Essay On Hammurabi's Laws

In my essay I will expose how Hammurabi's laws directly resulted in a social structure based on its unequal gendered and socially statused laws most critically. These laws existed for thousands of years, and have been since dramatically both recreated and rejected completely. Regardless,of new laws Canada like many other countries today still struggles with equal and fair treatment based on social status and gender.There is a small but present residual mindset from Hammurabi laws that still somewhat exists even though few even know his name today in the twentieth century.
In the era of Hammurabi's law, an instance that exemplifies how how social status led way to the formation of social structure is law 210. Law 210 states that, “If a man has struck a gentleman’s daughter and caused her to drop what is in the womb, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for what was in her womb.” (“The ARTS 1000 Reader” 7) . However, in the case of a maid servant law 213 states that, “If he has struck a gentleman’s maidservant and caused her to drop what is in her womb, he shall pay two shekels of silver.” (“The ARTS 1000 Reader” 7). These two quotations reveal that a rich person's unborn baby's life is worth more than that of a maid servant in a direct sense. It exposes in a …show more content…
This is shown time and time again. An example, of how this is shown is based on the fact that women have far less freedom than men. A law that bluntly supports that women have far less freedom is law 110, “If a votary, a lady of god who is not living in the convent, has opened a wine shop or has entered a wine shop for drink, that woman shall be burned.” (“The ARTS 1000 Reader” 6) This law shows that the woman's freedom of will, is not only often taken away, but brutally, physically taken away.This gender inequality is apart of Hammurabi's social structure and its impacts are vast affecting women's everyday