Code of Hammurabi - Source Analysis Assignment
Part A1
Women have, often throughout history been viewed as a minority group and the code of Hammurabi has further proven this idea to be concrete with its misogynistic views and treatment of women. Women seem to have been cast into the role of wife and mother and had a few if not any rights at all. The Code of Hammurabi were laws set for the people in Babylonia but most of these “laws” seem more like punishments, especially for the women.
Male dominance is a recurring theme in the code, for example; laws concerning every citizen uses the pronoun “he/his/him”, sons will automatically inherit property when the father was not around (codes 28 & 29). The laws enforce a sense of patriarchy which forces
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That’s unfair. “ If a man steals herding animals (sheep, ass..etc) and couldn’t pay the fine set for them, they would be put to death”. This is the 8th law which suggests that only the rich can afford to go scot free after committing a felony while the poor die.
Accused: law 218 states “if a physician operates with a knife on a man with serious injury and kills the man then his hands shall be cut off”, this is unfair because this physician didn’t have a motive to kill, he just wanted to help but instead he ends up handicapped. Law 129 states that a married woman who commits adultery would be tied and thrown into the water together with the man she was with, murder seems like an extreme punishment for adultery, divorce maybe but not murder. Law 195 is unjust because the consequence of striking your father father is getting decapitated, and again this is unjust because it could have possibly been an act of self-defense. Overall Hammurabi’s Code were inhumane because it had violent punishments for nonviolent crimes, and it treated the people of Babylonia differently because of their socioeconomic