If I had gone to Law School back when I was supposed to I might have happened across at least parts of the following, but I doubt much if any of it would have stuck in my mind, and I would have been too busy by far to even think about looking into the context of the culture/s which produced them.
So, all things considered I'm not really too upset about having missed out on Law School. I like what I'm doing now and don't know that I'd have liked a career in law ...
Be that as it may, here are some of my thoughts and notes on Hammurabi. Here too are a couple of codes of law that preceded his.
HAMMURABI (about 1754 BCE)
NOTES
The first three are all about being truthful.
If someone brings a true accusation, he’s the one who
receives the fine, kind of like a reward.
If a judge screws up, makes a bad call, and it’s later
proven, he has to pay twelve times the amount of whatever the fine was and get
publically expelled from his position for life.
Stealing pretty much brings a death sentence.
If somebody is robbed and the robber not caught, the
community kicks in and gives the victim the value of his loss.
If a guy hires a mercenary instead of going himself to
battle, but doesn’t pay the mercenary, the mercenary gets the guy’s house.
Rules and regulations regarding property, business
transactions, trade, etc. – including if a natural disaster hits the renters
don’t have to pay rent that year; and if a trader gets robbed on the road he
doesn’t have to pay the merchant for the stolen goods.
Fates can be determined by jumping in the water to see if
you drown or survive.
If the equivalent of a nun opens or even goes into a tavern
to drink, she gets burned to death.
Freeborn ‘values’ are higher –
e.g. 115. If any one have a claim for corn or money upon
another and imprison him; if the prisoner die in prison a natural death, the
case shall go no further.
116. If the prisoner die in prison from blows or
maltreatment, the master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the
judge. If he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to
death; if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all
that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit.
People worked their way out of debt, but the limit was three
years.
If you bad-talk a woman and can’t prove it you get your brow
marked (cutting and scarring your forehead).
If you rape another man’s wife you get dead.
Rules and regulations about marriage, including return of
dowry plus fields, gardens, and property for the wife in case of separation;
also inheritance equal to what the children get …
If a wife becomes sick with a disease the guy can’t divorce
her but keeps her with him and supports her for as long as she lives. He can,
however , take another wife in the meantime.
Debts incurred by each before marriage cannot be assigned to
the other once they’re married – they keep their own … but new ones are joint.
If married people have their mates murdered (so they can be
together) both of them are impaled – uffda.
Father/daughter Incest – exile. Son/mother incest – both
burned.
When a wife dies, her dowry goes to her sons. If there are
no sons it goes back to her father.
Women who have deeded property can do as they please with
it.
Rules and regulations about adoption and demanding back
adoptees, like artisans who teach the adoptee their craft can’t have the
adoptee demanded back from him, and if an adoptee who is the son of other than
the main wife runs away and goes back home he gets an eye put out, and if an
adoptee isn’t properly cared for he can go home.
If a son strikes his father his hand gets cut off.
If a man puts out the eye of another man, his eye gets put
out too.
Different penalties for free-born and slaves.
If a man strike a pregnant woman and she loses the child,
the man pays her for her loss; if the woman dies, the man’s daughter is put to
death.
Again, different penalties apply depending on status.
Rules and regulations relating
to physicians, barbers, veterinarians, builders, shipwrights, livestock rentals
…
And that’s just about enough of that for the time being.
Onward we go. Thankfully the Lipit-Ishtar thing (ruler of
Isin from about 1868 B.C. to 1857 B.C.) is short (fragmentary; apparently there was a lot more to it, which may one day be found):
1. If a man
entered the orchard of another man and was seized there for stealing, he shall
pay ten shekels of silver.
2. If a man cut
down a tree in the garden of another man, he shall pay one-half mina of silver.
3. If a man
married his wife and she bore him children and those children are living, and a
slave also bore children for her master but the father granted freedom to the
slave and her children, the children of the slave shall not divide the estate
with the children of their former master.
