Why Is The Hammurabi Code Unfair

The Hammurabi code was a very questionable code of laws which most people (at least the sane ones) deem unfair. The reasons for why it’s unfair vastly outweigh the reasons for why it is fair. It’s unfair because rich men are treated better than everyone else, slavery was pretty bad, and the lower classes were treated awfully as well. There are many examples of these subjects which are pretty unfair in the eyes of the modern man, and also the people back then I'm sure. The first subject that will be mentioned is the relationship between men and women in this society. As stated previously, men were treated way better than everyone else including women. Firstly, husbands could divorce whenever they wanted to, but the wife could only divorce under certain circumstances; like if the husband randomly leaves for no reason. Another, more brutal, reason is the unfairness of affairs. So, I think everyone can agree than affairs are pretty dang …show more content…
So it’s pretty obvious that slaves were treated poorly, because they were slaves of course. So if a slave was to somehow escape, and a kind person hid them in their house for safety, they would both be killed if caught. I’m not sure why they’d want to find the slave just to kill him but whatever. A second example could be murder. If a freeman killed another freeman, the killer would be killed as well. However, if a freeman killed a slave, the killer would only have to pay the amount the slave costed to the slave owner. That obviously proves slaves weren't treated as equals (I mean they're slaves so what'd you expect). Now, there’s one more example that’s worth listing. So, if a doctor was to accidentally kill a freeman, he'd have his hands cut of. That’s already unfair since it was an accident, but brace yourself it gets worse. If a slave was to be accidentally killed, or even purposely, the slave would just be replaced. Now that’s what I call