Marriage among the Babylonians
Marriage among the Babylonians was not considered valid except through a contract officially registered in their governmental departments, as is the case with the most advanced civilized nations today, and the rights of marriage were guaranteed to both parties: the woman and the man. The woman/wife must remain loyal to her husband for life, and the opposite is true for the man/husband.
Hence, the punishment for adultery was decisive and very shocking: slaughter by sword or drowning in water, especially after final confirmation of the crime of its occurrence.
One of the conditions for marriage in the time of Hammurabi was that the man provide the girl with money as a dowry to be agreed upon with her parents. The girl does not leave her family’s home to the marital home, except after her rights as a bride have been secured in her possession or in the possession of her relatives.. There is no difference. The dowry or “bride right” is always the woman’s right. Even if the girl does not marry, and remains in her father’s house as a spinster, some dowry will still await her, and this time from her father, who is necessarily responsible for preserving his daughter’s honor from the ordinary things of time, especially if she misses the marriage train, and the father’s dowry is usually “heavy.” “It qualifies the daughter to engage in commercial work, compete in the markets, conclude buying and selling deals, and earn lawful money, in a way that preserves her dignity and economic independence as a woman in the midst of an authoritarian male society.
Social custom at the time of Hammurabi’s rule established marriage once for both spouses, meaning that a man should have one legitimate wife. If a man marries his wife while she is alive and in good physical and psychological health, then he must bear the consequences of the complaints filed against him by his legitimate wife. And the law that favors it in all cases of complaints submitted. If a man tries to deceive his wife through evasion, maneuvering, and “legal fraud,” his fate will be imprisonment.
If a woman does not give birth, and it is medically proven that the reason is from her, not from her husband, then the husband has the right to abandon her according to the law. Likewise, a barren woman can marry, also under the law, a barren man or a natural man, provided that the latter expresses satisfaction with her condition and reality. However, these are rare cases in ancient Mesopotamian Babylonian society.
Thus, marriage was very organized among the Babylonians, and its institution was strong and steadfast, and entered into the core of the legal process related to personal status according to the Code of Hammurabi. The mutual rights and shared duties of the spouses in the Babylonian-Hammurabi period are somewhat similar to their legal and social counterparts in our contemporary world.
Source: websites