Hammurabi Impact

756 Words4 Pages
Crystal Diaz Professor Dore Ripley English 801 20 October, 2014 How the Code of Hammurabi Impacted Writing Writing controls the population and behavior because when laws were created, they needed to be written down. Writing also created opportunities by providing new jobs, new educational opportunities, and women’s rights. The code of Hammurabi included laws such as adultery, disobedience, divorce, false witness, incest, kidnapping, rape, and theft. Laws have been and will always be a tool for the government to control citizens. There really is more to law than just a bunch of rules made for society to follow. Writing plays a big role in law because it creates the opportunity for people to get jobs. Even in the ancient world, jobs such as lawyers, judges, scribes, and teachers. Judges and lawyers played a big role in law. Judges ultimately decide what…show more content…
For example, “If a man would put away his wife who has not borne him children, he shall give her money to the amount of her marriage settlement.” (Prince 604) The written official law in the Code of Hammurabi was going to ensure that if a woman and a man were to get divorced and their children were involved, then the man would give the woman money. Although women were starting to gain their rights, there were still some challenges they had to face. For example, in one of Hammurabi’s codes of law he states that if a husband suspects his wife is cheating, but doesn’t completely know, then the wife would have to throw herself into a river. This particular law is aimed at woman because the wife may or may not have done anything, but the husband only suspects she has committed adultery of some sort, and then she needs to throw herself into the river just to please her husband and his accusations. Although most women’s criminal punishments were different and more severe than a man’s, women were still finally beginning to gain some

More about Hammurabi Impact

Open Document