Middle Assyrian Laws

Historical source page 22

An Assyrian Law Code 21 mana 81 of lead he must hand over; he receives 50 lashes and must perform one month's royal service. 21 If some man who is neither her father, brother nor son seizes a man's wife on the road, 82 he must swear an oath that he did not know that she was a man's wife, and hand over 2 talents of lead to the husband. (The continuation (Col. 3, 1-13) is mutilated. It set forth variant circumstances attending the assault, in which the woman shares the guilt. The river ordeal is provided — apparently for both — though they are not fettered (as in § 16) . From the closing lines which read: 'When the man returns from the river, he is given the same punishment by the husband as the latter imposed on his wife,' we may conclude that the guilty wife, as in other instances (e. g. above §§ 3, 15, etc.) was punished by her husband. It would also appear that surviving a river ordeal was not regarded as complete vindication, but only proved that the man merited a milder punishment than death. Similarly in § 23.) 22 If a man's wife takes another man's wife into her house for sexual intercourse 83 and the man (i. e., the one into whose house the woman was taken) knew that it was another man's wife (and) had intercourse with her as with another man's wife, and in the 81 A total of 9000 shekels. This law finds a complete parallel in § 209 of the Hammurabi Code, which reads: 'If a man strikes a man's daughter so that she has a miscarriage, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver'. In the case of a woman of lower rank, the fine is only 5 shekels and in the case of a slave 2 shekels. If the woman dies, the fine is 30 shekels in the case of a woman of lower rank, 20 shekels for a slave, while in the case of the free woman, the lex talionis is put in force and the man's daughter is put to death. If.we assume that the fine in lead is calculated according to the proportionate value between lead and silver, then 5400 shekels of lead = 10 shekels, would give us a proportion of 1 to 540. The fine however may have been con- siderably larger in Assyria. 8? The assumption is that any one who takes hold of a woman on the road and who is not closely related to her has designs upon her. 83 a-na ni-a-ki.