Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/781

 THE LA WS OF HAMMURABI ^ 5 1

accorded to her sisters in many lands. 1 In much the same way among the Berbers, in case of death or dissolution of marriage, the purchase price and dowry are returned to their respective donors, the husband and the woman's father 8 a practice also provided for in the code (Ham., 164), which compels a hus- band on the death of a childless wife to return her property to her father, after deducting the betrothal present. It is interest- ing to compare the section of the Hammurabi code which in certain circumstances permits the children of a concubine to rank with those of the wife (171) with the Japanese fiction which in similar circumstances regards the wife as having herself presented the concubine as a gift to the husband, and as being the common mother of all the children. 3

The fate of the Babylonian wife who, conspiring with a lover, compasses the death of her husband, and is impaled in conse- quence (141), is practically duplicated by that of the Chinese woman, who in similar circumstances is killed by slow torture/ The sexual sins are regarded by the code of Hammurabi with varying degrees of reprobation, as indicated by the scale of pun- ishments, but in one regard the Babylonian law records a well- nigh universal judgment, namely, as regards one form of incest (157). "The degrees of kinship," says Westermarck, " within which intercourse is forbidden are by no means everywhere the same. It is most, and almost universally, abominated between parents and children, especially mother and son." 5

The Babylonian slave who might marry a free woman and acquire property was no more fortunate than the west-African bondsman reported by Ellis as owning slaves, and as having several wives, large wealth, and the command of a party of free soldiers. The mutilation of a slave who denied his master (Ham., 282) is also the practice among the same people. 6

But there must be an end to the multiplication of parallels. Enough have been cited to suggest a rich field of research and

1 WESTERMARCK, op. cit., pp. 527-29.

LE TOURNEAU, La condition de lafemme, p. 233.

3 Ibid., p. 318. * Ibid., p. 250. s WESTERMARCK, op. cit., p. 290.

6 ELLIS, The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of West Africa, p. 291.