Middle Assyrian Laws Essay

The Middle Assyrian Laws are an important aspect in understanding the social customs of the Assyrians. Many of the laws look at, extremely specific situations and specific groups. Women are one group that have very specific expectations on them as the laws shows. One of these societal standards is the understanding that women were undoubtedly linked to their production of children. In fact, the wording of these Assyrian laws puts more value on an unborn baby’s life than that of a woman as shown in Law 51. “If a man strikes another man’s wife who does not raise her child, causing her to abort her fetus, it is a punishable offense…” Here, law 51 shows that it is not the blow to the woman a man would be punished for but for causing her to miscarry, the continuation of the text never mentions the repayment for her being harmed, it is just payment for the lost fetus. The …show more content…
Her body is to be made an example of for the ‘crime’ she has committed. These laws give women as previously mentioned little value, they are treated primarily on the same level as animals as the property of men , as can be seen in the wording of certain laws specifically laws 55 and 56. Where women are always put in the care of the men in their life, be this husbands or fathers. These women are at the mercy of how men wish to treat them. While these laws demonstrate the little value placed on women, that they are property, and the taboo of abortion to the culture they also reveal a much broader picture of Assyrian society. They reveal that these were situations that Assyrians dealt with in their daily life, that these were issues that concerned them and that by codifying these offenses as punishable they as a society were trying to rectify the wrongs they saw within their