Essay Sample: Code of Hammurabi

The code of Hammurabi showed that males, nobles, and wealthier individuals in Babylonian society had higher position in the social order. This law was extremely important because it was first law or set of rules that were used to keep their society in order. This code was written around 1754 BCE by the sixth king of Babylon. The code had around 282 laws and your punishment depended on your social class. There are three social class the amelu (elite), the mushkenu (freeman), and ardu (slaves). The amelu is the original elite person who has full civil rights, even though they have certain rights they do receive harsher punishments such as having to pay higher fines. The people who belong to this group was king and his court and officials. The mushkenu was a free man who does not own any land. The ardu was a slave and their master paid to basically take care of their basic needs and upkeeps. The slaves could eventually save enough earnings to eventually pay to have their own freedom. I personally believe this code allowed their community to seek their own justice versus having law and order. For instance, if a slave was mistreated or harm by their slave owner the owner of slave did not face any consequences, they only had to pay a fine. This code protected the elites but if you were a slave, they did not see you as a person, they tend to only look at the slaves as properties and not as people due to their social class. They created this code because they wanted to have full control and gain full authority over their people. I feel as though the code show that the Babylonian society was very progressive during their time. They took the time to not only come up with the laws but also took the time to write the law down and enforce them.  They truly were ahead of the time as far as trying to form so type of law and order even some of consequence did not match the crime. I personally did not like how slaves were being treated and the fact that the slave owners only had to pay a fee when they mistreated or harmed their slaves is very sickening. This code of laws showed that during this era they wanted to have full control and feel superior and make it seems as those these laws came from God to have full control of the common people.  The code showed that there was some type of law and order because one of the rules that truly stuck out to me was code 196. “If man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.” The purpose of the code of Hammurabi was to treat high class with such grace and people who were slaves’ lives didn’t mean anything & they were looked at as property if mistreated or abuse.

The hierarchy that I was able to discern was that punishment was governed depending on their social status. For example, if you were wealthy all you had to do was pay a fine if you committed a crime. Women had no rights had no rights and even had to follow their marriage contracts and divorce rights. So overall women were treated as slave as well because they couldn’t even live their life as they please because they were tied to their contracts. They couldn’t even divorce their husband if he didn’t agree with the thought of getting a divorce. This shows how much men had the most power during this era. The social hierarchy was not just about social class, but it was also aimed at gender roles. During this era the hierarchy started with elites and men and anybody after that right or life was not valued. I believe this era really shed light that it was not a colorism issue during this era but mostly a social class issue. So, if you were poor you was not treated with respect and women were property just as slave. They were forced into marriage and even if they were abused or mistreated if the man did not decide to end the marriage they could not move on with their life. If the wife was deemed as or looked at as a bad wife she could be sent away and could turn into become a slave for her current husband. If she attempted to leave her husband due to neglect or mistreatment if there was no proof than she could be punished as well. Her punishment might include her being drowned.

This code overall was productive during this era but women and people who were not considered elite did not have same rights and tend to not be treated fairly. Unfortunately, because I am women, I believe these codes were put in place to control the poor and women. I didn’t see any codes that stated if man was bad husband that they would get sent away so the codes pretty much catered to the elites and the men and was put in place to have full control for anybody who did not fit into that particular social class.