The purpose of The Code of Hammurabi is to punish the criminal in a manner that they committed the crime. # 229, if a builder has built a house and not made his work strong and the house he built has fallen and so has caused the death of the owner of the house, the builder shall be put to death. This code is very simple because it is seen as murder. By building a less than satisfactory house which caused it to fall down and kill the owners is considered murder because the carpenter did not make sure the house was built perfect. The Babylon society can also be looked at as it did not want any crime or anything bad to ever happen that is why The Code of Hammurabi is so harsh.
The Code of Hammurabi was meant to keep the citizens safe and this is shown in #14, if a man has stolen the son of a freeman, he shall be put to death. The Babylonian Society did not want to have to worry about the safety of their kids playing out in the streets at night. They did not want to ever worry about their child being stolen. If this code was in place in this day in age it would probably be saving many lives, and would be keeping a lot of families together. With the internet being such a focus in our society these days there are more and more kids being abducted from their homes and a lot of the time used on child pornography web sites. Obviously the Babylonians did not have to worry about web sites, but it shows that their law code was not too harsh because they had to worry about their kids being stolen for other reasons.
The only way people will obey the laws of the Land no matter where you live or what time period it is, is if you make the punishment equal or slightly worse than the crime that was committed. This is shown in # 21 of Hammurabi’s law code, if a man has broken into a house, he shall be killed before the breach and walled in it. The crime is breaking and entering which would only give you jail time these days, and that is why it happens so much. The Babylonians saw this as a major crime which it is and made the punishment fitting for the crime. If you are not strict about letting a complete stranger invade the privacy of your own home criminals will try to get away with even more.
If you think to yourself what the perfect society would be like, a few things may pop into your mind first may be no crime, a lot of love and also total happiness. Some believe love and happiness come in marriage. So when trying to make the perfect society you have to take into account the problems that come from marriages. Divorce, cheating on your spouse and abuse are a couple of problems that sometimes come from marriages. #129 in the Code of Hammurabi sets penalties for one of these problems which is cheating on your spouse, if a wife of a man has been caught lying with another man; they shall bind them and throw them into the waters. Do you think that anyone would ever even think about cheating on their spouse with a law like this? The answer I believe would be no and that is also the answer that the Babylonian society wanted. They want to have a happy society.
If you read into The Code of Hammurabi like this you understand that “an eye for an eye” type of law system is the only way to live and be safe and happy living in any environment. This is the number one reason why Hammurabi’s law code is so good by having such harsh penalties. Hammurabi’s law code provided happiness to the Babylonian society as freedom is supposed to provide happiness for us today. By setting The Code of Hammurabi the Babylon society was looking for the perfect society. The Code of Hammurabi shows that in early Babylonian society they thought the best punishment was an eye for an eye. An eye for an eye law code is by far the best because it allows the citizens to live a happy and fearless life.
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