Chapter 11

(M320) Adultery was punished in the Code by drowning.(248) The Code in this and similar cases of sexual irregularity is explicit that the case must be flagrant. Suspicion was not enough.(249) But conduct leading to scandal had to be atoned for by submission to the ordeal. The Code did not take a higher ground than public opinion. The private contracts name death as punishment for adultery. Usually it is drowning, but being thrown from a high place, temple, tower, or pillar is named. In the later contracts death was still the penalty for a wife’s adultery, but the penalty had ceased to be drowning only. The adulteress might be put to the sword.(250)

A woman’s procuring her husband’s death, for love of another, was punished by impalement.(251)

(M321) Incest on the part of a man with his own daughter involved his banishment.(252) Incest with a daughter-in-law, if she was his son’s full wife, was apparently punished by his being drowned. The Code is obscure here and we are not sure whether she was drowned also.(253) If the girl was not yet fully married, the case was treated as one of ordinary seduction, and the culprit was fined half a mina.(254)

If a man committed incest with his own mother, both were burned.(255) If a man had intercourse with his foster-mother, or step-mother, who had borne children to his father, he was disinherited.(256)

IX. The Family Organization

(M322) Marriage is the bond which unites the different members of the family. The married pair, their children, slaves, and adjuncts, one side or the other, constitute the family unit. The Sumerian laws presuppose marriage; but, so far as known, merely attached penalties to repudiation of the wedded ties. The Code is very full and explicit and forms the basis of all our knowledge. The contemporary documents extend it in some particulars. In Assyrian times we know little or nothing about the laws concerning marriage. In later Babylonian times very little is known until the Persian period, when we have many illustrations. But what we know, or can gather from scattered hints, makes it clear that the state of things represented in the Code remained practically unchanged for the whole period.

(M323) The Code is explicit that a woman was not a wife without “bonds.”(257) This was a marriage-contract; of which the essentials were that the names of the parties and their lineage were given, the proper consents obtained and the declaration of the man that he has taken so-and-so to wife inserted. As a rule, stringent penalties are set down for a repudiation of the marriage-tie. In these bonds a man might be required to insert the clause that his wife was not to be held responsible for any debts he might have incurred before marriage. The Code enacts that such a clause shall be held to act both ways; if it is inserted, then the man shall not be liable for his wife’s debts before marriage.(258) But, if no such bond existed, the wedded pair were one body as far as liability for debt was concerned, by whichever it had been contracted and, in spite of such a bond, both were liable together for all debts contracted after marriage.

(M324) The family relationship was of primary importance. Whatever may be said about traces of matriarchy in Babylonia, we have no legal documents which recognize the institution. The father is the head of the family and possesses full power over his wife and family. But the woman is not in that degraded condition in which marriage by capture, or purchase, left her. She was a man’s inferior in some respects, but his helper and an honorable wife.

(M325) Not only was the family, which consisted of the wedded pair and their dependents, a unit, but there was also a connection with ancestors and posterity which enlarged the family to a clan or _gens_. In this sense it often appears. The family thus constituted had definite rights over its members. It was very important to a man to be sure of his family connection. We may note the importance attached at all epochs to a man’s genealogy as distinguishing his individuality. His family identified him. There was a very large number of well-marked and distinguished families, which took their names from a remote ancestor. So far as our evidence goes, these ancestors were by no means mythical, but actually lived in the time of the first dynasty of Babylon. To all appearances they date back “to the Conquest.” Unfortunately no attempt has yet been made to work out the family histories. But men of such families were the _mâr bânê_, or “sons of ancestors,” and had special privileges, which continually emerge into notice. We may compare the hundred families of China and the patricians of many nations. There were other families of scarcely less antiquity and consideration. They do not name their ancestor, but refer to him as a tradesman. They were sons of “the baker,” of “the measurer,” _et cetera_, with which we may compare our proper names Baker and Lemesurier. There was a court of ancestry, _bît mâr bânûti_, which investigated questions arising from claims to belong to such families and which doubtless preserved in its archives the genealogical lists of these exclusive families. They must have registered the birth of all fresh members and all adoptions; for men were adopted freely into such families.

(M326) It is not clear whether all members of a family which traced descent, real or putative, from a trade-father, actually carried on that trade. If so, we should have examples of a workmen’s guild. Certainly many men who carried on a trade were “sons” of the trade-father, but apparently not all. The Code notes the adoption of a child by an artisan who teaches him his trade. In certain cities the trades had their quarters. We read of the “city of the goldsmiths” in Nineveh.

(M327) It may well be that these guilds were close corporations at first and continued so to be in the less crowded trades, but rivals outside the guild also came to be tolerated. The slaves were artisans in great numbers and their increase may have led to the decay of the old artisan guilds of free workers.

