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 lonians, who held power for forty-three years, published a number of regulations relating to marriage. Adultery was punishable by the death of both persons by drowning. Provision was made for the desertion of wives. "If a man has abandoned his city, and absconded, and after that his wife has entered the house of another, if that man comes back and claims his wife, because he had fled and deserted his city, the wife of the deserter shall not return to her husband." A wife or a concubine who had borne children could not be sent away from the harem without the return of her dowry, and she was at liberty to marry again. Incest incurred a penalty of death, either by drowning or burning, according to the severity of the crime.

The law of Hammurabi was very rigid in regard to the descent of property through the mother.

"If a man has married a wife and she has borne children, and that woman has gone to her fate, then her father has no claim upon her dowry. The dowry is her children's."

Mr. Chilperic Edwards, author of "The Oldest Laws in the World," writes, in his notes on the Hammurabi Code, that many of the stories of Herodotus about the women of Babylon are fables. "The Babylonian woman was given in marriage by her father or brothers. The suitor, or his family, paid a