Have you ever thought about laws created more than 3,500 years ago by a man known as Hammurabi? Hammurabi was a king of a kingdom known as Babylonia. He ruled nearly 4000 years ago, and ruled 42 years. During his time, Hammurabi carved 282 laws on a stele, which became Hammurabi’s Code. Now we are faced with a question: Was Hammurabi’s Code fair to everyone? There are three are1as of law that show Hammurabi’s Code was just. These are Family Law (Doc C), Property Law(Doc D), and Personal Injury Law(Doc E).
Examples of justice can be found in the area of family law(Doc C). For example, if a man is determined to marry a second wife, but already has married a wife and a disease has seized her, he shall not divorce the wife whom the disease has seized, and she deserves his care. Secondly, if a father would like to disinherit his son, the father isn’t allowed to disinherit his son if his son has not done anything wrong. These examples show that
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For instance, if a surgeon has saved a man’s life, he receives 10 shekels of silver as a reward. Also, if a man has knocked out the eye of a free man, his eye shall be knocked out as a punishment. These examples clearly show that Hammurabi’s Code was just because it’s rewarding people for doing good things, and punishing people for doing bad things.
Although a few laws in Hammurabi’s Code may seem unjust because they are too extreme, but bad crimes, deserve a harsh punishment. Also, Hammurabi’s kingdom was always had a constant threat of being attacked, so there was no time for his own people to fight each other. Other people may say that not everyone was treated equally. However, in that society and time, free men were more important that slaves, and had more rights. The three examples shown above: family law, property law, and personal injury law, all clearly show that Hammurabi’s Code was just, and brought order and security to his