(M328) The importance of descent was not a sentimental matter only. The laws of inheritance involved a careful distinction between proper heirs and a variety of claimants. Hence it seems likely that there was a registration of births, deaths, and marriages, at least covering the patrician families. We have such examples as a man claiming to be of same father as another, claiming brotherhood. The other repudiates the claim.(259) The tablet is too fragmentary for us to follow the arguments. The slave Bariki-ilu claimed to be a _mâr bânû_ and his claim was heard before the court of the _mâr bânê_.(260)

(M329) Further, as the wife’s marriage-portion, if she died childless, went back to the “house of her father,” and as a man who died without issue had to leave his property to his “father’s house,” and as many had only a life-interest in their property, while the family usually had a right of pre-emption in the case of proposed sales, we see that the family always had a strong hold over property. Not only was it for the man’s interest to be registered as of a certain family, but it was also for the family’s interest to register all its members.

(M330) There are suggestions that the family assumed certain responsibilities over the man; for in Assyria it appears that the family might come forward and liberate a man from his debt. A free man, who had been sold as a slave to Ashnunnak, and who escaped to Babylon, after five years, being claimed as a slave by the levy-masters there, chose to serve his father’s house. His brothers swore by Marduk and Ammiditana the king, making an irrevocable declaration that as long as he lived he should take up the duties of his father’s house with his brothers.(261) In the later Babylonian times, the head of the family, though only a distant relation, was called upon to act as judge in a dispute concerning the disposition of property.

X. Courtship And Marriage

(M331) The suitor came with presents to the parents of the girl. Most writers see in this a survival of the purchase of the bride. The name of this gift, _terḫatu_, is undoubtedly connected with the name of the bride, _marḫitu_. This present, or bride-price, differed greatly with the circumstances of the parties. Both money and slaves were given, but a simple sum of money was more common. In cases where the bride was rich or highly placed the amount seems less. A very usual amount was ten shekels, but we have examples from one shekel up to three minas.(262) The Code assessed it at one mina of silver for a patrician and a third of a mina for a plebeian.(263)

(M332) Without this bride-price the young man could not take a wife. Hence it was expressly secured to him by the Code, if his father died before he was of age to marry, and reserved as a first charge on the father’s estate. There is some evidence that a woman might make this present to her future husband. But that may have been because he was too poor to make it himself and she found him the means. As a rule, the parents gave this money to the bride. But we are not in a position to say whether they did so at once, on the consummation of the marriage, or on the birth of a child. The suggestion that it was her _Morgengabe_ remains without support. Certain it is that it was not returned always. In the contracts it seems to be given to the bridegroom with the bride. On a wife dying without children, the husband was bound to return her marriage-portion to her family. But if the bride-price which he had given for her had not been returned to him, he could deduct its value. On a divorce, he was bound to let his wife have not only her marriage-portion, but the bride-price paid back to him. If there had been none, he must give her a fixed sum instead of it.

(M333) From the phrase-books we may gather that there was a sort of ceremony about presenting the bride-price to the father: it was placed on a salver and brought in before the parents.(264) This was probably a part of the ceremony of betrothal.

If the father rejected the suitor, he was bound to return the bride-price offered.(265) A curious section of the Code enacts that if the suitor’s comrade intrigued to break off the match, he was excluded from marrying the girl himself.(266)

(M334) If, after he had brought in the bride-price to his prospective father-in-law, the suitor took a fancy to another girl, he might withdraw from the suit. But he then forfeited what he had offered. If this really was the result of having taken a dislike to a plain girl, we may suppose that such a maiden might accumulate several bride-prices and so acquire some wealth. This may explain Herodotus’s idea that the handsome girls made a dowry for the plain ones. But there is not a shred of evidence for their doing so in the way he suggests. A girl was a virgin when she was married.(267)

(M335) Of interest in the later Babylonian texts is the fact that the preliminaries of the marriage are more fully illustrated. Thus we read of the wedding of the daughter of Neriglissar:(268) Nabû-shum-ukîn, the _êrib bîti_ of Nabû, judge of Êzida, spoke to the King Neriglissar, saying thus: “Give to me Gigîtum, your young daughter, to wife.” The tablet has only preserved a few lines, from which we cannot be sure that the marriage took place. The tablet was called a duplicate of Êzida, showing that it was preserved in the Nabû temple at Borsippa.

