pawn his wife, unless she had protected herself by a special contract (151), but she could not be so held longer than three years (117, 152). The deserted wife might marry again without blame (136); the wife of a man held cap- tive by the enemy might enter another household, if she lacked means of support, but could rejoin her first husband on his return, leaving behind any children of the second union (134, 135). The property of the mother descended to her children, and she might even will to a favorite child any jointure that her husband had settled upon her ( 150). Minute details as to special con- tingencies appear in the family division of the code. The causes of divorce are specified, and the procedures are indicated. Various immoralities which are catalogued reflect familiar facts of social vice. The temple devotees are mentioned, and special provisions are made for them. The existence of prostitution, whether wholly religious or otherwise, is assumed, but the code fails to throw much light upon this subject, which has been obscure ever since the allusions of Herodotus called the attention of scholars to the institution. The total impression of the marriage 1 The significance of the dowry is well brought out by Westermarck who says : " Ultimately the dowry is due to a feeling of respect and sympathy for the weaker sex, which, on the whole, is characteristic of a higher civilization" (The History of Human Marriage, p. 415)-