Hammurabi

’s Law Code Essay, Research Paper

Hammurabi was more than just a man. Hammurabi managed to organize the world’s first code of laws for all and establish Babylon as the dominant and successful city of its time. The people of his empire could learn these laws, and the whole civilization would be a better place. He sorted his laws into groups such as family, labor, personal property, real estate, trade, and business. The laws were not equal between social classes; for example, women had some legal rights, but these rights were not equal to men s. Married women had a right to divorce as well as men. Even though women had some privileges, the laws provide evidences that there was still inequality between them and men. I noticed that many crimes were punished by death penalty. In my opinion, for some crimes, death penalty would be fair yet death penalty was too harsh for some other crimes. Still, I think that most of the laws had near equal or equal punishments for the crimes. Even though the punishments were different than those of today, the authority of the government is similar. There were also laws similar to today; for example, a husband who wished to divorce his wife, was required to pay maintenance and child support. In addition, many people today consider these laws are too strict and harsh, but I do think they are reasonable.