Document 2.2
The Law Code of Hammurabi
This document shows an interesting view of the problems in
an early society and how life was in the time of Mesopotamia. The Law Code
seems to focus on fairness in regards to individual’s actions. In the laws on
Crime, punishment, and justice, individuals that commit a crime or hurt someone
will have the same done to them. It would be interesting to see more research
on these laws to see if they worked or not. Knowing you will lose your eye if
you take someone’s eye or that you will be put to death if you rob someone is a
big deterrent to the crime. The consequences would probably prevent many
problems and crimes. It also seems like they were not very tolerant of false
accusations, charging accusers with death if they were wrong. It would be
interesting to see how and why they came up with letting the river decide if
the accuser was guilty or not. If the man who was accused could swim he could
beat the system even if he was guilty.
In regards to the Economy the laws are once again directed
to fairness and responsibility. The laws of Men and Women are strict. If a man
and women say they are married but do not have intercourse then the law says
they are not really married, and the laws against adultery result in death of
the man and the women is not held responsible. The rules on divorce are similar
to today’s society and it shows that not much has changed in that regard and
since they very early days men and women have left their husband or wife for a
new person.
Most of the laws are much more intense than our time and had
harsh consequence including death. I
think there is much to learn from these practices and it would be interesting
to see how these affected the crime rate of that time. Did people commit these
crimes often with knowledge of the conscience? If these laws where instilled in
today’s society we might see a lot less crime.
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