Was Hammurabi’s code just? Nearly 4,000 years ago, a man named Hammurabi became king of a city state called babylon. Hammurabi made a very important code in 18th century B.C.E. Hammurabi made 282 laws and he made these codes to protect the weak and poor from the strong. There are areas of law where Hammurabi’s code can be shown to be both, just and unjust. These are Family Law, Property Law, and Personal Injury Law. Each type of code is meant to bring justice to all the parts of society so that there would be fairness to the accused, fairness to the victim and fairness for society. Some of Hammurabi’s codes were fair and others were not fair. The first law is Family Law and it states that If a son has struck his father, his hands shall …show more content…
Examples of both just and unjust can be found in the area of Property Law. The first law is “If a man has broken through the wall( to rob) a house, they shall put him to death and pierce him, or hang him in the hole in the wall which he has made.” This law is fair, because the law is protecting the weak from the strong which Hammurabi was trying to do. This law is very harsh and it would prevent someone from theft if they were going to be put to death. The Second, is “If a man has borrowed money to plant his fields and a storm has flooded his field or carried away the crop,... in that year he does not have to pay his creditor.” This example shows that Hammurabi’s code was just because the a citizen should not be punished for things that are out of their control. This law does not say that the man does not need to repay the money, it just gives them time to recover from disaster. The last law in Property Law is “If a man has opened his trench for irrigation and the waters have flooded his neighbor 's field, than the man must restore the crop he has caused to be lost.” This example shows that Hammurabi’s code was unjust because This citizen cannot control the weather that made his irrigation trench flood into his neighbors