4. If a man's
wife has not borne him children but a harlot from the public square has borne
him children, he shall provide grain, oil and clothing for that harlot. The
children which the harlot has borne him shall be his heirs, and as long as his
wife lives the harlot shall not live in the house with the wife. *This is the earliest known codified
provision for child support.
5. If adjacent
to the house of a man the bare ground of another man has been neglected and the
owner of the house has said to the owner of the bare ground, "Because your
ground has been neglected someone may break into my house: strengthen your
house," and this agreement has been confirmed by him, the owner of the
bare ground shall restore to the owner of the house any of his property that is
lost.
6. If a man
rented an ox and damaged its eye, he shall pay one-half its price.
7. If a man
rented an ox and injured the flesh at the nose ring, he shall pay one-third of
its price.
8. If a man
rented an ox and broke its horn, he shall pay one-fourth its price.
9. If a man rented an ox and damaged its tail, he shall pay
one-fourth its price.
Then there’s Ur-Nammu (reigned 2047-2030
BCE)
1. If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.
2. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed.
3. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and
pay 15 shekels of silver.
4. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free,
he does not leave the household.
5. If a slave marries a native (i.e. free) person, he/she is
to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.
6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the
virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he
slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin
slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
9. If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay her
one mina of silver.
10. If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay
her half a mina of silver.
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having
been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.
13. If a man is accused of sorcery he must undergo ordeal by
water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels.
14. If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the
river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay
one-third of a mina of silver.
15. If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective
father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man,
the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of
bridal presents he had brought.
17. If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone
returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him.
18. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall
weigh out ½ a mina of silver.
19. If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay
ten shekels.
20. If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb
of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver.
21. If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper
knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver.
22. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay
two shekels of silver.
24. [...] If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10
shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that
belongs to him.
25. If a man’s slave-woman, comparing herself to her
mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of
salt.
28. If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a
perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver.
29. If a man appears as a witness, but withdraws his oath,
he must make payment, to the extent of the value in litigation of the case.
30. If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man
and he raises a complaint, this is however to be rejected, and this man will
lose his expenses.
31. If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall
measure out three kur of barley per iku of field.
32. If a man had let an arable field to a(nother) man for
cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall
measure out three kur of barley per iku of field.
So there you have it. I’ve got all this in another file with
the whole nine yards of Hammurabi, but that’s pretty much too long for me to
want to cope with at the moment.
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The Ten Commandments
- You shall have no other gods before Me.
- You shall not make idols.
- You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
- Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
- Honor your father and your mother.
- You shall not murder.
- You shall not commit adultery.
- You shall not steal.
- You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- You shall not covet.
The Ten Commandments showed up in about 1450 BCE ... three hundred years after the Hammurabi Code, four hundred or so after Lipit Ishtar, and about six hundred after Ur-Nammu.
There were probably any number of sets of laws hither, thither, and yon but these are the ones I happened to run across. The Old Testament has plenty of other 'laws' but the Ten Commandments are the ones I for one am most familiar with and seem to be deemed the most 'important' ...
What I was looking for were points in common.
Since the first four of the Ten Commandments refer to our relationship with God they can't be considered 'secular' whereas the other codes of law tend to leave out references to God except for the status of religious folk kind of setting them a bit apart ... maybe back then deity-reverence was so automatically taken for granted that no laws were needed to enforce it, who knows? My 'research' to date is pretty limited but specific requirements of the various religious cultures were apparently pretty clear-cut as to the who, what, when, where, why, and how - but those regulations seem to be apart (for the main) from their codes of law. Unless the 'missing pieces' dealt with those things, which we may or may not ever find out.
The final six of the Ten Commandments - honor your parents; don't murder, sleep with someone else's spouse, lie, steal, or covet - seem to be addressed in the three samples we've got here, to one degree or another, especially the most complete set we've got (that I know of at least), Hammurabi.
