Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/539

 492

could be compelled to restore her her dowry and let her depart in peace. If a wife quarrelled with her husband and produced proof to the court justifying her conduct, and she was found free from blame, she was permitted to return to her father's house and the husband "had to give her com pensation. When a man deserted his wife and she went to another house, if he returned and wished to take her back to his bed and board, she was not bound to go to him. A man in a certain case might take a con cubine. If, however, his wife gave him a handmaiden and he had children by her, he was then barred from taking a side-wife (as a concubine was called). If having a child less wife, he took to himself a concubine and brought her to his home, she was not to stand on the same footing as the wife proper; should she attempt to place herself on an equality with the wife, her master was to sell her, if she had no children; if she had chil dren, he could not sell her, but was to give her money and reckon her among his ser vants. Should a father not give the daugh ter of his concubine a dowry and otherwise provide for her marriage, on his death the girl's brother had to furnish these things in a style in keeping with the paternal fortune. If a man intended to cast away his concubine, who had borne him children, and his legal wife had also presented him with children, he had to let each wife have her own children and also a useful portion of field, garden and possessions, that she might raise her little ones. When the man died and the children had reached majority, each woman received an allotment equal to a son's share; and she might then marry the man of her choice. Polygamy was rare in Babylonia, and the tendency of the law was to prohibit it alto gether. Few of the multitudinous docu ments that have come down to us from the second Babylonian empire show that a man had two wives living at the same time.

Sometimes a man had a concubine as well as a wife, but she was usually a slave. In early days there is no doubt that rich Babylonians occasionally indulged in two wives. We read that in the age of Khammurabi a certain Arad-Samas first married Taram-Sagilla and then took to his bed and board as a second spouse her adopted sister Iltani; but the agreement provided that Iltani should be subject to the orders of her sister, should prepare her food for her, carry her chair for her when she went to the temple of Merodach to worship, and obey her in all things. In fact, the poor second wife was to be little better than a slave; neither wife brought any dowry to Arad-Samas—this doubtltss was one reason why he acted thus. In time, the marriage with a second woman acted as a divorce of the first. Thus the man became subject to the same rule as the woman; neither could indulge in two con sorts at once. Professor Rawlinson states that so far as we ha've any real evidence, the kings of As syria were monogamists, but he thinks it probable that they had a certain number of concubines. In Media, on the other hand, polygamy was commonly practised among the more wealthy classes, and the Persian kings' (particularly in the later times) en joyed, or at all events possessed, a consider able number of wives and concubines. According to the laws of Hammurabi, a widow with ungrown children had to obtain the consent of the court ere she could marry again. If the court approved, it first ascer tained the value of the estate left by her first husband, it then transferred that to the cus tody of the widow and the intended number two and they had to keep it in good order and use it for the support and maintenance of the children of the first marriage; any sale of it, made without the approval of the court, was void. If a man gave his wife any property, and the gift was evidenced by a writing, on his