The following case is one of the clearest:(269)

(M336)

Nabû-nâdin-aḫi, son of Bêl-aḫê-iddin, grandson of Ardi-Nêrgal, spoke thus to Shûm-ukîn, son of Mushallimu, saying: “Give me thy daughter, Ina-Esaggil-banat, the maiden, to wife, for Uballitsu-Gula, my son.” Shûm-ukîn listened to him and gave his maiden daughter, Ina-Esaggil-banat to Uballitsu-Gula, his son. He gave also one mina of silver, three female slaves named, and house furniture, with Ina-Esaggil-banat, his daughter, as a marriage-portion to Nabû-nâdin-aḫi. Nanâ-kishirat, the maid of Shûm-ukîn in lieu of two-thirds of a mina of silver, her full price, Shûm-ukîn gave to Nabû-nâdin-aḫi out of the one mina of silver for her marriage-portion. The deficiency, one-third of a mina of silver, Shûm-ukîn will give Nabû-nâdin-aḫi, and then her marriage-portion is paid. Each took a writing.

Here the father negotiates for his son. There is no evidence of any bride-price being paid. But the examples of this kind of document are too few for us to establish any fixed conclusions. In the following case something very like it appears.(270)

(M337)

Dâgil-ilâni, son of Zambubu, spoke thus to Ḥammâ, daughter of Nêrgal-iddin, son of Babûtu, saying: “Give me thy daughter, Latubashinni, she shall be my wife.” Ḥammâ listened to him and gave him her daughter, Latubashinni, to wife; and Dâgil-ilâni, in the joy of his heart, gave to Ḥammâ for Latubashinni, her daughter, Ana-eli-bêli-âmur, a maid, for half a mina of silver and a mina and a half of silver to boot. The day that Dâgil-ilâni shall take a second wife, Dâgil-ilâni shall give Latubashinni a mina of silver and she shall go back where she was before. With the cognisance of Shûm-iddin, son of Ina-êšhi-eter, son of Sin-damaku.

Here the man himself negotiates. The mother gives the bride. Whether he really buys her is hard to say. The mother may have adopted the girl to care for her old age, as was often done. The bridegroom may have compensated the mother with means to adopt another daughter. What _locus standi_ Shûm-iddin had is not clear. He may have been the real father of the bride and so had to be satisfied that she was fairly treated by the change in her position. Or his consent to the bridegroom’s alliance may have been needed. The penalty set down for divorce is not high and the bride was probably poor; we see she was portionless. In other cases it was as high as six minas of silver.(271) Occasionally the deed of marriage also named a penalty for adultery on the part of the wife.

(M338) Women were given in marriage. The suitor for her hand did not perhaps see her until marriage, but this is not likely, since he is contemplated by the Code as capable of having cast his eyes upon another, and so desiring to retreat from his suit. At any rate, he brought presents to her father, who accepted or rejected him. There is no hint that the woman had any choice. The result of this power over the child’s marriage was that conditions might be imposed on the marriage. The bride might be required to do service to an existing wife, or to the bridegroom’s mother. Further, the disposal of property was not entirely free after marriage. It depended upon what the father had laid down in the marriage-settlement on his daughter. It was strictly limited to the woman’s children, and if there were none it went back to her father’s house.

(M339) In early times, the father usually gives the bride. But in a great many cases this duty fell on the mother. How this came about we do not usually know. The father being dead, or the girl illegitimate, seem the best explanations, as a rule. In the absence of father and mother, the brother as head of the family assumed the duty. The examples of this are common enough.(272)

For later times also the examples are numerous of the power of agnates to give in marriage. It may perhaps be deduced that the children, in these cases, were young.(273)

(M340) Women once married, were free to marry again of their own choice, whether divorced, separated, or widowed. A betrothed girl, or bride, if her marriage were not yet consummated, being seduced by her father-in-law, in whose house she had gone to live, was also free to marry. But it does not seem that women who were yet virgins could choose their own husbands. Even princesses were given in marriage.

(M341) The man was not altogether free to marry. The Code contemplates a boy left by the death of his father too young to marry. The brothers, when they divided the father’s property, were bound to set aside for him, in addition to his share of his father’s property, a sum for a bride-price, and take him a wife. It seems probable that men married while still young and living at home. For the Code contemplates the bride being brought to live in her father-in-law’s house.(274)

In later Babylonian times, at any rate, the son could not marry without his father’s consent. This we learn from a suit in high life, in the time of Cyrus.(275) A high official of the king’s, A, brought a suit against B, who was “over the house,” before the nobles and the king’s judges. A accused B and C, an official of his house, of having given a tablet of marriage-contract of D, a sister of C’s, to A’s son without A’s consent. Put to the oath, B swore that he did not seal the tablet. Then D was questioned. Then C acknowledged that he had drawn up and sealed with B’s seal the marriage-contract of D to A’s son. The judges ordered D to return to her brother’s house. The tablet was to be broken whenever found. If afterward D should be seen with A’s son, she was to bear the sign of a concubine.

