King Hammurabi Dbq

The great King Hammurabi was a powerful conquerer and ruler of Mesopotamia. He however, is recognized for being a legislator and governor influencing all the way to present day law. Establishing the first set of written law was a authoritative measure that enabled “fair” consequences for all leaving no questions about is legitimacy. Despite Hammurabi’s great success as a conqueror and king of the Mesopotamian empire he would be known as a reformer who would teach his people values, as well as being known for his discriminatory, unreasonably brutal and intolerant code of laws against women. In this patriarchal society, often times a women's marriage was a negotiable term between her father or even her brother to the man who was to marry her. A strong male dominance took obvious presence and under these circumstances husbands controlled their wife, leaving …show more content…
In this male dominated civilization. Men had the power and women had to comply. According to law 128, “If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.” A women was who had already been sold or traded into marriage was not considered a real wife unless sex had been given in exchange. The value of a marriage was not present and any man could decide to get rid of his wife if he was not received with sex when he desired. A conquerer, a leader and a legislator is the legacy left behind from the great King Hammurabi. Influencing many after him in law making, he still managed to sway into present day. Strategically, Hammurabi used writing as a weapon to ensure the establishment of proper behavior in his empire. Yet many of these Code of Laws were deceitful towards women. Nonetheless, women were restricted by these codes in an unfavorable way which derived from sexist views that led to discriminatory, unreasonable and intolerant laws against women compared to those of men or higher class