Hammurabi's Code Analysis

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Hammurabi was the 6th king of Babylon. He ruled Babylon for 42 years. During those 42 years he made a set of 282 laws called The Code of Hammurabi. He first developed these laws first to institute taxes. You can see some of these laws can still be seen in today 's laws. These codes or laws were carved onto 49 columns. In my opinion they were very controversial and showed how he viewed women and his stance on many things. I think Hammurabi had multiple intentions for compiling these laws but the main one is that he did not have as much authority and control as he wanted over Babylonia and therefore he wanted to put fear into the eyes of the citizens. In today 's society usually depending on the crime you would get time in prison or a fine. …show more content…
Hammurabi said in his code that a woman 's place is in the home. They also got unfair treatment in the Hammurabi Code. It was always the woman 's fault if she was not able to bear children. Women would get drowned if they committed adultery but men would not get in trouble. It seems like woman are only as good as their dowry is in some instances. A man is not going to want to marry a woman with a little dowry. A woman could not divorce unless she had a great reason while on the other hand a man could divorce his wife but if he did not have a good reason then he would just have to give her dowry back. If they divorced the father would keep the children which is strange because in that time woman were good for caring for the kids. It seems like men were more important than women and even kids. If a father was hit then the hand that was used to strike him would get cut off. That is really extreme for just hitting your father but it shows that there is no such thing as equal sex. If there was then there would be a law saying something about if you strike your mother. Another example is debt. If a man was in debt then he could sell his wife and kids into slavery for a specific amount of time. That is not fair in my opinion. If you could not pay the debt that you caused then the punishment should be towards you not taken out on your family. That should not …show more content…
If the consequence was not death it was usually you did the same thing that someone did to you. For example if a man blinded the eye of another man that man shall blind his eye in return. Or if you ruined someone 's crops then you would repay them and give them some of your crops. I think the citizens mostly looked down on witchcraft. Just because it was going against the gods which were a huge part in their daily lives. I do not believe Hammurabi made these laws to create order throughout Mesopotamia but rather to put fear into the eyes of the citizens. If he wanted to create order then he would have aimed to create justice rather than have such severe consequences. I feel like during this time most people stayed to themselves because they were scared. Even the people that were the victims would have been scared to report anything because if they did not have good witnesses or proof then they had consequences. If Hammurabi aimed to create justice then he would not have put such strict laws for the

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