(M342) From other examples the conclusion is inevitable that if a woman desired to be a full and proper wife she had to obtain the consent of her bridegroom’s father. Thus we read:(276) “The day that the woman A is seen with B he shall bring her to the wedding-house. If she does not say to the master of the wedding-house: Send for C, the father of B, then she shall wear the sign of a concubine.” Her mother was present at the sealing of this agreement. From this we may deduce that weddings took place at a definite spot, called the “wedding-house.” The name was literally “house of the males,” or “of the named ones,” and also house of the _mâr bânê_, or “sons of ancestors.” It is clear that this was a registration court where all who had pretensions to ancestry, or were people of position, were enrolled. One whose name was found there was a man “with a name,” also a “son of an ancestor.” He was probably registered there at birth, marriage, and death. The master of that house was a registrar and evidently could marry people. It was expected in this case that the woman, if she wished to be properly married, would send for the bridegroom’s father, whose consent was necessary. Another name for the house was _bît pirṣatum_, the meaning of which is obscure. But as Ishtar was _bêlit parṣê_, the “lady of _the parṣê_,” we may connect it also with weddings.

(M343) We have seen that the _terḫatu_, or present made to the parents by the suitor before marriage, was usually handed over to the bride on her going to her husband’s house. There is frequent reference to this essential preliminary. It had to be carefully laid aside for the young man by his mother or brethren, if he had not married in his father’s lifetime, and was secured to him by law, apart from and above what might come to him as a share of his father’s property. Otherwise he would suffer loss in having to find it out of his own pocket, when his married brothers had been provided with the means during their father’s lifetime. Usually it was an amount of silver, one shekel up to three minas. In later Babylonian times there is little evidence of the parents receiving gifts. We now and then find it so. Thus a man gave a slave and a mina and a half of silver for his wife to her mother,(277) but it is not clear whether or not this was to buy her.

(M344) A far more valuable endowment of the bride was her marriage-portion. If her father was not alive to give it to her, the duty fell on his heirs, and she had a right to it over and above her daughter’s share of his property. Thus we find that the brothers, on giving their sister a share, contract to further endow her if she marries.(278)

(M345) We have one or two lists that show what might be expected as a trousseau by a Babylonian bride. One which illustrates the Code(279) extremely well, narrates first what had been given a notary and _NU-BAR_ of Marduk by her father on her taking her vow and entering the temple of Anunitum. This was his “grant” to her and was known by the same name as the marriage-portion of a bride. It included half a shekel of gold for a nose-ring (?), two shekels of silver as a finger-ring, another ring of silver of one shekel, one _malumsa_, three cloaks, three turbans, one small seal worth five minas, two jewels of unknown character, one bed, five chairs, five different sorts of things apparently made of reeds, the concubine Suratum, her step-mother. Unfortunately many of these renderings are still quite conjectural. It is interesting to note that the father left to his daughter his concubine, who was probably a slave, and possibly really the girl’s mother. But now this girl is about to marry and her own mother, Shubultum, at any rate, her father’s full wife, together with her brothers and sisters, give her all this property and cause it to enter her husband’s house. They had a reversionary right to her property, since as a votary she could not alienate it from her family.(280) So now they waive their right, as it will after her marriage pass to her children, if she has any.(281) So they are said to “give” her what her father had already “granted” her. Further, they return to her husband the _terḫatu_, of one-third of a mina of silver, which he had presented to them.(282) The marriage-portion could not be reclaimed by the wife’s family at her death if she had children. If she had none, it went back to her family.(283)

(M346) Another long list, also a “grant” to a votary, is found in two documents which contain apparently a complaint of oppression made to the king. Neither is sufficiently complete to be decisive as to the purpose of the letters or reports which are written in the first person. But they are duplicates as far as they preserve the list and in many other long phrases. Here is the list:

Four ... of gold, two rings ... each of them one ... two dishes, carved with _karakku_ birds, one dish carved as a lion, whose head is of _AB_ wood, and its border of _KU_ wood, one chair of _KU_ wood, three chairs (of different makes) of _AB_ wood, one oil-pot, _šalla_, one oil-pot containing two hundred _ḲA_ of Carchemish work, one mixing-pot of copper, one _dupru kanku_ containing thirty _ḲA_, two _kundulu_ of copper, one ... two ..., one for ...

Although this list is full of words of which the meaning is obscure as yet, one can see the main drift of it, jewelry, household furniture, pots and pans, and whatever went to the domestic equipment of the house. It is of interest to note that already Carchemish was celebrated for its wares.(284)

With these lists may be compared the Tell-el-Amarna lists given in transcription, with a few hints at translation, by Dr. Winckler.(285) They are lists of presents sent by a king of Egypt to a king of Babylon; by Dushratta, King of Mitanni, to Nimuria, King of Egypt, as the marriage-portion of his daughter, Taduḫipa, and another list of her dowry. The greater part of the names of these articles defy translation.