Hammurabi Code In Today's Society

Alaina Meyer
History 1005
Assignment One

Hammurabi’s code was a set of laws developed in Sargon to keep order within the city. In the time period men were powerful and treated like superiors over women. Hammurabi’s code favored men, but gave rights to women which differed from many societies in this time. Women were treated with respect and did not have to fight for rights. Women were acknowledged as an important attributes to the city but men were still favored in the law. This had a lot to do with Ben Zhao, and the instruction manual she created for women. She created a way for women to act and a way for women to have respect, while also respecting their fathers, brothers, and the men in which they were in a relationship. Legal code of conduct and non-legal code of conduct were implemented in different ways. Some of those difference could have been how they were enforced. “Police” of that era most likely cracked down on those committing crimes against the code. Breaking law meant extreme consequences such as cutting off hands or hears, or even death. Legal actions were probably more encouraged by the community. The reputation of an individual at this time was very important,
so if someone’s neighbor saw them doing something positive it could have been more of a pat on the back rather than an extreme reward. The difference between legal and non-legal codes of conducts and how they were implemented could have been the same as the difference between death and positive thoughts from those around a person. When educating society, a teacher will often refer to history in order to bring up lessons. In history at this point in time, women were always treated as lesser than men. It is possible that in order to assure that the respect for women would become greater, the community used Hammurabi’s code to show how society was to view women, while still holding a high respect for men. Using the law as opposed to education also influenced the behavior of men and women by the possible threat of death or other extreme repercussions. This could have made this community more inclined to follow the law in order to avoid penalty. This also implied that a society was only in order when there were consequences to one’s actions. Using education and social norms could imply that a society learns the best lessons from its history. In history there were many mistakes made, and social norms had changed greatly so this community could have learned that the current way of doing things was better than before. Using lessons to educate instead of State rule and “scare tactics” could’ve given the society more of an understanding of why things were the way they were. Society today is greatly influenced by things like Hammurabi’s Code and Ben Zhao’s writing.
This is evident when looking at how people are punished for their crimes today. While the extremity of it all has decreased, the idea of crime and consequence has remained evident. A better understanding of the lives of men and women of Sargon and Mesopotamia can be understood when reading Hammurabi and Zhao’s instructions. Today, killing someone could result in a life in prison. In Hammurabi’s code that was automatic death. Things like feminism did not exist then because women were meant to honor the men in their life according to Zhao. While Sargon and Mesopotamia may have been violent and brutal (and quite frankly sexist), it was an effective way of controlling and governing a group of
people.