Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/537

 490

Occasionally the bride's grandparents wished to show their appreciation and ap proval of the marriage, and we then have supplementary contracts drawn up some thing like this: "The Lady Etilleton gives of her own free will to the lady Bilitsonnon, the daughter of Soulai, her eldest son, Hanitloumoui and Bazit, her two servants, two ser vants in addition to the three servants which Soulai, her father, has given her. If any one should make a claim to revoke this gift may Merodach and Zirpanitum decree his ruin; may Nebo, the scribe of Esaggil, cut short his future days." Hammurabi, or Amraphel,—who lived more than four thousand years agone and whose laws, engraved about 2250 В. С. (some 700 years before Moses wrote) have re cently been discovered and translated,—was very explicit in his legislation about women, of the 247 sections of his code that have come down to us, over sixty deal with the fair sex. He expressiv declared that a wife taken without a formal contract of marriage should not be deemed the legal wife of the man so taking her. He provided for the pro tection of the fame, honor and bodies of mar ried women by enacting that the utterer oí baseless slanders should be branded on the forehead; a woman accused by her husband of adultery and put away, if there was no proof of her sin, might make oath of her in nocence and return to her home; an adul teress (unless forgiven by her husband) was to be drowned; a man violating the maiden wife of another in her father's house was to be put to death, but she went free, if he was caught. If a husband was made a prisoner of war and went away leaving his wife provisions for her support, and she—preserving not the sanctity of her home—went away to another house, upon conviction she was to be drowned; if, however, the husband had left no provision for his spouse when he was car ried off a prisoner, then, even though she

went elsewhere, she was adjudged guiltless; even if children were born to her in the house in which she had taken refuge and afterward her true husband returned, then she was to go back to his bed and board, but the children were to follow the father. If a man struck a free-born woman, who was pregnant, and thereby caused a miscarriage, the assailant, upon conviction, had to pay her ten shekels for damages; if the woman died from the blow then the lex talionis came into play and the assailant's daughter was put to death; if the stricken one was a t'reedwoman, and miscarriage ensued, the sum payable in damages was half the amount; if a servant, it was two shekels; in case of the death of a freed-woman, the assaulter was fined one-half a maneh; if a slave, the third of a maneh. What the prohibited degrees were is un certain. A man could marry his sister-inlaw; a marriage with a niece is reported; in the reign of Cambyses a brother married a sister by the same father; this was a Persian custom. Among the Assyrians marriage with a half-sister on the father's side was allowable; this was also lawful among the Athenians, and Abraham, an ancient Baby lonian, married his half-sister. In Central America, on the other hand, 'a man could marry his mother's daughter, but not his father's. (Gen. XX, 12; Westermarck, 295.) Hammurabi decreed that a man having car nal knowledge of his daughter should be driven from the town, and he was to be drowned if he committed adultery with his son's wife; if he acted improperly with a girl betrothed to his son, but whom the son de clined to marry, he was to be fined and had to return her dowry, and the woman could marry the man of her choice. If a man had illicit intercourse with his mother, both he and she were to be burned up; if with his father's legal wife, after she had borne him children, he was to be driven from his father's house.